WWUTT 1698 Tearing Down Strongholds (2 Corinthians 10:1-6)

You have heard it said that we do not battle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places.

The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but are spiritual weapons. When we understand the text, a daily study in the

Word of Christ for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. We are on to Chapter 10 in our study of 2

Corinthians. If you want to open up your Bible and join with me there, I'm going to read through about the first 11 verses here out of the

Legacy Standard Bible. This is the Word of the Lord through the Apostle Paul writing to the church in Corinth.

Now I, Paul, myself plead with you by the gentleness and forbearance of Christ.

I who am humble when face to face with you, but courageous toward you when absent.

But I beg that when I am present, I need not act so courageously with the confidence that I consider to daringly use against some who consider us as if we walked according to the flesh.

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh.

For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the tearing down of strongholds.

As we tear down speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, and are ready to punish all disobedience whenever your obedience is fulfilled.

You are looking at things as they are outwardly. If anyone is confident in himself that he is

Christ's, let him consider this again within himself, that just as he is

Christ's, so also are we. For even if I boast somewhat further about our authority, which the

Lord gave for building you up and not for tearing you down, I will not be put to shame. For I do not wish to seem as if I would terrify you by my letters.

For they say, his letters are weighty and strong, but his personal presence is weak and his words contemptible.

Let such a person consider this, that what we are in word by letters when absent, such persons we are also indeed when present.

Now we're starting a new section of 2 Corinthians here. If you remember the outline from the very beginning, chapters 1 through 7 are one section.

Paul is defending his ministry. He is also explaining the tearful letter that he had to send to the

Corinthians and rejoicing over them that they were receptive of the correction that he had to make. The next section we just finished up yesterday, that was chapters 8 and 9, where he talks about cheerfulness in giving.

Being willing to give with a charitable heart, particularly as it pertained to the

Christians who were in need in the church in Jerusalem. That was the specific matter that was at hand, but we were able to glean from chapters 8 and 9 also general principles that we would apply to giving in church today.

How we as Christians are to give with a cheerful heart.

That was in chapter 9, verse 7. God loves a cheerful giver, and we do this in light of what

God has given to us. Verse 15, thanks be to God for his indescribable gift.

The peace that we have with God, the fellowship we have with God, through faith in Jesus Christ who died on the cross as an atoning sacrifice for sins and rose again from the grave so that whoever believes in him will not perish under the judgment of God, but we are adopted into his family as his children.

And the Father has lavished such wonderful blessings on us. So that was chapters 8 and 9.

Now we're getting to a pretty severe part of this letter. This is even more severe than what we have read in chapters 1 through 7.

Now this could be sectioned off in a couple of different ways. You could consider this as chapters 10 through 13 to the very end of the letter, or you could have it as chapters 10 through 12, and then chapter 13 is kind of summarizing those things and wrapping the letter up with final instructions, greetings, salutations, and things like that.

So that's a couple of ways that you could consider this closing section. Either 10 to 13 is all together, or it's 10 to 12, and then 13 is kind of tacking on the closing to this particular letter.

But Paul is especially sharp here. This is where we even get into, in chapter 11, him boasting about himself, and he feels the need to have to boast because that's exactly what the false teachers are doing.

They're boasting about themselves, and they're making Paul really low. Like, consider this

Paul, I mean, how weak he is in his speech and his demeanor. Does he dress as flashy as we do?

Does he have letters of authentication like we have? This is what the false apostles would have been saying to the people there in Corinth.

So for the sake of the Corinthians, that they would not be led astray by these guys, Paul goes on a tear, boasting about himself, those things that he has gone through for the sake of the ministry.

And it's rather humble the way that he approaches it, but having to do so, having to basically lay out his resume as an apostle so that the

Corinthians, those who are still being won over by these false apostles, would recognize that Paul is the genuine article.

As I said earlier, when we were in chapters 1 through 7, to turn back to Paul was to turn back to the gospel because these false apostles were not preaching the gospel.

Paul was. Paul and his missionary brethren, the other apostles, they were preaching the true gospel.

And, you know, you're talking about in the first century church, there was no one else that had the true gospel except the apostles and then those that followed along with the apostles teaching.

To this day, we're still following along with the apostles teaching. It is in 1 Peter chapter 2 where Peter talks about the church is built on a foundation of the prophets and the apostles with Christ being the cornerstone.

So the whole church has been built up on the testimony of the apostles that have been sent out by Christ.

So when Paul says to imitate me, and he said this in his previous letter, so 1

Corinthians 11 1, imitate me as I am of Christ. He's not trying to point to himself.

He's not boasting at himself or exalting himself. He's pointing to Christ because the apostles were imitators of Christ.

So again, to turn from false teachers back to the apostles was to turn back to the gospel.

