2 Corinthians 10:1-2
“The Cuts of a Paper Tiger”
I. Intro.
On June 6th, 1944, General Dwight D. Eisenhower made a decision that signaled the greatest military invasion the world had seen, known as D-Day. 155,000 soldiers hit the beaches of France with the code names Utah, Sword, Juneau, Gold, and Omaha. 10,000 brave men lost their lives on Omaha Beach alone that day, but they kept coming until they overtook the German strongholds. Their success ensured eventual victory.
Over 2000 years ago, there was an even greater invasion upon enemy soil to take down the strongholds of the enemy, but it was made by one Man, Jesus Christ, as He single-handedly defeated the forces of Satan on Calvary on what ought to be known as C-Day.
As we begin the 10th chapter, it is obvious that the subject changes from what Paul had been talking about in Chapters 8 and 9. The last three chapters of Second Corinthians contain strong words from Paul against people who were espousing false teaching while accusing him. The harsh words he uses are not addressed to the church as a whole, but to a special group of teachers in the midst of the Corinthians who were teaching false doctrine. This is a very helpful passage to us because there are false teachers in the church today.
The difficulty in teaching this passage lies in applying it today, as we will need to identify some of the false teachings around today to understand the necessity of implementing the spiritual weapons at our disposal. Ah, but too much of identifying the battlefields can cause us to get caught up in the fight before we understand the weaponry. It is with much prayer that I walk through this passage!
II. Vs. 1-2 A Call to Arms
Vs. 1: One of the things I appreciate in Paul’s words of warning against false teachers is the obvious care that he exhibited toward those in Corinth. Paul was a faithful shepherd who, like David before him, took up the rocks to chase away the attacks of the bear and the lion that were seeking to devour God’s sheep. In the case of the Corinthian Church, the predators were among the sheep, appearing as Christians, but were teaching some very destructive lies.
Paul does not normally speak this way. In fact, in verse one, he admits to the description of himself that these false teachers were saying about him in Corinth. They were saying that Paul was a “paper tiger,” sounding powerful when he wrote his letters, but when he came personally, he was meek and not impressive. His only comment on this is to say that he was in great company, as that is what people said about Jesus as well. People forget that the same Lord who described Himself in Matthew 11:29 as “Gentle and lowly in heart” is the same Jesus who, in John 2:15, “made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple.”
I believe most parents can understand this truth as we become very different people when our children are threatened. But what is different is seeing a pastor stand up to defend the truths of God’s word to protect God’s sheep! I’m afraid that far too often, God’s shepherds are as described by His prophet Jeremiah in 23:2, “You have scattered My flock, driven them away, and not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for the evil of your doings, says the Lord.” Or as in Ezekiel 34:7-10, God says, “you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: ‘as I live,’ says the Lord God, ‘surely because My flock became a prey, and My flock became food for every beast of the field, because there was no shepherd, nor did My shepherds search for My flock, but the shepherds fed themselves and did not feed My flock’–therefore, O shepherds, hear the word of the Lord! Thus says the Lord God: ‘Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require My flock at their hand…’”
Least you think that this is only an Old Testament thing, James 3:1 says, “Let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment.”
Vs. 2: According to passages in the gospels like Matthew 5:10-12, Jesus made it plain that His calling upon His disciples was not to be a life of ease but a call to arms to join the battle. He told them that they would win the battle by apparent defeat, by crucifixion, they were to be crowned! Paul says that he would prefer to be meek except towards those who are endangering the sheep; to those false teachers, he intended to employ all the mighty weapons of warfare in God’s arsenal for the pulling down of every stronghold that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. He would keep at it, he says in verse 5, until “every thought would be brought into captivity to the obedience of Jesus.”
Just what are these weapons that Paul is saying are at the believer’s disposal? How, when, and to whom do we employ them? These are the questions that Paul will explain to us in these three chapters. First, we need to understand what today are the “strongholds, arguments, every high thing that exalts itself.” Perhaps you have noticed that God’s Church is under siege with an onslaught of worldview arguments directly opposed to the truth in the Bible.
Some of these are in the arena of “human sexuality,” as the world is trying to convince us that immorality should not only be accepted but must be protected with rights that will cause the majority to be forced into not only accepting the “lifestyle” but to comply with employment standards as a civil rights issue. If we in the Church rise up in dissent, we are attacked as uneducated bigots. These arguments will affect not only employment in our Churches; they will affect us with regards to public bathrooms no longer being “gender sensitive,” which will mean that men will be able to go into women’s bathrooms and vice-versa because they were inwardly “born that way.”
There are those “shepherds” that are embracing this argument that exalts itself. Some have not only disregarded the clear teaching in God’s word on this matter but have taken it even further by ordaining into the ministry those who are actively practicing this immorality.
