Dig Deeper:
SUPER POWERS: Christians are not called to live passive lives in which we allow others to push us around, rather we are to fight, albeit in a different way from how the world fights. We've been given weapons that have 'divine power (v4),' and we are to use them to demolish strongholds, arguments and lofty opinions that the world sets against the knowledge of God. You are bombarded by these wicked ideas everytime you turn on your TV or the internet, but yet most Christians just passively let themselves be immersed in these ideas until they've been totally infected and any semblance of Godly values or true knowledge of who God is has been sucked out of their mind. Don't let this happen to you. Discipline yourself to use the powerful intellectual weapons you've been given to fight back.
REBUILD AFTER YOU DEMOLISH: I'm always good at the demolition aspect of a remodel project, but I'm not so good at the work it takes to redo what's been demolished. Once you get the hang of it, it's actually really easy to use our divine weapons to demolish everything in our way- sometimes too easy. But this passage does not give you a license to just unleash Godly righteous indignation on an ungodly world and then walk away from the smoking heap of rubbish, rather after demolishing, you are obligated to rebuild the demolished person or institution by "taking captive every thought and making it obedient to Christ (v5)."
A PERSONALITY MADE FOR WRITING LETTERS: We've seen in these letters to the Corinthians that Paul felt inferior to the other apostles, especially Apollos. In v10, he even refers to himself as being unimpressive and he understands that he's a boring preacher (remember the story back in Acts about the young man who zonked out and fell out the third story window while Paul "preached on and on?"). This is the man God chose to build His Church: a man that was dull and put his audience to sleep. But everyone instantly noticed that "his letters are weighty and forceful (v10)." That's because these letters are inspired by God Himself, and these letters, like the book of 2nd Corinthians which you are reading through now, are the power of God which has the ability to save you from your sin and this corrupt, messed up world. Reading these letters, and all of the other books of the Bible, is what energizes the divine weaponry you've been given, so read them often.
Follow the AAA Prayer Pattern:
ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: The God who will demolish all arguments that set themselves against Him (v4)
ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ (v5).
ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:
