How Christians Attack

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.

2 Corinthians 10:4-5

These weapons find expression in the gospel of Jesus Christ. When the Apostle Paul came to Corinth, he found in it men and women who were in the grip of all the problems that we know today. What was his approach? He says, For I determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified (1Corinthians 2:2). That is what you need, that is the message that can help you.

In declaring that message, he was declaring the truth about life and about God. Jesus Christ and him crucified stands at the very heart of life; nothing can be understood properly apart from it. It is tremendously important for us to see that the Christian approach to these arguments, by which evil is entrenched in society, is not to try and destroy the arguments with counter-arguments. Paul says: I did not come to argue with you, or to discuss philosophy. I did not come to bandy about the wisdom of the world, or to argue with you on the basis of one viewpoint versus another or one human authority against another. I came to introduce a new element.

Here is where the Christian must see the uniqueness of his position. Each of us is capable of introducing a totally new element into any situation in which we find ourselves. There is a radical difference about the gospel; a unique element is introduced into life. Paul puts it in one phrase: it is the truth about the cross of Jesus Christ. The word of the cross is the power of God unto salvation (Romans 1:16). It was the word of the cross that did the trick in Corinth, and it is the only thing that will do the trick in our world today. On every hand you find leaders of thought who are sick and tired of the empty panaceas that men have been trying for centuries. They do not work.

How, then, does the gospel attack and destroy arguments? Paul says, We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. The gospel destroys arguments and pride. But it does this not by an overwhelming counterattack against these arguments, but by a process of undermining them. Instead of destroying the philosophy directly, the gospel captures the philosopher. It does this by addressing itself to the vacuums created in the heart of man by the very arguments with which he supports his false ideas. It is to these hidden hungers that the gospel speaks. It makes marvelous appeal, reaches behind the arguments, and addresses lives that are shallow, lacking the depth and richness that God alone can give. The biblical view of the relationship of man and God is expressed in one short phrase from the 47th Psalm, Deep calls to deep (Psalms 42:7). That is what man is to be in relationship to God: The deeps in man are to cry out to the deeps in God and find fulfillment and satisfaction. The lack of that is creating the restlessness and surging agony of life we see around us on every side today.

Father, thank you for the power of the gospel. May I become an intelligent purveyor of this mighty message, and see a mighty overturning of the hearts and lives of men and women. Amen.