“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled” (2 Corinthians 10:3-6).
I have been thinking of this verse a lot lately. I live in Vancouver, Washington just across the river from Portland, Oregon. I was born in Oregon and remained a resident for most of my life, so the events happening in Portland and the rest of Oregon weigh on my heart and mind. My heart goes out to every city and state experiencing riots and destruction.
This is why this verse has been much on my mind. I went to downtown Portland with Chris Overstreet and Compassion to Action. You can read the testimonies on their website, I won’t go into all those details here except to say we as a group represented many races and denominations, but we only promoted Jesus to the people we met. My friend and I were asked many times what church we went to as we prayed with people and offered them comfort and hope in these trying times. Our answer was always, “We’re with a group of people from several different churches, but we attend . . ..” So many great experiences were had that day sharing the love of Jesus with the broken-hearted as well as the angry.
We went to the federal building that had been under attack for days. We saw the graffiti on the boarded-up windows of the downtown shops. We met anarchists, satan worshipers, photographers, state police, Antifa, self-proclaimed security, mentally ill, homeless, straight, gay, and multiple races of people. I was thrilled to go where I knew Jesus would go to do what Jesus would do. As I think back on this experience and as I see the videos and read the news reports of events taking place in Portland and all over the country, I keep thinking (or hearing) “this is why it is so important to take every thought captive.”
No one participating in riots woke up one day, got dressed, picked up some bricks, fireworks, and paint cans, and thought I’m going to go destroy the city that supports my livelihood today. No one got up and said, I’m going to get on a bus to a city I am not from so I can throw bricks at peace officers today. No one woke up and said, I want to do violent harm to people, buildings, historic and/or iconic statues, and cause mayhem today. No one.
None of us steps into doing this kind of damage without first spending time allowing those thoughts to ruminate. We don’t go down a path of destructive behaviors without first entertaining those thoughts in our minds. When we ruminate on a wrong or a perceived wrong is done to us. When we fantasize about how we might go about getting even or the harmful words we could say because we believe they will vindicate us and/or make us feel better.
This is for someone reading this: no one chooses divorce on a whim. They first allow the word to come into their reality, they begin to imagine (fantasize) about it, maybe even counsel with people who have divorced. If this thought were taken captive to the obedience of Christ, one would remember, that God hates divorce even though He allowed it. They would realize that if God hates divorce, then they can count on the fact that He will fight for their marriage. I will tell you that divorce even for a good reason is a difficult thing to go through and it takes years to recover before you will be ready for a new marriage relationship. The last time I checked the experts in the field said five years. Of course, the disclaimer here is if you are in a dangerous position get yourself to safety.
Back to my main thought and the point I see in this scripture, “[bring] every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled” (2 Corinthians 5-6). This is key for today’s conversation. We must begin by bringing every thought captive. This means we don’t accept every thought that comes into our minds. We don’t let thoughts spin us into action without first measuring them up against the Word of God and the character of Jesus. We also analyze these thoughts to see what our underlying issues might be.
If we are thinking about saying something to justify ourselves or worse, we consider violent actions towards another person or buildings, or groups of people be they black, police, alternative, or just irritating in general, we need to find out the why. We need to find out if our hearts are right before God first. We need to take a look at our own bitterness, our own need to forgive and our need to be forgiven. God has laid it all out in scripture on how to manage relationships. Much of the time it requires forgiveness of self and others. Often it requires laying down our offenses. I don’t know about you, but when I am offended it says much more about me and my need to grow than the other person’s behavior. Remember the mark of a mature Christian is in their ability to love as Jesus loves us – sacrificially and with a motive to bring restoration to the other party.
I have always been confused by this part of the verse “ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled” (v6). Today, I understand and it is brilliant. The root of the word for ‘punish’ means to carry out justice. Well, isn’t that what these rioters are all about? Are they not looking for justice? How can this be our answer? Easy, we look at the previous verses; the part about how to conduct our warfare.
We begin by bringing every thought captive. Our nature draws toward self-preservation and getting what is ours, keeping things fair according to our perspective. However, we are called to a higher standard and we are seated in a higher realm of authority (Ephesians 1:20-2:6). We war from a heavenly position full of power and grace. By bringing our thoughts captive we bring ourselves to submission and surrender to Jesus. When we wield our weapons of warfare from our heavenly positions in Christ, we also break down strongholds, powers, and principalities. (Ephesians 6:12). We first must fight the spiritual battle in our minds before we can effectively use our weapons of warfare on behalf of others. We don’t use our weapons against others, but for them.
When we conduct our warfare with the intent of bringing God’s justice, our attitude changes from getting ours to getting what is best for all concerned. Again, we must move from flesh to spirit; we must move from natural to supernatural. We must understand the rest of the verse in the same context the original hearers would have understood it.
