Destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ… 

(2 Corinthians 10:5) 

The word translated ‘thought’ is νόημα (noéma) derived from the verb noiéō which is from noús mind, so we get the product of the mind, thought, and the activity ‘thinking’; however, the suffix -ma is suggestive of the final product, and a fuller translation is therefore ‘purpose’ or ‘design’.  [Indeed, Oswald Chambers in his devotional reading for 9^th September in ‘My Utmost for His Highest’ takes noéma to be ‘project’.]

There is a marked change of tone in chapter ten of Paul’s second letter that suggests it was added in reaction to specific reports that reached him in Ephesus.  It seems the Corinthian church was beset with a new threat, that of Jews who wished to infiltrate the communion of largely pagan converts.  Jewish opposition, even persecution was not new, indeed as the zealous Saul of Tarsus, he formally led it before becoming the subject of it himself.  Luke records events when Paul was based in Corinth:

… when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews made a united attack on Paul and brought him before the tribunal,saying, ‘this man is persuading people to worship God contrary to the law.’  (Acts of the Apostles 18:12-13) 

Gallio, the brother of the Stoic philosopher Seneca, gave this very short shrift and cut across Paul’s well-prepared defence:

But when Paul was about to open his mouth, Gallio said to the Jews, ‘if it were a matter of wrongdoing or vicious crime, O Jews, I would have reason to accept your complaint.   But since it is a matter of questions about words and names and your own law, see to it yourselves. I refuse to be a judge of these things.’  (Ibid 18:14-15)

Paul had previously received Godly assurance in night-time vision that, unlike say his stay in Ephesus, his eighteen-month in Corinth would be protected (ibid 18:9-10).  And this was just as well because Paul had already given up on the Jews:

Paul was… testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus. And when they opposed and reviled him, he shook out his garments and said to them, ‘your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.’ (Ibid 18:5-6)

Echoing the words Pilate spoke over the Jews baying for Jesus’ crucifixion, (Matthew 27:25) the Jews tried to enlist Roman law to halt Paul, just as they had successfully managed in Jerusalem with Jesus.  But Gallio, from the senatorial class, was literally a class above Pilate as proconsul, and his outright rejection and dismissal led to the leader of the Corinthian synagogue, Sosthenes, being beaten not the apostle (Acts 18:17).

The Jews changed tack, and instead of attacking Paul himself, they waited until he left Corinth and began to attack the Gospel using ‘lofty opinion’ that Jesus was not the Messiah (or Christ).  With eloquence and undoubted (and definitely superior) knowledge of the Scriptures (i.e., the Old Testament) they began to dissuade the former pagans of their new-found faith.  

Many pagans had been very open to the Jewish God of the Hebrew Scriptures and it is telling that across Asia, Macedonia and Achaia (Greece), he began witness in each town and city on the Sabbath at the synagogue, if there was one.  And here he encountered both Jew and Gentile, for instance in Iconium, where he and Barnabas…

… entered together into the Jewish synagogue and spoke in such a way that a great number of both Jews and Greeks believed… (Ibid 14:1-2)

And met the same opposition… 

… but the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. (Ibid 14:3)

The divisions the Jews hoped to promulgate amongst the Greeks was to doubt the legitimacy of claim to be their Messiah, prompting Paul to write:

I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.  (2 Corinthians 11:3-4)

These then is the result of the ‘thought’ noéma, being entertained, ‘a different gospel’.  And in citing the Fall, he deliberately goes to the original author of alternative narrative, the serpent who first plants doubt then supplies a lie:

“Did God actually say, ‘you shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” 

And the woman said to the serpent, “we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden,but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” 

But the serpent said to the woman, “you will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”  (Genesis 3:1b-5)

Every alternative to God’s word is a rejection of the true gospel for another, and is the ‘design’ of a creature, not the Word of the Creator.  The Fall may have been fuelled by desire, but the act came was the product of thought.   This is why when Jesus begins his ministry his first command ‘repent’ (Matthew 4:17) and the word comes to us in Greek as μετανοέω metanoéo from meta ‘change after being with’ and noiéō ‘think’; ‘repent’ means to reconsider.  Whatever the hope, all begins with how any think.  In what or whom any have faith, is the product of thought, and the Gospel of Christ will be assailed by the world and that faith tested, which is why every Christian has to continue to take every alternative to God’s Word captive, and reject them from their minds in order to obey Jesus’ command to repent.