Take Captive every Thought

Lesson for Sunday, March 3.

Should there be a difference between the way a Godly person thinks and the way a worldly person thinks? If there should be a difference, what is that difference? Let me first start with a short answer to this question, then I will spend several weeks on different facets of the answer.

So the short answer is YES, there should be a difference between the way a Godly person thinks and the way a worldly person thinks, and the difference is founded in the way thinking patterns, assumptions and habits are established. So there is the short answer.

Before I get on with the long answer over the next few weeks, I need to tell you that the problem with even talking about this is that most Christians do not even know that they don’t THINK like a Christian. Maybe you have heard the phrase, “If you want to know what water is like, don’t ask a FISH.” We are so swamped by the world’s system and messages and standards that we don’t even recognize what it is. So today I want to start by talking about patterns of thinking within the Christian. What does the Bible tell us about how to think? When we learn to think Biblically and “Christianly,” we realize that the standards of this world are not Godly at all.

If you want to completely avoid the influence of the world, I would suggest you go climb into a nice deep Ozark cave and never come out. You cannot go anywhere, do anything, or listen to anyone talk without getting a truckload of human wisdom. It is on the TV, the radio, the computer, the newspapers, the celebrated people and events of our culture, the schools, the government, the family, and yes, even the church.

The main text I want to look at is 2 Cor. 10:1-6. This paragraph introduces Paul’s harshest words for the Corinthian church. A church that has forgotten it’s standard. Let’s read these verses:

1By 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! 2I 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. 3For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5We 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. 6And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete.

Another slightly different version (my paraphrase, actually!)

3Although we are wandering around in weak physical frames, we don’t fight battles as soldiers do in a weak, physical sense: 4For the tools we use to fight in our service as soldiers are not weak and human but God powered. They bring complete destruction of fortified strongholds, like 5human patterns of thinking. These weapons completely destroy all high and lofty barriers that rise up in opposition to what we know about God. They also capture every human scheme or motivation and bring them to the submission of Christ; and these tools are ready to avenge all disobedience when your submission is complete.

All this talk about weapons and strongholds and demolishing things is a bit overwhelming. We don’t really like the idea of a fight – oh it might be nice to read about or watch a movie about, but we don’t really like the notion that we might have to be in the battle. But when it comes to the influence of the foolish standards of the world, please remember this: If you don’t fight, you lose.

I believe you can fight off the influence of worldly standards by committing yourself to follow some examples that Paul gives us here. I looked at what Paul says “we” do in verses 3 – 6. When Paul says “we” he is referring to himself and those who agree that what Paul preached about Jesus was accurate. The examples he set for the Corinthians and for us to follow were grounded in his ability to “think like a Christian.”. Let’s look at these examples and see how they can apply to our lives to help us overcome the influence of the world’s standards.

Paul’s first example is “we LIVE” (vs. 3)

Verse 3 says “though we live in the world we do not wage war as the world does.” Maybe it seems to be a no brainer that “we live,” but there is more to it than those two words. The idea is, although we cannot LEAVE the world’s influences, we should not LOVE them.

1 John 2:15-17 says

15Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. 17The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.

The best way I can illustrate this is telling you about a sermon I saw at Maranatha Bible Camp a few years ago. The speaker, my friend Mark Landis was demonstrating this very point, and he had a young volunteer named David Repuyan come forward and sit inside a little kid’s plastic swimming pool. He was a “cheerio” in a huge cereal bowl Mark said, as he poured boxes of cheerios and gallons of ice cold milk all over him.

The point was that David was “in” the milk, but not “of” the milk. Then he squeezed several bottles of chocolate syrup all over David and stirred up the syrup and milk in this giant cereal bowl. He explained that though David was “in” the milk but not “of” the milk, the chocolate was all mixed up with the milk and had become inseparable from it. The chocolate was “in” the milk and it was “of” the milk.

David was a good sport about the cereal bowl illustration, but he sure was messy and sticky (and cold) while in that giant cereal bowl. That is how the influences are in this world; they are all around us, coating us with temptations and fleshly influences. Paul’s example to them is to not be “of’ the world. Jesus did the same thing – he loved sinners like tax collectors and prostitutes, but he didn’t love their sin – he didn’t follow their patterns of thinking and behavior.

Sometimes I feel like we’re lost in this huge sticky, awful mess we call culture, and there is no way out. But there is a way - check this out:

Paul’s next example is – We FIGHT! (Vs 3-4)

In the next verses Paul says:

3For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.

Art Chen was a fighter pilot for the Chinese in the 1930s when Japan was determined to conquer China. During one battle Chen “took on three Japanese fighters and shot down one before running out of ammunition. He deliberately rammed the second Japanese plane, then bailed out. He landed close to the wreckage of his plane and salvaged one of the machine guns, which he carried eight miles back to the airfield. Presenting the heavy gun to his commanding officer, Chen allegedly asked, ‘Sir, can I have another airplane for my machine gun?’ “

How would our world be different if Christians (that’s who Paul was talking to in this passage) had the same dedication to Christ as that soldier had for his country’s cause? He saw the value of his weapon in the war and went to find another airplane so he could use it. Paul’s example here isn’t just to go out and hack away at evil with any old thing he could find. In fact Paul tells us that God has provided spiritual weapons, which literally means tools of war, that have divine power – the same power that rose Jesus from the dead to gain ultimate victory.

