By the meekness and gentleness of Christ, I appeal to you—I, Paul, who am “timid” when face to face with you, but “bold” when away! I beg you that when I come I may not have to be as bold as I expect to be toward some people who think that we live by the standards of this world. 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 do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves. When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise… Our hope is that, as your faith continues to grow, our area of activity among you will greatly expand, so that we can preach the gospel in the regions beyond you. For we do not want to boast about work already done in another man’s territory. But, “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.” For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends.
My Understanding: We all live in the world, yet we do not have to be of the world. Yet, the world and its influences are all around us, and it so easy to get caught up in the way the world thinks and behaves, if we do not guard our hearts against it. I believe this passage of scripture gives us some really good guidelines for how we can keep from getting trapped by the world and its way of doing things, and how we can fight against becoming like the world, without completely separating ourselves from the world or the people of the world.
Worldly Standards
Paul stated that some of his accusers thought that he and some of the other apostles lived by the standards of the world, so I gave prayerful thought to the worldly standards by which some of us might live today. Cheating and lying immediately came to mind. These are promoted so much through TV programs and movies, in particular, and even in voice mail messages. I learned recently that one of the options for voice mail is to have the message say that your phone number is no longer in service when you receive calls from phone numbers you wish to discourage. That is a lie. Lying seems to be an acceptable practice even among believers in Jesus Christ and is considered normal. Deception, lies and manipulation are even taught to clergy as a way of managing people within their congregations. The ways of the world have so infiltrated the church to where the church looks just like the world and it is difficult to distinguish a difference these days.
Worldly standards have definitely taken hold in the church since so much of the church has embraced the teachings of men and human philosophies for how to build and grow churches. Churches today are being run just like big business and so many of the pastors and church staffs of local congregations have adopted these worldly marketing schemes and business methods and practices for building churches. Yet, what they are really building is not the body of Christ, but businesses, i.e. corporations that fall under the authority of the U.S. government, not Christ. The true church might exist within these corporations, but the corporations themselves are not the true church. And, so many of the methods for church growth being adopted are these worldly methods Paul spoke against here.
Basically, adopting any sinful or worldly practices as a means to promote Christian faith and practice is counterproductive. We cannot live our lives by the standards of this world and try to preach Christ and his word, too. They cannot and should not coexist with each other.
Waging War
Paul said that even though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. In other words, we don’t have to lie, cheat, steal, commit sexual sin, covet, hate, gossip, envy, despise, misuse, deceive, cover-up, exclude people, run away, and/or escape life via drugs, alcohol, sex, TV or whatever means of escape we might choose to alleviate ourselves of the pain of life, etc. We don’t have to scheme and manipulate people to come to Christ. We don’t have to entertain people or use gimmickry in order to bring them to Christ. It is the convicting power of the Holy Spirit within men and women that leads them to faith in Jesus Christ. Our role is to simply present them with the truths of the whole gospel message, and the presentation does not even have to be all that smooth or articulate. We can stumble all over the words and people can still come to Jesus because it is not us doing it but the Spirit of God who convicts men’s and women’s hearts.
Paul said that the weapons he and the other apostles fought with were not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, the weapons they used had divine power to demolish strongholds. In other words, these worldly methods did not have the power to demolish (defeat; annihilate; devour) strongholds (sinful iron grips; fortresses; fortified places). And, then he went on to describe these strongholds as anything that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, including human reasoning and arguments and pretensions, though this is not an exhaustive list by any means. Anything sinful that has a grip in our lives to where we depend upon that sin, sinful practice or worldly method in place of dependency upon God and his word can be classified as strongholds in our lives, such as was listed in the previous paragraph. Not only do worldly methods not demolish strongholds, but they promote them as the norm, even for the church, and/or they pacify them, i.e. they put Band-Aids over people’s sin wounds as though the wounds are not serious, saying “peace, peace, when there is no peace.”
Captive Thoughts
Paul said that he and the other apostles, in demolishing those pretensions and arguments that set themselves up against Christ, took every thought and made it obedient to Christ. I had always thought of this taking captive of thought as making my own thoughts obedient to Christ, which I believe is an accurate interpretation of this passage, yet this time reading it I saw that Paul was also speaking of the thinking and reasoning of others presented to him and to the other apostles. They took those thoughts, too, and made them obedient to Christ. How did they do that? I believe that any thought that enters into our own minds and any thinking or reasoning of men presented to us should be examined against the word of God, against God’s divine nature and character, and should be examined against what we know to be true (fact), as Satan is the great deceiver and the father of lies. We must also pray for much wisdom and discernment of spirits to know what is true and what is false. Lies are often weaved so subtly into what is true that it takes much spiritual discernment to distinguish the lies from the truth, so this calls for much prayer and much wisdom.