We have Marxism masquerading as compassion that is being shoved down our throats at our public educational institutions as people are “occupying” while our political leaders are engaged in “Class Warfare” and “Income Redistribution.” What fascinates me is that those who are the most boisterous are the extreme liberal wealthy entertainment industry. This causes me to believe that they are either ignorant of the message they espouse or, like in the history of other socialistic nations, in on the fix where their wealth won’t be a part of what is “redistributed”! To this, many “shepherds” are in agreement with their ideology, even proclaiming that Jesus and the Church taught this philosophy.
We have the legalization of drugs, getting yet another generation “turned on and tuned out” at $350 or better an ounce without any way except illegal means to be able to get the “meds” to numb and dumb the pain of the hangnail ailment that maligns them. And again, many “shepherds” who are outraged at “tobacco” and the effects it can have on those who partake seem to be unaware that the drug they want to legalize has a greater amount of cancer-causing ingredients than does the tobacco they despise.
The sexual revolution of the 60s has evolved into enslaving many to pornographers, pedophiles, and predators with the worldly solution of terminating the innocent through what they tout as “Planned Parenthood,” which is anything but planned or parenthood. And to this, so-called “shepherds” endorse the solution instead of addressing the problem.
These are just a few of the issues that affect us today. How can we “speak the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15) on this and many other issues? It seems that looking out at the Church, we have either “spoken the TRUTH” or acted in what some consider being in “LOVE” but not both.
To further understand what faces us, we see that the battle is in the individual thought life. We must understand that such a fight is a fight of two opposing ideologies and that only the believer in Christ is equipped for the fight. Friends, at the conception of Christianity, unlike any other religion, self-sacrifice was the banner of victory and love! Time today does not permit me to address our spiritual weaponry nor the effectiveness of the weapons towards these strongholds, but we shall take this up next week.
2 Corinthians 10:3-6
“The World Verses the Word”
I. Intro.
After last week’s message on false teaching and infiltrating the world’s views into the Church, I had many comments, most of which thanked me for being bold enough to teach the truth. That got me to thinking, what if, while I was away, a teacher came in and taught you all that I was a religious phony, that I had been teaching you false doctrine for the past 6 years, introducing unbiblical ideas into your mind, and teaching things only to line my own pockets? What would your response be? If you were anything like the Corinthian believers, you would have responded one of three ways:
- Some would say, “I knew it all along! I had a feeling about that guy from California.”
- Others would say, “Now hold on there a minute, let’s give him a chance; he has helped me out and I like him.”
- My prayer is that most, if not all, of you would say, “Really? Well, let’s check out the Word of God and see if what he has been teaching us for the last 6 years is true or what you have been telling me for the last 45 minutes is true.”
This is exactly what had happened to the Apostle Paul and the reason for the writing of this 2nd letter to the Corinthians.
II. Vs. 3-4a Our Weapons
Vs. 3-4: Kenneth Wuest, in his “expanded translations,” renders verse 3 similarly to the NIV, saying, “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.” Dr. Tackett, in the Truth Project, regularly talks about the war between the “worldview” and the Biblical View. The worldview has been developed by a lot of self-centered individuals in an attempt to work together to govern a fleshly society apart from God.
First, we need to ask: “What are the weapons the world uses to solve the problems in society?” Looking out, we can see things employed like: Corrosion, manipulation, Media pressure, compromises, demonstrations, and strikes. All these are used in an attempt to pressure people into doing what others want. Those who are governed by the flesh employ fleshly weapons to get things done. Yet history tells us that in spite of these worldly techniques, they have not succeeded. Even though the media is biased, and the educational institutions are heavily slanted, the enemy has not been able to win the war; they have only been able to lengthen the battle.
Ah, but Paul makes it clear that these are not the things that Christians need to use. Our weapons are mighty and powerful; they are able to bring about lasting change. They will destroy strongholds of evil. Notice that in this passage Paul doesn’t list “What these weapons are.” He assumed that his readers would know exactly what he was referring to. It is only when you read the Bible that you see a pattern for these “spiritual weapons” that are mighty against these forces of darkness.
- The Bible: We Christians have a unique insight into life and reality that others do not have. We know what is behind the forces at work in our society today, as Paul put it in Ephesians 6:12, “We do not wrestle against flesh and blood…” Our problem is not people; it’s “principalities, powers, and wicked spirits in high places, the world rulers of this present darkness…” We wrestle with spiritual powers behind the scenes. The wonderful thing about the Word of God is that when you read it empowered by the Holy Spirit, you are looking at life the way it really is. In Ephesians 4:20-24, Paul writes, “But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.” In the Bible, we can have our minds “renewed by the Spirit,” and we will be able to see this as we won’t be acting like the people of the world. Jesus described Himself as the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and we need to activate the truth the way Jesus did in love. Treating people tenderly, even though we oppose the convictions that they are trying to impose upon us. Truth is on our side, but it will take love to activate it in hearts and lives.