And that's why he felt the need to so urgently appeal to his own accomplishments for the sake of the

Corinthians, that they would not follow the false apostles, but they would follow the true gospel.

So this is beginning that section, and he's opening up here with gentleness and forbearance.

He's going to get really particular, real sharp with his words as we keep going here, especially when we get to chapter 11.

But for now, he starts off this way. I, Paul, I myself, I plead with you by the gentleness and forbearance of Christ.

I who am humble when face to face with you, but courageous toward you when absent.

And this is probably calling to their attention again, the tearful letter, because how sharp

Paul was in that letter to bring them to sorrow, to bring them to tears.

Now, again, we don't have that letter. That was a letter that was written between 1st and 2nd Corinthians. But Paul is mentioning it here.

Apparently his words were even more bold in that letter, even more critical and rebuking than they were in 1st

Corinthians, and 1st Corinthians was pretty rebuking as it was. So he rebuked them to the point of sorrow.

Titus comes and visits the Corinthians, though, and sees that they have been receptive of that letter.

They have been repentant. And so Titus is able to come back and report this to Paul. And Paul rejoices that the

Holy Spirit is truly there among them and working among these believers to bring them to soundness of faith.

So Paul pleading with them out of gentleness and forbearance. That's how they should receive the tone of what he's saying here.

It's a gentle tone. He's not yelling at them. And they know him. They know his personal presence, how he's rather meek, especially compared to these false apostles who were brash braggarts, right?

Paul wasn't that at all. Even down here in verse 10, it says, for they say his letters are weighty and strong, but his personal presence is weak and his words contemptible.

So it just speaks to how his personal presence just wasn't that great.

We read some heavy things in his letters. And even Peter talks about how weighty his letters are in 2

Peter 3 .16, where he also equates Paul's letters to the rest of Scripture. So we've read how brilliant Paul's letters were.

Of course, he's writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, but Paul was a very well -educated and very smart man.

And so he is writing some very weighty things with these letters.

And we know that Paul was a public debater. That's talked about in Acts 17 and also in chapter 19, where he's in Ephesus and he would reason daily in the

Hall of Tyrannus. So he was a public debater. He knew how to handle himself.

He knew how to craft the arguments. Yet his personal presence was not all that charismatic.

We know the Corinthians had a greater appeal to them than Paul did, because Apollos was just such a fabulous orator.

And that's the way that the book of Acts even tells us about that. Peter had a certain presence about him that appeared to be a little bit more, appeared to be stronger than Paul's presence also.

Hence why Paul made the comparison between him and Peter and Apollos in 1

Corinthians 1. Because there were some Corinthians that were saying, well, I'm of Cephas, that was Peter. I'm of Apollos, I'm of Paul, or I'm of Christ.

But Paul is like, we're not against one another. We are all together in this mission, all together in Christ, for your sake, on your behalf.

So don't be divided over who's the better speaker when we're not divided in our mission and purpose for the declaration of the gospel.

So as Paul is talking here about the difference between his letters and the difference between his personal or in -person delivery, he says,

I beg that when I am present, I need not act so courageously with the confidence that I consider to daringly use against some who consider us as if we walked according to the flesh.

Now there's somewhat of a threat there, for lack of a better term.

It's not really a threat, but not able to come up with a better word, let me use that one.

There's something of a threat there. So Paul is saying, I want to speak with gentleness with you.

I want us to be able to enjoy one another's presence in person with gentleness and forbearance in Christ, as Paul described in verse 1.

I want to be able to do that. I don't want to have to be severe with you. What would the apostle mean by having to be severe with them?

I think this comes up again in chapter 13. So what would Paul mean by an apostle having to be severe?

There would probably be some pretty interesting punishments that would happen.

And maybe something along the lines of what we read about Ananias and Sapphira last week, right?

About how these two had lied in the presence of the Holy Spirit, in the presence of the apostles, and because they lied about how much money they had made off of the field that they had sold and then gave it to the church, they lied about the amount of money.

They fell down dead at the apostles' feet right there. First it was Ananias and then

Sapphira, not knowing that her husband was dead. She affirmed that the amount of money that Ananias gave, that was exactly what the field sold for.

And Peter said, nope, you're lying. And then she falls down and dies. Would that happen to the

Corinthians? And if there are some that continue to cause the kind of trouble in the church that Paul is confronting and he is trying to put out of the church, if there are people that are resistant to that correction, could it be that when he arrives there, there might be some severe

Ananias and Sapphira -level punishments that would come to them? If they do not repent, that's a possibility.

It's at least enough, Paul is saying enough here, to make those Corinthians who've not yet repented tremble a little bit.

So either the Corinthians that are faithful need to purge those false teachers from their midst.

And it might be hard for them to do. There may be enough Corinthians that are receptive of those false teachers that the rest of the congregation just can't seem to push them out, to push them totally out.

