|
Every
Thought Captive |
|
A Pocket Paper Robert J.
Morgan When I was a teenager, a fad swept through our little town and all over the country. Everyone had to have a citizen’s band radio in his or her cars. My dad really got into the CB craze, and he had one in every car and truck that we owned. And everyone had to have a certain name that he used when he talked over it. And much of your conversation was in numerical code. You’d ask someone, “What’s your 10-20?” and that meant, “Where are you?” Well, the most common number was 10-4, and it was usually followed by the words, “Good Buddy.” I don’t know how many times I heard my father adjust the squelch knob on his CB, listen to someone say something from a passing car, and his reply was, “10-4, Good Buddy.” It meant, “Roger that. A-OK.” Up in Well, today I want to teach you a new code. It’s 10-5. And 10-5 has a different message. It means, “Take every thought captive to the obedience of Jesus Christ.” That’s the message of 2 Corinthians 10:5, and I’ve given you this introduction to help you remember the reference. Today I’d like to talk about having a 10-5 mind. Let’s read that verse together: We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God and we take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ. Biblical Background The most important thing about us is our thinking, our minds. Marcus Aurelius wrote, “The most important things in life are the thoughts you choose to think.” Or, as Ralph Waldo Emerson put it, “A man is what he thinks about all day long.” Or as the Bible puts, “As a man thinketh in his heart so is he” (Proverbs 23:7). Our thoughts make us what we are. And the Bible teaches that when we come to Jesus Christ, a great change takes place in the area of our minds and of our thinking. Romans 12:1 says, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing, and perfect will.” This is very important to us, because every temptation comes to us via our thoughts. Well, we’re coming to that classic text today in 2 Corinthians that talks about taking every thought captive to the obedience of Jesus Christ. It’s a wonderful concept, but what does it really mean within the context of this epistle and within the context of this book of 2 Corinthians? Let’s begin reading with 2 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 1: By the meekness and
gentleness of Christ, I appeal to you—I, Paul, who am
“timid” when face to face with you, but “bold” when
away! I beg you that when I come
I may not have to be as bold as I expect to be toward some people who think
that we live by the standards of this world. For though we live in the world, we do
not wage war as the world does.
The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine
powers to demolish strongholds.
We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against
the knowledge of God and we take captive every thought and make it obedient
to Christ. And we will be ready
to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete. Chapter 10 marks a very important transition and division in this book, and to really understand it I think we have to go all the way back to 1 Corinthians 1 and get the whole picture. There are some things that Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1 and 2 that correspond exactly to what he is saying here in chapter 10 of 2 Corinthians. Here’s the background. When Paul established the church at For the message of
the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being
saved, it is the power of God.
For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the
intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this
age? Has not God made foolish the
wisdom of the world? For since in
the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know Him, God was
pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who
believe. Jews demand a miraculous
signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but to those whom God has called, both Jews
and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God…. He continued in chapter 2: When I came to you,
brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to
you the testimony about God. For
I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him
crucified. I came to you in
weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not
with wise and persuasive words, but in demonstration of the Spirit’s
power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on
God’s power. Now, in 2 Corinthians 10, the apostle Paul is still beating the same drum. I want to just walk through this chapter with you and show you what he is saying. Let’s go back to 2 Corinthians 10, verse 1: By the meekness and
gentleness of Christ, I appeal to you—I, Paul, who am
“timid” when face to face with you, but “bold” when
away! Notice that in the NIV the words timid and bold are in quotation marks. Paul was aware of what these so-called super-apostles were saying. “Oh, his letters seem impressive, but what a disappointment he is face-to-face,” they were telling the people. Well, Paul said, “This is me speaking—the one accused of being bold in my letters and timid in person. I beg you that when
I come I may not have to be as bold as I expect to be toward some people who
think that we live by the standards of this world. By standards of this world, Paul is referring to the criticisms coming from these so-called super-apostles. He seemed to be saying something like this: “They don’t accept me as being sent with the authority of Christ. They think my message is just some worldly wisdom that I developed.” He went on: For though we live
in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the
weapons of the world. What are the weapons of this world—the things he mentioned in 1 Corinthians 1—oratory, human reasoning, human philosophy, persuasive presentations based on human resourcefulness. On the contrary,
(the weapons we fight with) have divine powers to demolish strongholds. Wheat weapons are those? The ones he mentioned in 1 Corinthians 1—the power of the cross, the simplicity of the Gospel, the power of Christ and Him crucified. With that simple message, what do we do? We demolish
arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of
God and we take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ. And we will be ready to punish every
act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete. In other words, the apostle said something like this: I will come to Look at verse 8:
For even if I boast somewhat
freely about the authority the Lord gave us for building you up rather than
pulling you down, I will not be ashamed of it. I do not want to seem to be trying to
frighten you with my letters. For some say, “His
letters are weighty and forceful, but in person is unimpressive and
his speaking amounts to nothing.”
