Last week, during preparation for a Bible study I entitled, Truth Encounter: Praying With Power, I studied Ephesians 6 and then went onto 2 Corinthians 10. (I continued on to Matthew 18 and Colossians 2 but these passages are for a future reflection.) The main perspective that I came away with is that spiritual battle is not simply about protection. Nor is it only about individual protection.
The Christian life, individually and in community, includes ground-taking. Quite possibly, Christian living may be more about joining the advance of righteousness, justice and charity (the old world for ‘love’) than about keeping ourselves from being messed about by Satan and lies.
First thing to notice (in verse 4) is that the battle zone is not where we think. Just as Ephesians 6: 12 points out, the war is not against ‘flesh and blood’. Because of that, the weapons are not the usual domination tools – bigger, better, faster, smarter, richer. Therefore, let’s be careful of going to war against persons and trying to silence them with world techniques. Rather, pray and demolish strongholds of untruth with diamonds of truth in settings of golden charity.
I’ve often prayed the intent of verse 4 in an individual and corrective way. “Lord, take my lustful thoughts, my negative thoughts and make them obedient to you, Jesus.” Consider that the Apostle Paul is writing to a faith community, the First House Church Network of Corinth. It is far more than individualized. In this immediate case, his writing is corrective to their behavior. However, verse 6 leads me to believe in the ground-taking aspect.
What on earth does Paul mean that we (the apostolic team that Paul is leading) will be ready to punish disobedience once your (Corinthian Christ-followers) obedience is complete? Why punish if there is full obedience? I interpret this sentence to mean that obedience starts in the community of faith. Before Christians go condemning wickedness in our town, city and nation, we need to be living with integrity in the Lord. This is not only a call to search own hearts before judging others but there is an implied call to spiritual ground-taking.
In spiritual warfare, (remember, I’m not talking about worldly strategies of belittling and destroying people or people groups) we daily dress in the ‘armor of God’ (gospel of peace, righteousness, Bible understanding, truth, etc) insuring our obedience and then confronting our spheres of influence with righteousness, justice and charity. This begins with assertive prayer and declaring to Satan that ‘the gates of Hell will not prevail’ against the ground-taking efforts of Jesus Christ’s body, the church.
Have we been too cautious in spiritual ground-taking? Do we only see the tangible obstacles to spreading faith in Christ? Are we praying aggressively against Satan’s tactics?
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