Classifying and Comparing
Paul spoke here against comparing and classifying ourselves and others based upon human reasoning and classifications and evaluating ourselves and others based upon human intellect and human standards. God does not evaluate or choose men and women based upon human standards and wisdom. Jesus Christ, himself, would not be approved and accepted in most of our congregations today based upon the kinds of standards set by many men and women in today’s local congregations. The prophets, John the Baptist, Jesus and the apostles would probably all be ostracized, rejected and perhaps even kicked to the curb if they tried to enter one of our churches and they tried to do and say the things they did and said during the times the Bible was being written. They would be too radical and offensive, which would be counterproductive to today’s methods of trying to appeal to the flesh of man as a means of getting people into “church.” Their methods would not be considered very “seeker-friendly,” and their personalities would be thought to be offensive, as well.
Paul told the people that they were looking only on the surface of things. We have to guard our hearts against evaluating others by human standards and by surface evaluation. We cannot judge a book by its cover (its outward appearance). Just because someone outwardly seems appealing does not mean that person has a genuine relationship with Jesus Christ or that he or she possesses godly qualities. In the same respect, just because someone’s physical appearance or personality or even spiritual giftedness might not be very appealing to us in our flesh, it does not mean that this person is to be rejected and cast aside. This is what Paul was facing, and times really have not changed all that much. We need to be so careful to guard against classifying and comparing ourselves and others based upon human standards of judging ourselves and others. “For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends.”
Rescue Me
The Lord gave me the song, “Jesus, Rescue Me,” this morning. Paul asked the question in Romans 7, “Who will rescue me from this body of death?” And, then he answered the question with a thanks to God that through Jesus Christ, our Lord, we have been rescued from this body of sin and death so that we no longer have to live according to the pattern of this world and according to sinful practices, but we can walk in the Spirit of God and we can live according to the Spirit and can have our minds set on what the Spirit desires. We don’t have to live by worldly standards. We don’t have to wage war as the world does and we don’t have to use the weapons of this world in dealing with life’s situations. We can take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ. We can demolish strongholds in our lives that set themselves up against the knowledge of God in our hearts. And, we don’t have to live by the standards of this world in comparing or classifying ourselves or others against worldly standards and wisdom. Yet, we cannot do all of this in our flesh.
The way we can conquer the tendency toward worldly methods and standards from infiltrating our lives is through choosing to put off what we already know is wrong, and by refusing to entertain the things of this world in our minds via TV, movies, music, games, friendships, activities, etc. Then, we must fill our minds with the things of God and we must fill our lives with godly and good and pleasing to God activities, music, relationships, etc. We must study and live out the word of God in our lives on a daily basis, i.e. we must be doers of the word and not hearers only. We must be people of prayer and we must be willing to obey the Lord in all things. We must pray for much wisdom and discernment to distinguish good from evil and lies from truth. And, we must be willing to be tagged as different, odd, non-conformists, or whatever classifications the world may tag us with and we must be willing to stand out in this world for Jesus Christ and to be lights for the gospel of Jesus Christ to a world in need of a Savior. This is my prayer:
Jesus, Rescue Me / An Original Work / September 18, 2011
Based off of Romans 7:7-8:39
Jesus, rescue me today.
Listen while I bow and pray.
I need Your help to obey You;
Live for You always.
Meet me in my hour of need, Lord,
As I pray to You.
Help me walk in fellowship, Lord,
Living in Your truth.
Jesus, how I long for You to
Change my heart anew.
Father, God, my heart’s desire
Is to live for You this hour
In Your Holy Spirit’s power
Living in me now.
Teach me to walk in Your love, Lord,
Guiding me each day.
Help me to show love and kindness
To the lost, I pray.
Father, teach me to love others
As You love always.
Holy Spirit come in pow’r.
Revive our hearts in this hour.
Change our hearts to be like You, Lord;
Live for You each day.
Help us to forsake our sins, Lord,
As we humbly pray.
Teach us how to live for You, Lord,
Obey You always.
Holy Spirit come in power,
Revive us today.
Song Lyrics @ Public Domain
Audio, song lyrics and sheet music:
https://sites.google.com/site/psalmshymnssongs2/home/songs/jesus-rescue-me
Song on video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSILqpD-WJA
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