Heaven's Warfare
Do you remember the poem that starts with "I'd rather see a sermon than hear one any day"? It was another one of those attacks on doctrine that said, "What really counts is what you do and not what you think." Like so many other reactions it's a miserable half-truth. Take that fellow Paul who worked so hard and so consistently that he was able to say without bragging (as if he was simply stating the facts), "I worked harder than them all" (1 Corinthians 15:10). He saw his life for God as a non-stop war and what is it he fought against without giving an inch? Well, listen to him for yourself (2 Corinthians 10:3-5), "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."
What do you make of that? What does he war against with divine weapons? "Arguments...every pretension...against the knowledge of God...every thought..." There it is, arguments, thoughts and anything that interferes with the knowledge of God. If you had asked Paul if he was opposed to evil deeds he would have glared at you--of course! What a silly question. But he believed what he learned from his Master: truth frees and error enslaves. To say it doesn't matter what one believes is nonsense for when people act, they act on what they believe. The gifts God gave to the world when Jesus ascended on high leading captivity captive included ministers of the word who saw to it that the believers were stabilised by truth. By God's grace they saw to it that the church was carried about by every wind and wave of doctrine, of error. God is diametrically opposed to error and every false argument. To reduce life under God to nothing but correct views is more nonsense but life is shaped by the size and nature of the truths we pay homage to. And because that's true not only would Paul not apologise for his ceaseless pursuit of truth he sees a central part of his warfare as tearing down false arguments and destructive errors. We would do well to remember that it was in the middle of a doctrinal discussion about the resurrection of the dead that he gave this warning (1 Corinthians 15:33), "Do not be misled: Bad company corrupts good character." False teachers, false views corrupt the mind and consequently corrupt the conduct.
It becomes those who profess to be called to minister God's word to spend prayerful time and energy listening to that word and to set themselves to rescue sinners by tearing down forts of error.
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.