The apostle Paul writes:
Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
Taking notes from this, a) we are not at war with individual people (flesh and blood); b) we are at war with the powers of this dark world, not with other Christians (who are not included in ‘this dark world’); and c) we are at war with the spiritual forces of evil.
Now, there are Christians who mistakenly believe themselves
This is one of the primary reasons we write here – to try to stop the deranged, psychotic bloodshed that passes for “discernment”, where these self-appointed shepherds keep watch from a tower that looks like this, and not like this. We just pray that the unnecessary bloodshed would stop, and that the guns be pointed in the right direction…
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3 Comments(+Add)
Although I don’t agree with the belittling and over-use of sarcasm (on both sides), I would like to ask a question.
I do agree with the fact that the battle we are supposed to be waging is spiritual in nature by the way.
That being said, who was Jude “warring” against in his short epistle? How about Peter (2 Pet 2)? What about Paul when he warned Timothy about Hymaneus, Philetus and Alexander?
It would appear that the devil is helpless unless he has vessels to work through in order to achieve his ends of leading people astray.
What was Paul warning about when he said to the church in Corinth: “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.”
The primary difficulty Paul had with the early church was the addition of requirements to the gospel by Jews and God-fearing Gentiles previously converted by Jewish missionaries. Additionally, it was with the insertion of gnostacism (which had a number of interesting and direct parallels to Calvinism, but that’s a different subject) by Greek philosophers which he also faught with as being “another gospel”.
For Paul, the gospel was a very simple message:
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve.
He then notes for both gnostics and Jews aligned with the priesthood (which denied resurrection):
But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.
The key problem in our current discussion is that the ODM’s in question have little to no sense of proportion. Disagreement on exact soteriology, systematic theology and incredibly petty interpretations are raised to Defcon 1 with cries of “apostacy”, contrary to what we are taught in Galatians 6.
There are issues, particularly with health & wealth gospel and similar false teachings, that need to be dealt with, but the ECM has become such a boogeyman and a characature of a characature that all of the sound and fury is just the clanging of cymbals…
I would disagree on the point that Paul (or Jude or Peter or …) were warring only against gnosticism. In fact, Hymaneus/Philetus were Christians but they were preaching false doctrine that “overthrew the faith of some.” Likewise, Jude battled false preachers, not gnostics. And of course, Peter was also fighting against false Christian preachers who likely mixed truth with the cultural elements/traditions/beliefs of their day to come up with their own blend of faith (sounds a little like what goes on today in some circles).
The issue is the Paul mentioned Jannes and Jambres as well. How did they withstand Moses? By simply copying what he was doing so that onlookers could barely tell the difference between them.
Jesus even warned many shall come in Jesus’ name saying that [Jesus] in the Messiah and deceive many. They weren’t claiming to be the Messiah themselves but would preach Christ (just like 2 Cor 11) but with a slant.
The devil is definitely our enemy – don’t get me wrong – but again, he uses vessels to carry out his plans. You can see how Jesus and the Apostles contended for the truth in the scriptures as a whole, not just the one verse you used.