Such people should realize that what we are in our letters when we are
absent, we will be in our actions when we are present. And go on to chapter 11, verses 2ff: I am jealous for you
with a godly jealousy. I promised
you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin
to Him. But I am afraid that just
as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds… –
Notice that word again: minds. Paul was concerned about their
minds, their thoughts, their philosophy, their theology, their intellect,
their doctrine, their beliefs, their thinking—I am afraid that your minds might somehow be led astray from your
sincere and pure devotion to Christ.
For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus
we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you accepted,
you put up with it easily enough.
But I do not think I am in the least inferior to those
“super-apostles.” I
may not be a trained speaker, but I do have knowledge. And down in verse 13ff: For
such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of
Christ. And no wonder, for Satan
himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his
servants masquerade as servants of righteousness. He was saying, “These false teachers seem so sincere and so pious, and they may seem like super-apostles with hidden wisdom, great oratorical abilities, and impressive credentials. But they are evil, erring men masquerading as apostles of Christ, peddling a false Gospel. And when I come I will confront false doctrine in the church and I will take every teaching and bring it into the captivity of the message of Jesus Christ. So in summary, here in chapter 10, Paul is saying, “I may seem meek and I may seem mild, but I will not put up with false doctrine in the church. I will wage war for the pure doctrine of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and my weapons are not eloquence or oratory. I have one weapon and one weapon only—the preaching of the cross, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles, but to us who are being saved, it is the very power of God. And with this message of Christ Crucified, I intend to take every teaching and every thought in the church and make it captive to the cross of Jesus Christ. Every theology and every philosophy and every lesson must correspond with and yield to the centrality of the cross of Jesus Christ. When Paul says that every thought should be captive to Christ, that’s what he means. He’s speaking theologically and intellectually. He’s talking about the doctrine of the church. And that message has never been more needed than it is today. Personal Application For our purposes this morning, there are two areas of personal application here. The first comes from the main emphasis of the text—we must have sound theology and sound teaching. Our thinking must be based on the foundation of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. But there’s a secondary application, which is this: Just as we make sure that our thinking conforms to the message of Christ and Him crucified, so we have to take every thought in our brains and all the thought patterns of our minds and bring these under the shadow of the cross and make sure that all our thoughts are captive to obedience to Lord Jesus Christ. As I said earlier, all the temptations we face come to us via our thoughts. We think about lying before we do it. We think about adultery before we do it. We think about secret sins and lustful behavior before we commit it. We think covetous thoughts before we make that unwise purchase. We think those angry thoughts before we say those angry words. There is a wonderful story in a book entitled The Autobiography of Martin Luther King,
Jr., which was based on Dr. King’s speeches and writings. On one occasion he told of growing up
in
And he did. Our bodies and our lives always end up where our minds are. A few months ago I delivered a Sunday morning message about the perils of pornography, and it’s very easy to have a pornographic brain. Or it’s easy to have a brain that thinks depressed thoughts all the time. It’s easy to have a greedy, materialistic mind. All our temptations and sins come to us via our brains. So how do we take every thought and make them captive to Christ? I have four important prescriptions. Starve First, you have to starve your mind. The temptations and sins inside your brain thrive on what you feed them, and if you cut off their food supply, they’ll begin to gradually wither up. I know a man who, when he checks into the hotel on business trips, asks that they disconnect the television because he doesn’t want to be tempted. A lot of the trouble you’re having with your thought life would clear up if you’d stop feeding your sin with