Spiritual warfare: Resist temptation!

Plainly and simply, spiritual warfare is resisting evil. Evil in our own lives, evil in our families and church, evil in the world.

Now yeah, some Christians only describe it as fighting evil. And mostly they imagine fighting some evil spirit, if not Satan itself. The devil and its imps are trying to destroy the world, so they’re fighting back! They’re praying really, really hard for the devil to get defeated, and bound in unbreakable chains. In some cases they’ll pray directly to the devil: “I bind you, Satan; I order you into the pit.” I’m not sure they understand only Jesus puts Satan in the pit. For that matter I’m not sure they understand spiritual warfare in general.

Y’see, back in the 1980s, author Frank Peretti wrote some novels about an unseen cosmic battle taking place between the good and evil spirits, which used humans as their proxies. (Much like the Greek gods manipulated humans in Homer’s Iliad.) From the humans’ point of view, there was a culture war going on between good Christians and evil pagans. From the spirits’ view, they were fighting in the skies with sabers and scimitars. And somehow prayer made the angels’ swords mightier. And that’s why we gotta pray. Our prayers are like the charging cable for our angels’ lightsabers!

In real life? No. Dumb. But the novels really struck a nerve with the fleshly, fightin’ part of culture warriors, and to this day you’re gonna find some the language from Peretti’s novels mixed in with the speech of “prayer warriors.” Doesn’t matter that none of this is biblical. They’ve heard this myth so long, and heard other Christians quote it as if it’s wholly true, so they’re convinced it’s totally biblical.

But again: Spiritual warfare is about us resisting evil. And to do that effectively, we gotta be humble before God. We gotta recognize there’s no way we can defeat evil without him. He’s gotta empower us to resist. He, not our prayers, does it.

James 4.7-10 KWL

7So be submitted to God;

stand against the devil, and it’ll run away from you.

8Come near to God

and he’ll come near to you.

Sinners, cleanse your hands!

Those on the fence, sanctify your minds.

9Recognize your misery, mourn, and weep.

Change your laughter into sorrow

and joy into shame:

10Be humble before the Master

and he’ll lift you up.

But of course the Frank Peretti novels indicate the only human activity in spiritual warfare consists of evildoers unknowingly following the evil spirits, or saints praying. So “spiritual warriors” are gonna insist they have been spiritually battling—with all the weepy, loud praying they do, which knocks down strongholds and takes ground for God. (“Takes ground” when the novels only describe spirits fighting in the skies. What ground. Meh; whatever.)

In reality God wins the battle against evil in the End, with or without us. But of course he’d much rather have us on his side, and not get consumed by all the evil, and destroyed. So I recommend doing as James said: Come near to God, clean your hands and minds, stop laughing off these things as if they’re nothing to worry about, and acknowledge Jesus is right and we are not.

Stop assuming prayer is warfare, worship is warfare, going through the motions of devout religiosity is warfare. None of those things are. Jesus and his apostles never describe ’em as such. Because they’re not.

Submitting to Jesus and resisting temptation: That’s warfare.

The scriptures’ purpose. [2Ti 3.15-17]

2 Timothy 3.15-17 KJV

15And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. 16All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: 17that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.

Most of the time, when Christians memorize this passage, they only memorize verse 16, the bit about scripture being inspired, and profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness. They might also memorize verse 17, which says this’ll prep us for good works. But seldom do they include verse 15, which is a huge mistake.

I’ve heard more than one preacher pitch the question, “What’s the scriptures for?” and then launch into 2 Timothy 3.16: It’s for doctrine! And reproof!—or as the New International Version puts it, rebuking!—and man alive do they love to rebuke this evil, evil world and all its sins, and throw proof texts at this world as if our pagan world is somehow gonna be convicted by sayings from a book it considers massively out of date. Never you mind that Paul wrote this passage to Timothy, a Christian, and that it’s about us Christians rebuking ourselves for our own selfish behavior, and reminding us to follow Jesus for once.

It’s for correction! It’s for instruction in righteousness! And again—it’s for Christians to self-correct; it’s for Christians to work on being on being righteous, although a better translation of δικαιοσύνῃ would be justice. It’s not about us being good, although we absolutely should be good, and the scriptures do teach us the difference between good and evil, and push us towards goodness. It’s about doing the right thing to God and others, and being fair-minded and equitable in a cruel world which upholds social Darwinism and worships Mammon.

