Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - The Truth About Spiritual Warfare | New Testament | 2 Corinthians 10

Episode Date: July 12, 2023

Is spiritual warfare real? What can it actually look like? What should Christians do about it? In today's episode, Tanya looks at 2 Corinthians 10 to discover what Paul says about the reality of spiritual warfare and how to combat it. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Join the TMBT community in reading the entire New Testament in one year. Get your FREE reading plan here. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: 2 Corinthians 9

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmuth. From the surface, Yellowstone National Park looks like a stroke of artistic genius. The park has a diverse landscape of natural wonder, an enormous waterfall flanked by red-tinted canyons, crystal clear lakes hidden in the valleys and flanked by forested mountains, bison lazily sunning themselves in hilly meadows, grislies who leave their marks behind on trees for hikers to ponder as they weave their way through the trails, and pools from turquoise to ambre blues and reds that look like they've been painted into a Disney live action set.

But dig deeper, and there's more that meets the eye. The bison know to keep their distance from areas where geysers spontaneously erupt. The tourist keeps their distance from the pools, where the water is so acidic it would melt your skin off, if any part of you was dipped into it. There are posted warnings to remind visitors that an unleashed dog or a step too far off the path are ways people have unknowingly met their end. A stroke of creative genius in one way, and an absolute war zone bubbling in the core of the earth on the other.

When we visited Yellowstone last summer, we all left feeling like no book or picture could possibly describe the colors, the mastery, and the potential danger we observed while we were there. We don't tend to think of our minds as potential death traps either. And yet sometimes we do sense that we're under attack. We know we have an enemy who's come into this world and shows up in our thoughts with the intention to steal and kill and destroy. The enemy intends to steal away the truth of God's word, the beauty that orchestrates our

actions, the guidance of God's spirit that instructs our thoughts, and attitudes and love of God that seals our peace. The enemy intends to kill off any fruit of humility that might spring forth from us, so we will pridefully assume we have no need for God. He intends to whittle away at our sense of belonging, so we question our worth and compare ourselves with others. He wants to make us so temporarily happy, we keep chasing small things and forget about doing life with Jesus for all of eternity.

When we realize, though, that our mind is a war zone, where a battle is raging for our thoughts and our motives we will understand, and we don't have power on our own to fight the enemy, and we will look to our creator. Now, I'm not a counselor. I'm not a therapist. This isn't a podcast about how to work on your mental health. They are people much more equipped with those tools. But this is about 2 Corinthians chapter 10, where we find truth about spiritual warfare and the weapons God gave us to actively fight. And we find out more about our limits and God's power in this chapter. So let's get our bearings on where we are. We're still in the second letter, Paul wrote to the

Corinthians. A few things to keep in mind. Letters weren't easy to write back then, because supplies and writers, well, they were both in short supply. Every word would have mattered. Also, these letters weren't meant to be read or consumed in isolation, but they were read loud and passed around. The original audience would have been listening to this letter in community with other Jesus followers. Also, this letter was written after Paul had to rebuke the Corinthians for turning their backs on him and allowing an offender to stay in their church. They sent him. They sent him. changed their loyalties, but they still question Paul's authority to teach and preach because he lacks in appearance what they expect from a powerful leader. He also lacks the wealth and

power that might be expected from someone who's received spiritual blessings. In fact, well, Paul's life looks really hard and messy. So who better to talk to us about gospel hope for renewing our minds in the face of conflict and doubt and anxiety than Paul? Versus 4 through 6. He says, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ. Well, it's a sobering truth and a huge and comforting promise. Sobering truth is that there's a war going on for our minds, and the comfort and promise is that we have divine power to defeat the enemy that wants to take us down.

Let's start with the first one. Does it surprise you to think of your mind as a spiritual battleground? Well, what if we talk about some deeply entrenched ways of communicating and relating to one another that you learned in your family, the ones that get passed down from generation to generation? Are we powerless to change those? And should we just accept them as part of who we are? Or do we see them as a battle to be fought with God's word and with the good resources he provides? Or what if we talk about a tendency toward comparison, where everything is measured and worth is valued against someone or something else? Is comparison a way to cope with life's pressure, or should we fight against it with the truths that we find in God's Word? What about pride? Do we continue to point the finger outward, or do we recognize our deep need to be continually humbled by the things we hear in God's Word? We could add worry, anxiety, judgmental attitudes, passive aggressive communication, all kinds of things to

our list. And then we could bury our heads in the sand, or we could bring all of them under the authority of God, knowing we've been rescued from their strongholds over us, and also knowing that we have a daily responsibility to fight them. We are in need of help from others, especially those who are skilled in these areas. And on a more holistic level, we need to recognize the spiritual battle taking place and receive God's power to battle against it. Here's the way I look at this. Three things. Number one, what I am thinking isn't always true. Number two, what I am wanting isn't always good. And number three, what I am inclined to say isn't always helpful. Ephesians 2.3 helps describe why these things are important to remember. It says, among them we two all formally lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and we were by nature children of wrath. So how do do we fight the things of our flesh that are always the lower and easier hanging fruit to grab in moments of desire, frustration, or tension? Well, Paul says we fight with divine power,

taking our thoughts captive to Christ. In other words, we make an intention to read scripture instead of scrolling Instagram, perhaps, to pray and ask God to help us instead of depending on our old habits and our old ways of thinking and acting. We seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit instead of spending time worrying or controlling things. We can ask God to hold our tongues, bind our thoughts, change our desires, create a deep sense of belonging to him in us. We recognize that there are things in our lives so deeply entrenched, we might not even be aware of them, but we can ask God to show us.

And the more we read and study his word, the more and more he will show us, it's a process. We can ask for awareness, and we can take action. How aware are you of the things you're believing and saying that are harmful to yourself or others? Will you make an intention to let God's Word be the guiding light for what you believe and what you live by? And will you take action when you see problem areas? Will you ask others to pray with you for strongholds like pride, worry, and comparison? Will you be active in your own healing process by memorizing scripture, asking for help,

walking away from temptation, or whatever your situation needs? For me, if there is a scale of 10, for some areas of my flesh, I started out on two or three, and on some it was negative 5. No joke. But for each area that God saturates with his truth and love, even one move forward on the number scale is evidence to me, and especially to those who have to live with me, that God's power is at work in my life. It's evidence that he is real and good and true. Paul wants the Corinthians to find their confidence in Christ. He knows if they look at their flesh and depend on their flesh, as it is, to be the barometer to understand God's glory and redemption, then they won't live out of the truth of who God is.

But in Christ, they will have the ability to fight the enemy that wants to keep them away from God's glory. And in Christ, they will have the confidence to keep fighting, knowing one day their fight will be finished for good. Before you forget, sign up for the brand new TMBT newsletter. Hit the link in the show notes, and you'll get an email. email every Wednesday that will help you beat the midweek slump and go deeper in your walk with Jesus. Thanks for listening.