This is a text that uses language which is a little alarming. And for people who consider Christianity a religion of peace, it is. Of course Christianity is a religion of peace in a certain way. The gospel proclaims that our sins can be forgiven and we can have peace with God through faith in Jesus Christ. Peace with God is real peace. Then of course, knowing that the God of the universe is for us and works for our good through every trial, should give us peace. And of course, when Jesus returns, he will usher in His Kingdom in its fullness which is a Kingdom of peace. 

But in this age, we are in conflict. And it is a conflict of worldviews. In fact, one way to describe the tremendous days of turmoil and revolution we live in is a massive clash of worldviews. A worldview is the way you view the world. It is the spectacles through which you view everything. Everybody has one. 

And as Christians, it is important that we develop a worldview that is distinctively Christian and biblical. And here’s why. We live in a world that is run through with anti-Christian, pagan assumptions. And if we aren’t careful, we can adopt ideas that are hostile to the Christian faith. Not only that, but we are called - this passage does so explicitly - to join the fight.

BIG IDEA: We are in a war of worldviews and the goal is to take the divinely powerful weapons God has given us and exert and expand his Kingdom. 

Let's look at five principles for developing or deepening a Christian worldview

Five Principles of a Biblical Worldview

Principle One: We are at war

We need to know we are at war. We need to arm ourselves with this thinking so we faithfully engage in this war. We need the Lord’s help with this (if you lived on Pearl Harbor on 12/7/1941 - obvious, but…) What we feel in our society right now is a clash of worldviews. And it makes sense. Our text tells us that we are at war. It speaks of waging war, weapons, warfare, destroying things, taking captive. It may seem more acute now than at times in the past, but this war has been raging ever since the serpent deceived Eve, and she and Adam ate the fruit. Remember what God said to the serpent. 

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. (Genesis 3:15)

God set the terms of this war. Enmity between the woman’s seed and the serpent’s seed. The woman’s seed, of course, is ultimately Christ, but it also includes all who are united to Christ - which includes us (Romans 16:20).  The bible is full of the language of antithesis of opposites - help us understand what this war is about: light and darkness, truth and lies, good and evil, right and wrong, children of God and the children of the devil. 

From our text, it is clear that this war is fundamentally an ideological war. A war of ideas. Paul says we destroy strongholds, and then he describes these strongholds / fortresses are:

We destroy arguments, and every lofty opinion raised up against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.” 

The strongholds that need to be destroyed are ideologies, philosophies, false religions, speculations, and so forth. It’s opposing worldviews that need to be dismantled. John MacArthur comments regarding this text: “Our battle is with the false ideologies men and demons propagate in order to get the world to believe them.” So it’s ideas. That might seem harmless. But, ideas have consequences. 

Take for instance, the idea of Marxism. It’s a godless worldview that had grievous consequences to the tune of 100 million deaths in the 20th century. What about the philosophy of Nazism. What about the philosophy that a woman ought to be free to choose whether to terminate the life of the baby in her womb or not. That’s been pretty destructive - over 60 million babies aborted in America. What about secular humanism, the godless ideology so rampant in our culture, responsible for all manner of confusion, at the root of which is the complete autonomy of man to decide and be and do whatever he wants. We are in a war; it’s a war of ideas; and ideas have consequences. 

Principle Two: Jesus Christ is Lord

Take every thought captive to obey Christ… 

The objective is obedience to Christ. And not just some obedience to Christ, but total obedience. Universal obedience to Christ. Take every thought captive to obey Christ. He is Lord. Upon his resurrection, he said to his disciples, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me…”. So Christ’s authority and lordship is not just over the spiritual realm, heaven, but also earth. And why? Because he rose from the dead bodily, and is now seated at the Father’s right hand. 

It was the incarnation and bodily resurrection that informed Abraham Kuyper who famously said, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!”

Which is why the most fundamental Christian confession is “Jesus is Lord” (Romans 10:9). Confession means more than just uttering the words. It’s more than opening our mouths and reading a teleprompter. The word confess means “to say the same as”. In other words when we confess Jesus is Lord, we are saying the same thing that God has already said. And for you and I we are also saying the same thing that Christians have been saying for 2000 years. Jesus is Lord. But when we confess Jesus as Lord it has real, flesh and bone implications. 

Confessing Christ’s Lordship is all about allegiance. Bowing the knee; bowing the heart. When we truly confess “Jesus is Lord”, we will seek to bring our entire minds - all of our lives - under submission to Christ. We will seek to live our lives under the Lordship of Christ in every area of life. And we will want to bring his lordship to bear wherever we can. This is one thing that drove Hudson Taylor to want to give his life to be a missionary in the inland of China. He said the following: “How few of the Lord’s people have practically recognized the truth that Christ is either Lord of all or is not Lord at all?”

At the end of the day, resistance to Christ’s Lordship really is futile. The reality is that ultimately every person will bow the knee and confess the lordship of Christ. (Philippians 2:9-11). If we would have a robust and biblical worldview, we must confess Jesus as Lord of lords. 

Principle Three: The Truth Is Our Weapon

This text says that our weapons are mighty; they have divine power to destroy strongholds. And again, these strongholds are ideas, lofty opinions, arguments, ideologies, philosophies that are “raised up against the knowledge of God”. That’s the key. It’s not American values or traditional values that concern us - it is the knowledge of God! What kind of weapon can demolish those kinds of strongholds? It’s obvious - TRUTH!

