2 Corinthians, chapter 10

I love Paul’s powerful preaching here in 2 Corinthians 10. In this chapter Paul stands firm that the message of Christ is not one that is meek. It is bold. It is changing. It breaks down barriers and forces us to confront the truth that Christ is ruler of all. One of the constants in Paul’s wide-ranging ministry is that he was never ashamed of the gospel. Wherever he went, he preached it boldly in the face of incredible opposition. His life is an example of how we should look to live our lives because the message is infinitely more important than ourselves.

4The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. – 2 Corinthians 10:4-5

This is forceful. This shows that there is absolutely nothing that can stand in the way of the power of God. We are told that in the end, every knee shall bow. Because of that, knowing God has the power to take every thought captive and make it obedient is a small thing. The only thing that gets in the way of this truth is our own narrow-mindedness.

I guess this is also where free will comes into play. It is obvious to me that the gospel is unchanging, forceful, and erodes our spirits to its course like a river erodes its path. Because of free will, however, people can miss the message entirely simply by choice. We have to have our minds open to change if we are going to accept the knowledge of God. Once we accept it though, it is not a trickle. It is a firehose of love and change that washes away all our previous misconceptions.