Written by Robert D. Hasler |
Thursday, October 24, 2024
When we understand that spiritual warfare is more than a metaphor–that it is a fundamental feature of reality–it should cause us to rethink what values we want to cultivate within ourselves and in our communities. One such example is grit. Christians in a spiritual war need to be able to take a punch without losing the will to fight. Grit also encompasses the willingness to “rejoice in our sufferings” as Paul says in Romans 5:3. Gritty Christians rejoice in hardship because they know it’s the trials that produce and reveal true character and that God’s grace is sufficient when they fail. 

Imagine you were tasked with preparing for an impending battle. What would be your strategy? What kind of soldiers would you want?
They’re important questions, but not the first question. Before ever considering how you would win or with whom, first you would have to answer this fundamental question, What kind of war am I fighting? How you answer that question informs your answer for everything else.
The first time that I taught The Gospel of Mark, I had my students take out a piece of paper and answer a single question: What is the Gospel?
This being a class of well-catechized teenagers from Reformed families, the answers were fairly predictable. Words like justification and atonement were ubiquitous. Each student had his or her own unique spin, but they all basically boiled down to a singular theme: Christ died on the cross to pay the penalty for my sins so I could have eternal life with him.
Their responses to my prompt were not terribly surprising. In fact, it is a common summary of the Gospel in most evangelical circles today. But, as I did with my class, let’s compare that definition against Jesus’s own words in the early verses of Mark’s Gospel:
“Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel’” (Mark 1:14-15).
Herman Ridderbos once said that the arrival of the kingdom of God is “the central theme of the whole New Testament revelation of God.” Why then does it so rarely get a passing mention in our Gospel presentations? In a word, our hermeneutics. It is so tempting to make our individual selves the central character of the Bible–as if all roads in Scripture culminate in my personal salvation by my personal Savior.
While the ordo salutis and one’s individual justification are important, reading the Bible through such an individualist lens blinds us from appreciating the kingdom of God as the essential biblical theme that it is. In short, it causes us to misunderstand the kind of battle we’re in, and the second-order effects are enormous.
For example, limiting our conception of the Gospel to the forensic declaration of individual justification produces Christians with values and characteristics to match. The “cage-stage Calvinist” comes to mind who is overly bookish, pedantic, and argumentative largely because his hermeneutic requires him to be.
But what if we understood our individual justification as one piece of a story bigger than ourselves? What if we understood it as one battle in a larger war? How might that change our character?
In his book Creation Regained, Al Wolters rightly expands our horizons to see the cosmic scope of the biblical story. From the Old Adam to the New Adam, the Bible describes an epic contest between two regimes, God and Satan, both of whom “lay claim to the whole of creation.”[1]
Read More

Related Posts:

.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd > .kt-row-column-wrap{align-content:start;}:where(.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd > .kt-row-column-wrap) > .wp-block-kadence-column{justify-content:start;}.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd > .kt-row-column-wrap{column-gap:var(–global-kb-gap-md, 2rem);row-gap:var(–global-kb-gap-md, 2rem);padding-top:var(–global-kb-spacing-sm, 1.5rem);padding-bottom:var(–global-kb-spacing-sm, 1.5rem);grid-template-columns:minmax(0, 1fr);}.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd{background-color:#dddddd;}.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd > .kt-row-layout-overlay{opacity:0.30;}@media all and (max-width: 1024px){.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd > .kt-row-column-wrap{grid-template-columns:minmax(0, 1fr);}}@media all and (max-width: 767px){.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd > .kt-row-column-wrap{grid-template-columns:minmax(0, 1fr);}}
.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col,.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col:before{border-top-left-radius:0px;border-top-right-radius:0px;border-bottom-right-radius:0px;border-bottom-left-radius:0px;}.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col{column-gap:var(–global-kb-gap-sm, 1rem);}.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;}.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col > .aligncenter{width:100%;}.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col:before{opacity:0.3;}.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18{position:relative;}@media all and (max-width: 1024px){.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;}}@media all and (max-width: 767px){.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;}}

Subscribe to Free “Top 10 Stories” Email
Get the top 10 stories from The Aquila Report in your inbox every Tuesday morning.

Love for God and His people and the fear of God demand that we flee from idolatry. Paul sums up everything that went before in this discussion about food offered to idols with this one principle: “Do all to the glory of God” (v.10:31). Commitment to God’s glory above my own desires will lead me to follow Paul’s example and lay aside my rights for others. Paul simply followed the example of his Lord, the Suffering Servant, Jesus, and so must we.