- Faith: The faith that I’m talking about as a spiritual weapon is the understanding that God is at work in the present as He was in history. Jesus has not left us alone to stumble on our own way; God is at work! Jesus still is the only One that “opens and no man shuts. He shuts and no man opens…” (Revelation 3:7 RSV). We expect Him to do something! He will use us, common ordinary people, to change the course of history through the indwelling Holy Spirit.
- Prayer: The power of prayer is everywhere in Scripture. We are constantly exhorted to expose the situations in which we find ourselves to prayer, both individually and corporately, praying together that God would move in and change things. Most often, I find the longer I’m a believer, the more my prayers are changing me! Reading through our Bible reveals that events and lives have been forever altered by Christians who pray.
- Faithful service: Scripture says, “Do good to those who hate you; pray for those who despitefully use you…” (Matthew 5:44, Luke 6:27-28). Galatians 6:9 tells us to “not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.” This is something that each of us can do. Recently, at our Monday night men’s group, I encouraged a couple of brothers to take difficult folks out to lunch with no other purpose than to be a blessing, and I can’t wait to see how God will use it. Returning good for evil is a powerful weapon we can employ that the world never does.
III. Vs. 4b-6 Their Aim
Finally, let’s look at what these spiritual weapons will do:
- Vs. 4b They will pull down “strongholds”: Paul uses a word that is taken out of the time period and the military and is used only here. It describes a castle with moats, walls, turrets, and towers. Many times, a castle could hold out for weeks, months, and years against an attacking force (Masada Rome’s legion). This word very accurately describes some of the evils we have talked about, but here we see that these opposing obstacles don’t stand a chance against the “weapons of our warfare.” As impressive as these manmade “strongholds” of the world are, in Revelation 19:15 we are told of Jesus that “out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.”
- Vs. 5 They cast down “arguments”: The word argument literally means “reasoning.” The idea is to rationalize things to support and defend error. Have you ever noticed that people use this when they are confronted about some worldly view? By doing this, they hope to divert attention away from the real issue by sidetracking the conversation. “Don’t all people have a right to love? To not allow some to have that right in their lifestyle is narrow-minded and bigoted.” I’ll answer it this way: Yes, and in fact, we are commanded to do so, but the Bible talks about three primary ways in which we are to love. Friendship, intimacy, and Godly. Why is it that the interest is only in the one area that obviously biologically doesn’t work? But the spiritual weapons that God has given us enable us to cast down such arguments. In John 4, Jesus used this spiritual weapon in dealing with the woman at the well who was attempting to change the subject when she said to Jesus, “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is where one ought to worship.” Jesus said, “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth.”
- Vs. 5b Every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God: Paul just blazes a broad trail with this phrase, which can be specific to someone’s personal worldly view to something as generic as evolution or humanism. The common denominator in all of them is the reliance on self and the denial of God. Boiled down, they are arrogant and emphasize the ability of man far beyond reality. Again, the weapons of our warfare just make more sense than the worldly views.
- Vs. 5c The final thing Paul mentions here is very personal, as we see that the battle is really in the thought life as Paul says we must “bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ”: The word Paul uses is a word that deals with the imaginings of our minds. These are the things that we allow ourselves to fantasize and daydream about. Power, accomplishment, lust, all of which we attempt to satisfy inward desires. Friends, we will not win the battle as long as we indulge these fantasies. That is why Paul says we must bring these things captive unto Christ and no longer permit them to engage our minds and hearts. These are conquered by truth, by love, by faith, by righteousness, by prayer, and by service. These are the weapons of our warfare.
Vs. 6: Once these things are no longer permitted to govern our lives, we must be quick to deal with not allowing them to return. Many people struggle for years against sin because they are trying to stop the act, not the inward thought that precipitates it. The battleground is our thought life, Paul says. It is up to us in the church to appropriate the spiritual weapons at our disposal. If we try to use worldly approaches to legislate our lives, then we will be defeated. The cause is not hopeless, and we are not helpless. Let’s begin with the truth contained in the Word of God, appropriated by faith and prayer, applied by faithful service in love, and we will see the strongholds crumble in our life and in the world we live in.
2 Corinthians 10:7-18
“God Authenticated”
I. Intro.
By A.D. 56, Corinth had become a Greco-Roman boom town, serving as the entertainment and culture capital of the known world. The downside of this was that the newly formed Church in Corinth was highly susceptible to false teachings, particularly those promising that believers could experience all the future benefits of Christ’s return now. This concept aligns with what is recognized today as the prosperity movement.
