Footsteps #196

2Cor.10 continued.

Research indicates that the success rate of treatment facilities for all kinds of addictions is minimal, but when treatment is anointed with the godly weapons of truth, love, faith, and prayer, the success rate goes way up. When Paul speaks of “arguments” (10:5), he is probably thinking about the rationalizations that people use to defend their false views. And his mention of “proud obstacles” indicates the pretensions they raise to the knowledge of God. You don’t have to read much literature from the abortion lobby or the gay agenda or the evolution cartel to understand how twisted and deceptive many of these arguments are. They defend themselves with the language of choice and love and freedom, and they attack with the language of coercion and bigotry and pre-scientific superstition. If you try to debate with them using their presuppositions and their language, you will get nowhere. But the godly weapons of truth, love, faith, and prayer can demolish those arguments.  

Godly weapons allow us to take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ (v5). We will never win the battle against sin as long as we allow ourselves to drain our emotional energies into a secret thought life – daydreams, fantasies, lust, etc. We must bring these things captive to Christ and no longer permit them to engage our minds and hearts. Paul is recognizing here that people will never change their behaviour patterns until they change the way they think. The best way to get the air out of a bottle is to fill it with water. To get the darkness out of a room turn on the light, the only way to get sin out of your life is to fill it with Jesus!  

The greatest mistake we can make in this spiritual battle is to look only on the surface of things. (read v7) Paul accuses the Corinthian church with a very serious charge here: If there is one statement that describes how most of us live, it is found in this verse. We are physical beings in a physical world, and we tend to evaluate everything on that basis, even spiritual things.