Of the billions of people today who worship literal idols, spirits, the dead, and other spiritual powers, many will come to saving faith in Jesus Christ. When they do, they will need to know how to navigate the Christian life as an extreme minority believer under the threat of persecution. Disciples of Jesus need to know how to relate to idolatrous practices all around them.
In 1 Corinthians 8, Paul taught us that the love of Christ for other believers should motivate us to have nothing to do with idolatry and food offered to idols. In chapter 9, Paul uses himself as an example of love in laying aside our rights and preferences for the sake of the Gospel. He showed us that it takes focused purpose and self-discipline to maintain the servant love required to influence people for Christ.
Now in chapter 10, Paul continues his explanation of how believers are to relate to idolatry all around them.
The Danger of Idolatry
Israel was not careful about idolatry and thus fell away from God. When we read the Old Testament, we see that most of the people of Israel in the wilderness (and nearly every generation thereafter) fell into idolatry and demon worship. Even with seeing numerous miracles that illustrated plainly that Jehovah was the One True God, experiencing supernatural acts of judgment against their sin, and hearing the many strong warnings from God about idolatry and its consequences, they still turned to idolatry.
Paul urges us to take Israel’s failure seriously and “not desire evil as they did”[1] (v.6). Idolatry proved to be Israel’s downfall. Idolatry and spirit worship usually encourage sexual immorality, so we see the connection between the two in both the Old and New Testaments. This was true of idolatry in Corinth as well. False worship elevates ritual and religiosity and degrades God’s true standard of righteousness. Worship degenerates into obtaining our goals and desires and avoiding tragedy.
God’s Promise
Following this warning, God gives us a promise through Paul that He will never allow us to be tempted above what we can endure by His grace. We always have a way to escape temptation:
“No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (v.13).
Remember, this promise is given specifically to believers who have come out of idolatry and demon worship, encouraging them that they can stay true to Christ.
Flee!
An accurate understanding about idolatry’s futility does not make us invulnerable to it.
Read More
Related Posts:

When it comes to the local church, a confession of faith serves as a transparent advertisement as to where the church stands on important theological matters and can be extremely helpful for potential new members in the community. When people are looking for a church home, it’s important to define the church’s position on key issues of the faith and a robust theological confession can do this with a great deal of precision. A confession communicates to the community: “Here is where we stand!”

For centuries, God’s people have been using creeds and confessions in order to identify where they stand on critical issues of the faith. We can likewise see confessions in Scripture. We find in the Scriptures forms of early church confessions of faith. For instance, in Paul’s words to Timothy, we find an example of this in 1 Timothy 3:16:
Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness:
 He was manifested in the flesh,
vindicated by the Spirit,
seen by angels,
proclaimed among the nations,
believed on in the world,
taken up in glory.
As was common in the early church, they organized the confession and arranged it into a hymn to be sung in worship. Yet, like all theologically sound hymns of the faith, the song is more than a superficial song. It’s a concise theological confession of truth about God and to be confessed for his glory.
Through the years, some groups have created intentionally broad confessions of faith in order to keep the line of divisions to a minimum and to maintain a big tent approach to their associations. Yet, in doing so, it’s almost inevitable that the group or denomination at some point takes a leftward turn due to a lack of theological conviction.
Still others err by rejecting the spirit of confessionalism by claiming “No Creed but Christ.” This group fails to see this is a creedal statement (yet very shallow), and they too find themselves with no anchor in swift cultural waters that eventually sweep them away.
Confessions and creeds, while not bulletproof, can be extremely beneficial when used properly in the life of a Christian home, denomination, or organization.
Fortress Wall for Protection
If you’ve ever had the privilege to visit a castle, the fortress wall can be quite impressive. The purpose of the fortress wall with it’s robust width and impressive height is to serve as a frontline defense strategy against enemies. There are always other weapons on the inside of the castle, but the fortress wall serves as a first line of defense against those who might come along and try to overtake the castle. The reason why many castles around the world today are merely partially standing buildings surrounded by piles of rocks is indicative of the fact that their wall was weak and the enemy prevailed.
In a similar way, a theological confession serves that same purpose as it provides a frontline defense against heretical statements, ideologies, and agendas that often plague God’s people. Flowing out of the Reformation are different streams where we have different confessions. Historically, we see the Augsburg Confession, Belgic Confession, Westminster Confession, and the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith to name a few. Alongside the confessions, church history has provided us with important theological statements that respond to theological error. We can point to the Apostles Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed as examples. In addition to creeds and confessions, we likewise have the catechisms that provide more light and clarity on theological distinctions and definitions.
When it comes to the gospel or doctrines like the Trinity which is at the very heart of Christianity, almost everyone agrees that confessions function as a defense against cultural attacks that seek to pervert the teachings of Scripture. However, as we have witnessed through the years, there are many entry points into the church where heresy can arise and lead people astray.
Read More