1.
Now I Paul myself beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, who in presence am base among you, but being absent am bold toward you:
2.
But I beseech you, that I may not be bold when I am present with that confidence, wherewith I think to be bold against some, which think of us as if we walked according to the flesh.
3.
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:
4.
(For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)
CHRISTIAN WARFARE
‘Mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds.’
2 Corinthians 10:4
There are times when the Gospel of Christ must assert itself as a destructive power. Would we seek to excel in building up the Church of Christ, we must not be slow to take part in pulling down what is not the Church.
I. All the military language St. Paul here uses was his own choice.—It was not that these disobedient and self-willed Corinthians challenged him as from the battlements of a fortress high up on some precipitous rock. In their own judgment they needed no stronghold against him. They despised him as a weak, wellnigh solitary man. Nothing is commoner than to mistake gentleness for weakness. The forces of Christianity are always despised by those who do not understand them. We must not mind being despised and ridiculed in attacking great evils. Goliath laughed at the stripling who came against him with a sling and a stone. One deep, intelligent, loving conviction in your heart is worth all the strength of the other side.
II. Victory may be certain, but that does not make it easy.—Give what the Apostle calls its full force. The things that have to be pulled down are indeed strongholds. A first principle in all warfare is not to undervalue the enemy. It is the folly of the world that it despises the Church militant; let it be the wisdom of the Church militant that it does not despise the world. These two letters of St. Paul are full of agonising struggle. He does not trifle through them. No consideration is left unemployed. The great fortress of worldliness is citadel within citadel, and the outward may be broken down while the inward remains without a breach. What a gigantic task to bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ! We may be more or less captive to something that looks like Christ and yet is not Christ. The unsubdued can only come under the real dominion of Christ by a hearty and unremitting employment of all our spiritual resources.
III. It is not enough to expel them that hold; that which they hold must be utterly destroyed. The end of war is peace; nothing else can justify war. All those separations and hostilities which the Gospel of Christ has produced, which Christ foresaw would be produced, are to end in a deeper, holier peace than mere natural associations can ever afford.
Illustration
‘War, it has been said of the Romans by Montesquieu, was their only art, and they gave all the energy of their intellect to perfect it. Not only in the camp and on the march did they exercise themselves, but in Rome itself there was a Campus Martius, a field of Mars. Everything was subservient to war. And so with us, conflict, unceasing conflict, is the condition of spiritual success. The brave old hero, Bernal Diaz, who fought in the conquest of Mexico, wore his armour so long and so constantly that afterwards he could not sleep comfortably without it. And in like manner our armour is to become part of ourselves.’
5.
Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
6.
And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.
7.
Do ye look on things after the outward appearance? If any man trust to himself that he is Christ's, let him of himself think this again, that, as he is Christ's, even so are we Christ's.
8.
For though I should boast somewhat more of our authority, which the Lord hath given us for edification, and not for your destruction, I should not be ashamed:
9.
That I may not seem as if I would terrify you by letters.
10.
For his letters, say they, are weighty and powerful; but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible.
11.
Let such an one think this, that, such as we are in word by letters when we are absent, such will we be also in deed when we are present.
12.
For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.
13.
But we will not boast of things without our measure, but according to the measure of the rule which God hath distributed to us, a measure to reach even unto you.
14.
For we stretch not ourselves beyond our measure, as though we reached not unto you: for we are come as far as to you also in preaching the gospel of Christ:
15.
Not boasting of things without our measure, that is, of other men's labours; but having hope, when your faith is increased, that we shall be enlarged by you according to our rule abundantly,
16.
To preach the gospel in the regions beyond you, and not to boast in another man's line of things made ready to our hand.
17.
But he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.
18.
For not he that commendeth himself is approved, but whom the Lord commendeth.