There's still something about those false teachers that are still bothering the rest of the church. So maybe Paul needs to come there and take care of the matter himself.

And those who have not repented and turned back to the sound teaching of the apostles, that would cause them to go, well, we don't want that.

So verse three, Paul says, For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh.

For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the tearing down of strongholds.

See, Paul is talking about something spiritual there, a spiritual conflict. He's saying we're not going to come with weapons of war, not with sword and spear and javelin.

That's like what David said to Goliath. You come to me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come in the name of the

Lord. And who ended up winning that conflict, right? So Paul is saying something similar here.

We're not coming with the weapons of man, but the weapons of our warfare are divinely powerful.

And again, in this apostolic period, where apostolic miracles and signs are being performed among them, and Paul will remind them of that coming up in chapter 12, the signs of apostleship have clearly been displayed among you.

You should know the difference between the sound apostles and the false apostles. So we're talking about some spiritual weapons here that man cannot defend himself against.

The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the tearing down of strongholds.

As we tear down speculations, and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

Now again, Paul may be saying there that he's going to come very harshly and very severely to deal with these false apostles.

When he says there in verse 5, we tear down speculations, and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God.

Or he may also just simply be saying that the word of the Lord that we come to speak to you will vanquish every false teaching that is attempting to woo you away.

And then you will see who is genuine and who is not. Those who are following with the sound words of the

Lord Christ, they are the genuine believers. Those who continue to go after the false apostles, they were never genuine believers.

Paul talks about this in 1 John 2. The ones who listen to and believe our teaching are not of the world.

The ones who reject the apostles' teaching reject it because they're of the world. And John says in 1

John 2 .19, they went out from us so that it might be clearly demonstrated that they were not ever of us.

For if they were of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out from us so that it might be seen that they were not genuine believers.

And so that could be what Paul is talking about here regarding verse 5. We can certainly apply that passage that way today.

So when we talk about tearing down speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, how do we apply that?

Today that means we use the word of God and with God's word, with the

Bible, with what we learn from the Bible, what we're learning about here as we read through the Bible, with this, we are able to vanquish and tear down and smite every worldly religion and philosophy and psychological or sociological idea that's out there.

None of those things can stand against the truth of Scripture. You got false teaching in your church?

Get it out by preaching the word of God. That's the application that we have today.

So even if Paul is kind of making a thread here about, hey, if you don't take care of this matter, then we're going to come with the authority of the apostleship and take it out.

He makes a reference to his authority a little bit later on. We'll talk about that when we get to that next week. But anyway, here saying that we're tearing down speculations.

We come with the authority of Christ to tear down every false teaching, every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God.

Now, the second part of this verse where Paul says, we take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

How do we often use that phrase? How do we use that part of the passage? Generally, we use that to say that we need to take every temptation captive, right?

If we have a thought in our mind that's a temptation, we need to take it captive and make it obedient to Christ.

Because after all, the word thought is used here. So take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. That's a good personal discipline.

That might be an application. You can apply the verse in that way, but that's not really what

Paul is referring to. So every thought, every thought is every idea of man, the knowledge of man, which

Paul confronted at the beginning of his letter, of the first letter to the Corinthians, of 1 Corinthians, that the wisdom of man is foolishness to God.

1 Corinthians 1 .21, for since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know

God. God was well pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.

Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

And so Paul is saying here, we're going to make foolish the false teaching of those false teachers as we come with weapons of spiritual warfare, taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

We are destroying the false teaching, being obedient to Christ.

Do you understand there? So out of obedience to Christ, because we obey Christ, we are going to make sure that these false teachers lose.

That's essentially what Paul is saying. So one of the responsibilities of a pastor, according to Titus 1 .9,

is that he must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, giving instruction in sound doctrine and rebuking those who contradict it.

Paul is saying we're going to exercise there that rebuking of those who contradict the truth.

And we are ready to punish all disobedience right there in verse six.

We are ready to punish all disobedience whenever your obedience is fulfilled.

So again, it's that statement there about punishing disobedience that should make the Corinthians go, what is

Paul going to do when he gets here? We better repent now and come back to the truth lest we face more severe consequences.

Let's finish there. We're going to come back to our study of 2 Corinthians 10 next week.

God willing. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the study that we have done here today, and I pray that we would understand how we may apply this.

Understanding the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the tearing down of strongholds.

When it comes to recognizing false teaching in this world, how do we know what's false?

It's because we've familiarized ourselves so much with the truth, what is said to us in the

Bible. So may we know this well and know how to apply it so that when that false teaching comes our way, we know how to respond with the word of God.

Give us courage and boldness to do that in these days in the midst of a crooked and depraved generation we hold fast to the word of life.

It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. You've been listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a New Testament study. Then on Thursday, we look at an

Old Testament book. On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers. Tomorrow, we'll pick up on an