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STRONGHOLD

For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.  (2 Corinthians 10:3-6)

Paul identifies ‘strongholds’ – the Greek is ὀχύρωμα ochuróma, literally ‘fortress’ –  which means conceptually and in context, ‘a place of refuge from reality’; in other words, Paul is speaking about inner desires, wishes, dreams and fantasies, alongside any other idolatrous and rebellious notions to which the follower of Christ may cleave.  These are inner and personal fastnesses that resist the Holy Spirit, and he says that the individual is to seek them out in themselves and tear them down.  

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SHREWD

‘I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore, be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.’  (Matthew 10:16 NIV)

This is Jesus’ advice to the twelve disciples as he dispatches them on their solo mission across Galilee, it may be obvious they go as sheep before wolves, in that people will vilify them; and in bringing the gospel of love and, in that vulnerability, they must necessarily be as ‘innocents’, unjudgmental, prepared to trust and risk rejection or worse, but what does Jesus mean when he says the must be as shrewd as snakes?

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ETERNITY

God has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.  (Ecclesiastes 3:11b)

The Bible affirms that human beings are eternal creatures.  Mortality was simply a mechanism of grace, for without mortal life the first infraction would doom to hell.  Solomon, granted all earthly wisdom, says self-knowledge of eternity is hard-wired into our very nature.

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UNFORGIVABLE (SIN)

‘Everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.’  (Luke 12:10)

The Greek word for the verb translated ‘forgiven’ is ἀφίημι aphiémi, from apó ‘away from’ and hiémi ‘send away, release or discharge’.  In this the verb directly mirrors the English word which comes from the Anglo-Saxon forgiefan, a combination of the prefix for ‘away’ and giefan ‘to give’.  For God to forgive then denotes the process where he relinquishes or ‘gives away’ His right to punish those that wrong him.  

Jesus declares…

‘Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man…’  (Mark 3:28a)

The Apostle Paul knew that his crimes against God were grave, yet he tells his pupil…

The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.  (1 Timothy 1:15)

And when he says ‘save’, he means save from rightful punishment.  The Gospel of Christ declares the guilty go unpunished, while the punishment is borne by God the Father’s guiltless Son, thus the just God is propitiated.  But Jesus also says that not that all punishment can be waived.  

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PILATE

So, when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, ‘I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.’

And all the people answered, ‘his blood be on us and on our children!’ 

Then he released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, delivered him to be crucified.  (Matthew 27:24-26)

The Gospel merely calls the prefect (or governor) of Judaea by the cognomen ‘Pilate’; in Greek, Πιλᾶτος (Pilatos), transliterated from the Latin pilatus, which means skilled with the pilum, the military spear of the Roman Army.

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AUTHORITY

And the devil took (Jesus) up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, ‘to you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will.  If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.’  (Luke 4:5-7)

‘Authority’ is ἐξουσία exousia and it means licensed power, the right to act, to have charge of, or dominion over.

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RELIGION

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.  (James 1:27)

The word translated ‘religion’, is θρησκεία (thréskeia) and while the underlying sense is reverence, its usage conveys worship as expressed in ritual acts.  And it is in the context of action that James exhorts his brethren to be ‘doers of the word’, adding, ‘a doer who acts…will be blessed in his doing’.

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SANCTIFICATION

 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil.  They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.  And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.  (John 17:15-19)

In his final, extended prayer for his disciples, Jesus asks his Heavenly Father to sanctify them.  The complexity of this prayer is revealed by understanding that ‘sanctify’ translates the Greek verb ἁγιάζω (hagiazó), which means ‘to make holy’ but also has the plainer meaning ‘to set apart’.

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SHAME

God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are,so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.  (1 Corinthians 1:27-29)

Shaming is a process of belittlement and Paul tells us that how God uses it for his good purpose.  The Greek word here is καταισχύνω (kataishuno) meaning to disgrace, confound or dishonour.

But it is equally important to note why God would do such a thing, which stems from the desire to bring all to repentance and through faith to restore hope.

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