The popularity of such teachings is evident in works like Joel Osteen’s “Your Best Life Now,” a number 1 New York Times bestseller. This philosophy, which reflects the dangers of assimilating present societal values into the Church, has become pervasive. In Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, we see him addressing accusations made by a small group of men from Jerusalem, who challenged his apostolic authority and teachings.
These men made several claims against Paul, including:
- Paul was a self-appointed apostle.
- His story about encountering Christ on the Damascus Road was fabricated.
- His teachings were not in line with the other apostles and thus should not be trusted.
- He was a moral coward, writing powerful letters but acting meek and timid in person.
- The freedom he taught would lead Christians away from any obligation to adhere to behavioral guidelines.
These opponents also pointed out that Paul had to work as a tentmaker, suggesting that this was because no one wanted to support him financially—a claim that resonated with many in Corinth. This observation, while true in part, was used to draw false conclusions about Paul’s legitimacy as an apostle. Today, similar judgments are often made about churches and ministries based on superficial metrics like financial success and attendance numbers.
In response, Paul offers a portrait of what a true servant of God should look like. This passage provides a framework by which to evaluate the authenticity of ministries and ministers, distinguishing the God-authenticated from the counterfeit. In the previous verses (3-6), Paul discussed the spiritual weapons we should use. In this section, he outlines the credentials necessary for employing these weapons properly.
II. Vs. 7-11 Three Marks of Ministry
Vs. 7-11: One of the greatest needs in the body of Christ today is what Luke described in Acts 17:11 concerning the Bereans: they “were of more noble character” because they “received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” Too often, people in the Church are more impressed by a leader’s performance than by the content of their message. The Church could benefit from a healthy dose of spiritual skepticism.
Paul’s advice: “Don’t look at things according to outward appearances!” He proceeds to outline three authenticating marks of Christian ministry:
- He must belong to Christ: While this may seem obvious, Paul emphasizes that one cannot be a servant of Jesus without centering their ministry on Him. Some teachers may talk about “God” but avoid talking about Jesus and His work. Paul’s legitimacy as an apostle rests on his relationship with Jesus, as he affirms that he is “in Christ.”
- Look at the visible results: Paul says, “Even if I boast about our authority, which the Lord gave us…I shall not be ashamed.” How can we tell if someone’s authority is from the Lord? According to Paul, it should be evident through the fruits of their labor. Jesus said in Matthew 7:20, “By their fruits you will know them.” When you observe the lives of those who follow a certain teacher, are they becoming more like Jesus? Are they growing in love, holiness, and freedom? Paul invites scrutiny of his ministry, asserting that his authority was given by the Lord for the purpose of building others up, not tearing them down.
- Examine who is in charge: Paul summarizes this section with the phrase, “within the limits of the sphere which God has appointed us” (vs. 13). If Jesus is truly in charge, the leader will not have a personal agenda but will instead be focused on fulfilling Christ’s mission. Such a leader won’t seek notoriety or be driven by personal ambition. They will go where Jesus guides, be concerned with reaching the unchurched, and boast only in what God is doing, not in their own accomplishments.
III. Vs. 12-18 Four Marks to Tell Who’s in Charge
In addition to the three marks of ministry, Paul provides four specific indicators to discern whether God is truly in charge of a ministry:
- It is not self-commending or boastful: Paul critiques those who compare and commend themselves, saying that such behavior is unwise. Authentic ministry doesn’t rely on self-promotion or exaggerated claims. Instead, it recognizes that it is only God’s commendation that counts.
- It goes where Jesus guides: Authentic ministry is not driven by a desire for fame or personal success. Instead, it follows God’s leading, even if that means going to places that are less glamorous or profitable. Paul’s ministry was characterized by a willingness to go wherever God opened doors, without seeking to build a personal empire.
- Its concern is reaching the unchurched: True ministry is outward-focused, aiming to reach those who are not yet part of the fellowship of believers. Paul was not interested in taking credit for the work of others or in “sheep-stealing” from other ministries. His focus was on reaching new people with the gospel.
- Its boast is only in what God is doing: Authentic ministry doesn’t boast in human achievements but in the work that God is doing. Paul was reluctant to talk about his own accomplishments, focusing instead on what Christ was doing through him.
How do we spot the phonies? They will exhibit the opposite of these authenticating marks. They will be self-impressed, boastful, and more concerned with building their own kingdom than God’s. They may be counterfeit ministers, even if they are genuine Christians. This passage not only helps us evaluate others but also challenges us to examine our own ministries in light of these marks.