Random Musing - War that We Constantly Fight Against

2 Cor 10:3-7

"For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete.

You are looking only on the surface of things. If anyone is confident that he belongs to Christ, he should consider again that we belong to Christ just as much as he."

We are constantly at war and fighting, not just at the spiritual front, but at the ideological front for God's truth to be revealed. Strangely, the battlefield doesn't just lie in the marketplace, where we pit our weapons against the ideology of the world, but the battlefield extends deeply into our own homeground - The Church.

In the passage Paul was putting up his defence of his ministry towards the Corinthians, in an effort of repealing off the "bullets" and "arrows" of the untruth spreaded by other immatured and incorrect Christians. Thus it would not be strange if almost 2000 years later, such phenomenon still exists in the church.

According to Paul, he described the kind of war that Christians would have to fight. Compare the weapons that Christians use VS weapons the world uses. Christians use biblical truth from the bible, which Paul described as having "divine power" to demolish "strongholds". The soundness and the wisdom of the bible, vindicated by historical outcomes have such power to tear down and vanish strongholds of unbalanced, unsound, unbiblical, untrue, legalistic and illogical worldview and convictions that had been so entrenched to be considered "strongholds".

As Christians, Paul mentioned that we would need to "demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself against the knowledge of God..."

What arguments have we heard recently from other Christians or church leaders that seemingly right but we felt strangely uncomfortable towards, or that we observe things been seemingly bad when such arguments are being lived out by others?

Have we considered clearly the full counsel of God's Word, instead of just consulting our shepherds? What do the other Christians from other churches say about the arguments? From the way Paul said, it was as if the pretension comes very stealthily, and often very hard to be "detected", since it is "clothed" with "camouflaged truth".

Have we spotted any arguments and every pretension later? Are we doing anything to demolish these arguments?

Paul also mentioned that"...and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ..." Not just 90% of the thoughts or ideals but 100%. Any unbalanced and erroraneous ideology and practice would have to be made known and submit under the authority of Christ.

What would be the impact to the lives of people we cherish in church if such arguments and every pretension are not addressed promptly? I like this quote from Martin Lurther King - "Our lives will end the day we become silent about things that matter."

Dear brothers and sisters, let us not be unaware of the constant battle of beliefs and ideology within our minds, but learn to discern those which are right and uphold these beliefs and ideology against erosion by others.