Having the upper hand in any kind of fight is generally attributed to having superior weapons. The example of WW II. God doesn’t need human weapons to win a fight. Think about how Jesus was victorious over sin and death. He “nuked” the devil with sacrifice and love and obedience. Those are not the world’s weapons.

Think about the weapons that we read about in the Bible. The spirit of the Lord came upon Samson in power and the jawbone of a donkey became a weapon that killed a thousand. God empowered David and a smooth stone fired from a sling killed a giant.

Paul doesn’t tell us what these weapons are specifically, but we know at least a few! Ephesians 6 tells that the God’s Word is the “sword of the spirit.” Earlier in this letter in chapter six Paul talks about having “weapons of righteousness in the right hand and left.” What are the most powerful weapons God has ever used? How about three old nails and a wooden cross? We don’t fight human influences with human weapons!

The idea is that whatever or whoever God empowers with His spirit will be a tool to accomplish his purpose – a spiritual weapon fighting spiritual battles. We fight worldliness by practicing God’s standard of righteousness, and by using God’s wisdom to destroy human standards in our own lives. They are Satan’s strongholds.

Paul’s next example is that we demolish strongholds.

The second part of verse 4 reads:

On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God,

Have you seen the video of highway engineers in Washington a while back who decided to remove a dead, beached whale by blowing it up? They wired it with dynamite, pushed the button, and boom, people ¼ mile away were covered with whale blubber, and even a car was crushed by a massive flying whale filet. But they failed in removing it. It was mostly still one giant carcass rotting on the beach.

The word Paul uses here that is translated “demolish” means literally to completely obliterate using force – so that it is totally, 100% gone and extinct. If the highway engineers had “demolished” the whale as Paul is using the word, no whale chunks would have been laying on the beach. He tells us that our spiritual weapons have divine power – they are plugged in and powered by God to completely destroy strongholds – places where the enemy is very well fortified. What are these strongholds? In verse 5 see two – arguments and every pretension.

“Arguments” carries the idea of human reason or human PHILOSOPHY. “Philosophy” is a word that means the love or pursuit of wisdom. At its source – it says that people create truth. It says that people generate wisdom by themselves by thinking about it long enough.

The second stronghold, which the NIV translates “every pretension” is man’s barrier of PRIDE. The King James version calls it every “high thing.” Those words could be translated “every high and lofty barrier” that rises up against God. It is man’s thinking that we don’t NEED God. This is the fuel for the idea of “molecules to man” evolution.

But humanistic philosophies did not spring up in our modern world with Charley Darwin. The Greek culture was steeped in the humanistic ideas of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, among others. These Christians in Corinth were allowing the worldly system of thinking – these humanistic thinking patterns - to take the place of the simple truth of the gospel.

In 1 Corinthians 2:4-5 Paul told them
2:4My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.

Prideful, God-denying humanistic thinking patterns are truly fortified strongholds of God’s enemy, Satan. These strongholds must be demolished because God doesn’t have any use for any kind of humanistic thinking patterns in our lives. James 3 says that human “wisdom” is “earthly, unspiritual, of the devil.” That is not to say that we are not supposed to use our minds and think – some people think that to be a Christian, you have to stop thinking, but that is wrong.

To be a Christian we need to stop thinking like the WORLD and start thinking like CHRIST wants us to. (Romans 12:2 Do not conform…) We are to use our minds but our minds are to be submitted to Christ.

Paul gives us another example – perhaps the most challenging one - we take CAPTIVE every THOUGHT

10:5b and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

Have you ever tried to capture something over and over and just couldn’t? I used to have a dog that would endlessly try to catch flies but never did. We could tell when he was doing it just by listening to his teeth chomping together. It seems sometimes that our thoughts are like that – buzzing around our heads and impossible to capture and sort out. The word that Paul uses here for “thought” suggests the intentions of our heart – our motivations.

How long do you think this communion table is? Tell someone next to you how long you think it is. Right now I could ask who thinks they have the correct answer, and many hands would raise. How many different answers would we have? As many people as we have here in the room, unless some of you happened to guess the same number. How could we come to a consensus and get an accurate measurement? By having a standard that is objective and accurate.

That is the essence of taking every thought captive and making it obedient to Christ. This is the BASEBALL CATCHER analogy.

This is a three part process:

1. CATCH it
2. SUBMIT it for judgment
3. ACT on it accordingly.

Christ is the standard that he keeps calling them back to! Paul’s example was to compare his motivations, his thoughts, the deepest part of him to Christ, and obey. Imagine Jesus, knowing what was coming, in the garden of Gethsemane praying – taking captive his thoughts and motivations and saying to the Father, “not as I will, but as you will.