³For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, ⁴for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. ⁵We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, ⁶and we are ready to punish all disobedience, whenever your obedience is complete.

Many entry points to understanding sanctification result in various levels of application. In Paul’s letters to the Corinthians he deals with some very basic Christian behaviors, ranging from the mundane (sectarian schisms, jealousy, etc.) to the liturgical (behavior and attire in worship). At times Paul sees the problem as simple behavior modification, requiring various motivational techniques (e.g. seeing the benefits of sacrificial giving). Yet at times he takes us behind the scenes to see the deeper issues. And in our present passage Paul takes us to the unseen internal battle for the mind, using a warfare motif to stress the gravity of the struggle.

While the struggle for spiritual growth at one level is simply a matter of choosing to obey God’s mandates and then doing them, we need to have a deeper understanding of what is really going on spiritually. For if the mind is captivated by “speculations” and “thoughts” contrary to the knowledge of God and the knowledge that comes from God, then we will fail in obeying His mandates. That is because we prefer the self-serving prospects that we imagine rather than what God has revealed to us as His will. In other words, if our minds are not captivated by Christ, then our behavior will not conform to Christ’s ways or likeness. We will be sitting ducks for wrong ways of thinking, and thus fail in our spiritual walk.

There is a spiritual warfare taking place for the control of our minds. The opposition is the world system of fleshly thinking. This can be seen in the secular media, worldly philosophies propagated in the universities, literature, and popular sentiments of our times. Our weapons in the Spirit, though, exceed the power of those assaults on our minds. What are those weapons? The acknowledgment that the world’s thinking is simply “speculation,” human reasoning. The knowledge of God is that which has been revealed to us in His Word. We need to commit every area of our thought life to obeying Him. Paul is tenacious in denouncing the false thinking. He exhorts us to be tenacious with ourselves, to go for 100 percent obedience, giving way to nothing less, bringing “every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.”

Lord, I confess my excuses for entertaining fleshly thoughts instead of bringing everything into obedience to You.