Disobedience is what is being punished here. While disobedience is pretty straight forward, to disobey; at its root is a whole new understanding. At the root of disobedience is to “mishear . . . or neglect to hear” (Strong’s, esword.com). “When obedience if fulfilled” Here obedience is defined on the surface as “attentive hearkening” (Strong’s, e-sword). The difference between obedience and disobedience begins with the hearing. What are you filling your ears with? Are you listening to the news all day? Are you ruminating on those things you’ve heard through social media, news media, or pontificators?
What do you think these rioters have been filling their ears with? They believe they have a right to do what they are doing. They believe they are fighting for justice by tearing down statues, burning buildings, destroying property, businesses, and the lives of others. Will you join their fight? Will you fight against them in the manner in which they fight? Or will you consider what scripture has given you as directives to fight your battles?
It is in the surrender and submission to the Lord and to scripture where we find our justice. It is in taking our thoughts captive by not letting our ears be constantly tuned to inciteful messages. It is in filling our ears with the worship that comes from our lips and our lives. It is from playing Christ-centered music and taking in more of God’s voice than of the world’s. It is in punishing all disobedience until obedience is fulfilled, which means we find justice in our submission and surrender to Christ. When we seek His heart and His plan for those we disagree with and we surrender to His plans and purposes for our lives and theirs, we find “obedience fulfilled”.
What is fulfilled obedience? According to Strong’s, it is to be full, to level up, to be satisfied, to finish. The root of the word for fulfilled is COMPLETE. I’m sorry, I had to should that out. We must understand that those thoughts that come to us to cause us to feel a need for justification, equality, etc., come to attempt to convince us we are not complete in Christ. Satan, the enemy of your soul wants you to believe you are lacking in Christ, that He is not enough, that all of your problems are His fault. He wants you to fight with your carnal weapons of sarcasm, free speech, violent debate online soon to be turned into violent bloodshed on the streets.
Satan comes to kill steal and destroy. Downtown Portland does not look like a peaceful protest station. It looks like a war zone. It looks like a group came in to steal, kill, and destroy. It does not look like a group that came to demand justice. Please hear me, this is not a political statement. Take these final comments in context with all that is written above. One group may have come in seeking justice, but things changed quickly and violently. I’m not even speaking about the protests. I am referring to the riots, which I believe are two different things and two different groups. We seem to have forgotten that we live in a spiritual world, not merely a physical one.
My point is, if those causing mayhem, were not already fantasizing about how they would do this. If they were not setting up a belief system of anarchy in their minds – if they had taken those thoughts captive to the obedience of Christ – these riots and this loss of life would not be happening. If we daily would capture every thought before responding to offenses too quickly and brought them to obedience in Christ, we would be seeking His justice and not our own. We would take the time to hear the other side and seek their best, which is the same as our best, completeness through surrender.
As this election looms and polarization beckons, I implore you to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ not the obedience of your polar leaning. Jesus loves both sides. He loves the anarchist, Antifa, patriot prayer folks, BLM, etc. He died for all and it is not His will that any should perish (2 Corinthians 5:15; 2 Peter 3:9). It might be time we get over our desire for our comfortable western-culture lives and start finding the heart of Jesus in all of this. He is the only one who can truly bring justice. His justice brings peace and salvation. His justice ends abortion and makes all lives matter – equally without prejudice. The changes that need to come, must begin at the heart level. We can only reach the heart when we stop warring according to our flesh and begin to take captives and tear down strongholds from our position in Christ. We do not war in rage, but love.
I can’t help myself; I’m going to tell you about just one amazing experience in praying with people in downtown Portland during the time of the attacks on the police and the federal building. I take no credit; I was with a group of people who also take no credit. All the glory belongs to Jesus. We met a young satan worshiper wearing an anarchist symbol. She was dressed like Antifa and appeared to be prepared for war. She was already speaking to my friends when I walked up. She said she was young 20s and had debilitating osteoarthritis and that her knees were really bad.
We took our time listening to her hurts from past church experiences and accepted who she was. We had asked to pray with her which she had declined, but she said we could pray for her mom who had cancer. We said we would, but we would like to pray for her arthritis, too. She accepted and we prayed for them both. I will never know on this side of heaven how her mom faired, but we watched God heal her arthritis before our eyes. She said her knees were warm (a sign of healing) and she kept bending each knee up to her chest to test them out. She was dumbfounded. We parted ways and she continued on her mission but touched by God. She was only touched by God because a few Christians were willing to go where Jesus would go. They were willing to get uncomfortable and show up so He could show Himself to a lost and hurting world who does not yet know how to takes their thoughts captive.
I will add this final thought about going to downtown Portland. It was something I really wanted to do, but something I knew I could easily chicken out on. I am not an evangelist by any means. I have taken those gift tests and I am always below a five for evangelism and hospitality. These are not my gifted areas and I know it. However, as I was having devotions one day, I strongly felt the Lord say if I want to get to this next level I want to grow to, I need to take risks. I thought He just meant pay for some advertising to help my Bible study books pay for themselves, but then I realized He was saying I need to get out there and experience Him moving in the lives of the ones who need Him most.
“He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again” (2 Corinthians 5:15).