salacious materials. Feed Second, feed your mind. Find Bible verses to memorize and start pushing out the wrong thoughts with the right ones. Choose some verses having to do with the mind and with the thoughts, and commit them to memory. Isaiah 26:3-4 says, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee.” Romans 12:1-2, which I’ve already referred to, tells us to yield our bodies as living sacrifices and to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Philippians 2:5 says, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” Romans 8 says, “Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace.” There’s tremendous power in memorizing these verses and meditating on them; and whenever tempting thoughts float through your brain, train yourself to refuse them by quoting Scripture to them. That’s the way Jesus defeated Satan in Matthew 4, and you can do the same. Starve the bad thoughts and feed the good ones. The biography of Geoffery Bull, the British missionary to Tibet who was captured and imprisoned by Chinese Communists, tells of how his captors took Bull's possessions from him, threw him in a series of prisons, robbed him of his Bible, made him suffer terribly at their hands for three years. In addition to extreme temperatures and miserable physical conditions, coupled with bodily abuse and near starvation, Bull was subjected to such mental and psychological torture that he feared he would go insane. He had no Bible now,
but he had studied the Bible all his life. So he began to systematically go over
the Scriptures in his mind. He
found it took him about six months to go all the way through the Bible
mentally. He started at Genesis,
and recalled each incident and story as best he could, first concentrating on
the content and then musing on certain points, seeking light in prayer. He continued through the Old
Testament, reconstructing the books and chapters as best he could, then into
the New Testament and on to Revelation.
Then he started over again.
He later wrote, “The strength received through this meditation
was, I believe, a vital factor in bringing me through, kept by the faith to
the very end.” (Geoffrey T.
Bull, When Iron Gates Yield ( So many people have IPod’s now, and I want to encourage you to find biblical lectures and sermons and download them. Instead of listening to some of the music or talk radio that usually blares from the car radio, listen to scripture and sermons and Bible lectures. (Check out the podcasts on our www.donelson.org website.) Feed your mind. Take Control Third, take control of this area of your life. I had a letter recently from a man in Illinois who told me that after he got out of the service he spent a great deal of his time driving tour buses for various groups. As a result, he said, he was often on the road driving through the night. Everyone else was asleep, and he couldn’t listen to the radio and he had no one to talk to; and he was tempted during his long hours at the wheel to fantasize and think lustful thoughts. But, he said, I developed a plan. It had three parts. For the first third of my time, I forced my mind to meditate on Scripture passages that I had read or learned or studied or memorized. The middle portion of the time was spent in prayer and I took my time in bringing to the Lord every item of praise and prayer that I had on my heart. The last third of the time was in quietly singing to myself the great hymns of the faith. I found that when I followed this pattern, the devil never had a chance with my thoughts. Report In It’s important for most of us to report in, to have someone with him we can be honest about areas in which we need accountability. I’ve spoken about that recently, and I think most of us realize that this is often a very helpful tool. We live in a twisted world of temptation; and Christians are being bombarded from every direction. The Lord Jesus wants control of our minds. He wants us to be pure of mind. He wants us to be renewed in our minds. He wants every thought captive to Him. Starve, feed, take control, and report in. Keep a healthy, positive, clean mind. And let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, for Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee. Copyright StatementWe grant permission for any edition of The Pocket Paper to be photocopied for use in a local congregation or classroom, provided no more than 1,000 copies are made, the material is distributed free, and the copies include the notice: "Copyright (year) The Donelson Fellowship."For any other use, advance permission must be obtained from The Donelson Fellowship church office. |
[ Return to Top | Pocket Papers index | TDF Home Page | send email to: office@donelson.org ]