We wrestle against principalities and powers. We must take down their foundational strongholds, arguments, and pretensions. Stronghold (ochuromaton) is a military term referring to a fortress or fortified place. The word came to be used metaphorically for anything on which someone relies (Ralph Earle, Word Meanings’ in the New Testament, p. 260). In 2 Samuel […]
The Battle for Our Minds
Life, then, is a battle for our minds. How do we fight the battle? What’s our strategy? When Paul explains that “we do not wage war as the world does” (2 Corinthians 10:3), he uses the word strateia meaning strategy. In Paul’s day strategy was inseparably linked to “generalmanship”—the tactics and war plans of the […]
Remember Again
It’s another way of saying: Never doubt in the darkness what you once believed in the light. When hardship settles in to stay, dark and brooding skepticism surges over us in a tide of doubt and fear. The only sure dike against a flood of feelings is memory. We must recall sunnier times when we […]
Bitterness and Simple Faith
She realized her seething hatred was just as heinous, just as nauseating as the sins committed against her. She was no better than her parents. As surely as her father thrust himself on her, she had in her imagination, thrust a knife, with hot fury, into his chest. Glenda could have easily been the one […]
the vanguard
“As men and women grow old together, many people’s natural response is pity. Because the elderly can’t ‘keep up’ anymore, they are thought of as society’s stragglers. Sometimes this comes out in exasperation (on the freeway, when we’re behind somebody in geezer drive), and other times in pity, but the root assumption is the same. […]
The process of sanctification
The process of sanctification largely consists of learning to tell the lusts of your body no(Rom. 8:13-14)— Douglas Wilson
one or the other of these destinations
“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship or else a horror and a corruption such as […]
to embrace you with is love
But it doesn’t stop there. Can the Father turn a deaf ear to the pleas of his own Son? (If Jim can’t, you can bet God can’t. And if he can, we’re in Big Trouble.) The answer resounds from an empty tomb three days later: No, may it never be! And because the Father raised […]
the other side has snipers
Hi George, The Bible tells us to take every thought captive (2 Cor. 10:5) and “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. (Phil. 4:8). This acknowledges that this […]