These ideologies obscure the knowledge of God, they deny the knowledge of the true God, they push lies about God. The only thing that can combat these lies is the truth! Notice from our text that this warfare is offensive. We are going on the offensive to tear down strongholds. We destroy arguments. And we do this with the truth. We must be armed with the truth. Now, it is kind of a fanciful thing that people say when they say we must not be so zealous against error and false ideologies so much as we are zealous for the truth. But I agree with JC Ryle who said something like, “He who is not zealous against error, is not likely to be zealous for the truth.” 

As Paul enumerates the different pieces of the full armor of God, the only offensive weapon is “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:17). We need to arm ourselves with truth in order to pull down and demolish fortresses of lies and deception. We need to sharpen our sword, because this is the weapon God has given us and it has divine power. 

You never want to go into battle without your sword; the sword of the Spirit. This is the weapon of our warfare that has divine power. The Lord wants to place this razor-sharp sword in your hands; he wants you to be armed with the Sword of the Spirit.

Principle Four: There is NO Neutrality

Because we are in a war. Because Christ is Lord and King over everything. Because our weapon is essentially truth that hacks away at error and false ideologies, there can be no neutral ground. Why is it that we must take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ? Because no thought is neutral. No worldview is neutral. No argument is neutral. No lofty opinion is neutral. Neutrality is a myth. Francis Schaeffer said as much:

There is a sad myth going around today - the myth of neutrality. According to this myth, the secular world gives every point of view an equal chance to be heard. And it works fairly well - unless you are a Christian. 

We really need to understand this. We need to start seeing things as black and white, right and wrong, truth and error. Too many live almost entirely in the so-called gray area. I think those who oppose God’s truth understand this better than we do. There is no neutral ground. Jesus said you are either with him or against him. You are either gathering to him or scattering from him (Matthew 12:30). 

Our society is dominated by anti-Christian, pagan assumptions, things we often take for granted and just assume they are right or at least harmless. But if every thought is to be taken captive to obey Christ, because they are either for or against him, and if believed they either cause us to gather to him or scatter from him, we need to refuse to concede to the myth of neutrality. 

Let me give you an example. To say men and women are equal sounds good. And of course, men and women are equal in dignity and worth before God. Men and women are both image bearers of God and equal heirs of the grace of life, amen! But they are not equal in every respect. And to say they are is not Christian. They are not the same. The differences go further than just biology. It goes further than just reproductive body parts. The way that the differences between male and female have been flattened out has done great harm in our society.  This transgendered insanity we find ourselves in didn’t happen out of nowhere. We gasp when a supreme court nominee confesses she does not know what a woman is. But how long have we said that men and women are basically the same? How long have we diminished the beauty of femininity and womanhood; the goodness of masculinity and true, godly manhood? 

How long have girls been told that they can do anything a boy can? No they can’t. And that’s good! It’s part of God’s good design. God designed girls and women to be girls and women, not boys and men. We need to take every thought captive to obey Christ. There is no neutrality. 

Principle Five: Start Swinging Your Sword

The weapon of truth is powerful. In fact, it has divine power. To do what? Destroy. Strongholds. Destroy these ideological fortresses that enslave people. And to take thoughts captive. But a sword in its sheath doesn’t destroy anything. It needs to be taken out; it needs to be taken out and swung. We need to swing the sword of truth and hack away at foolish, godless philosophies. The word of God needs to be unleashed. We need to swing our swords. The expectation is that when the weapon of the word is unleashed, it will pull down strongholds. 

In Acts 6:7 and 12:24 there is this phrase that says, “And the word of God increased and multiplied”. In other words, the marvelous work of the Spirit in spreading the gospel, destroying hostile and foreign ideologies was described as the “word of God increasing and multiplying”. The word of God went about conquering. But the disciples had to take the sword of the word out and swing it. So do we. M. Luther:

I simply taught, preached, wrote God's Word: otherwise I did nothing. And then, while I slept or drank Wittenberg beer with my Philip of Amsdorf the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that never a prince or emperor did such damage to it. I did nothing: the Word did it all. Had I wanted to start trouble, I could have started such a little game at Worms that even the emperor wouldn't have been safe. But what good would that have done? I did nothing: I left it to the Word."

Brothers and sisters, what we hold in our hands is a mighty weapon. The very word of God - by which God spoke the universe into existence, by which he called you from death to life, from the darkness and superstition to the light of truth and sound thinking - is to be taken up in your hands and wielded as a weapon with divine power to destroy strongholds. 

We have to see clearly. We are in a clash of worldviews and need to see things from the lens of scripture. We are in a war. Christ is Lord. The Truth is our weapon. There is no neutrality. So take up your sword and start swinging. 

So let’s get started

1. Strongholds need to be destroyed in us… 

The thrust of this text is that we are given mighty weapons to pull down strongholds that others are caught in. But let’s face it, we may have blind spots too. We need to submit our thoughts, ideas, viewpoints, philosophies, and so forth to God and say, “Father, please let your Spirit and word destroy ideas, thoughts, viewpoints in me that are contrary to your truth.” 

If you humbly do this, with an open bible and an open heart, God will do it. He may show us directly through the word or through someone else. And sometimes, whether we ask for it or not. 

2. We are to be part of setting other people free. 

Fortresses need to be ransacked that keep people blind from the knowledge of God, their sin, the sufficiency of Christ, and how they can be saved. Young Mormon man. People are all around us living in delusional beliefs. Let’s go to battle on their behalf.

3. We need vigilance to pass down a biblical worldview to our children

Deuteronomy 6:4 (and following). Those who oppose God’s truth have always wanted to start indoctrinating children in a foreign worldview. They want your children… and mine. And we cannot let them have them. We must culture them in a thoroughly Christian, biblical worldview - starting right where we are.