But these preachers skip verse 15 altogether, and completely miss Paul telling Timothy, plain as day, what the scriptures did for him. They made Timothy “wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” 1Ti 3.15 KJV. The scriptures taught him how to be saved.

And that is what the scriptures are for. What the bible is for. Doctrine, rebuke, correction, and justice, make very little sense, and have very little lasting impact, when they’re not in the context of how God saves us and adopts us as his children, and is making his temple and an everlasting kingdom out of us.

Doctrine is for us Christians—because pagans aren’t gonna follow it! Rebuke is for us Christians—because pagans dismiss it. Correction is for us Christians—because pagans don’t think they’re wrong and need correction, and unfortunately way too many Christians believe the very same thing. And training in justice is for us Christians, because pagans think justice is about putting criminals in prison, executing rapists and murderers… and giving free passes to the wealthy and famous because somehow these qualities are rewards for them being better and smarter people, and again, that’s just social Darwinism talking. God taught us better than that, but social Darwinists have convinced many a Christian that perhaps we, just by being Christian, are also some of those better and smarter people, and maybe we deserve some free passes too. Maybe we should get to take over the country or something. “If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine,” Lk 3.7 promises Mammon, and Christians who can’t tell the difference between it and Jesus are perfectly happy to bend the knee. ’Cause they might know their bible verses, but they’re missing the context.

But I digress. We learn this stuff from the scriptures, and practice it, because we’re a saved people. Because Jesus called us forth from our cruel world, forgave us, showers us with infinite blessings, and makes a new nation out of us; a nation that’s marked by the good works he wants us to do for others. We don’t do those good works just because the bible says; we do it because we’re sharing those blessings. And if those whom we’ve helped bless, wanna know how to likewise be saved… well if you’ve memorized verse 15, you know that’s why we have the scriptures in the first place.

Getting hungry for God. Literally.

FAST fast verb. Go without food [for God].

2. noun. A period of going without food [for God].

Whenever I talk to people about fasting, their knee-jerk reaction is “No food? No food? No FOOD? You’re outa your [profane adjective] mind.” After all, this is the United States, where a 20-ounce soda is called a “small.” In this nation, the stomach rules.

This is why so many Christians are quick to redefine the word “fast.” Fr’instance the last several churches I’ve been a part of, have annually done a 21-day “Daniel fast,” which I described elsewhere. It’s not a literal fast; nobody’s going without food. They’re only depriving themselves of certain kinds of food, depending on who writes up the Daniel fast’s menu. Usually no meat or sweets. But no hunger pains either.

Fasting, actual fasting, is a hardcore Christian practice. The only things which go into our mouths are air and water. In an “absolute fast” you even skip the water. Now, we need food and water. If we don’t eat, we die. And that’s the point: Push this practice too far and we die—but God is more important than our lives. That’s the declaration we make when we fast: Our lives aren’t as important as God.

Why would we do such a thing? For the same reason Jesus did it, when he went to the desert for the devil to tempt him. Mt 4.1-2, Lk 4.1-2 Fasting makes people spiritually tough. It amplifies our prayer and meditation by a significant factor, which is why it’s a common prayer practice. When we deprive our physical parts, and shift our focus to the spiritual parts, those parts get exercised; they get stronger.

We reject our culture, which teaches us we should never deprive ourselves of anything. We recognize God, not food, is our source of life. Our minds get better attuned to God’s will. We hear him better, because our bodies physically feel our need for him. We detect spiritual things faster. We discern the difference between good and evil better.

Yeah, fasting does all that. That is, when we’re praying as well as fasting. If you’re fasting but not praying, it’s time wasted.

Don’t get me wrong. Other forms of self-deprivation have the same effects. Dieting for God, or going without certain beloved things and hobbies, because God’s more important than any of our desires, can also achieve the same things as fasting. Just not as quickly; not as intensely. The stakes simply aren’t as high. Fasting is hardcore, remember? Going without bacon, as hard as that might be for you personally, isn’t life-threatening. (In fact it’s better for your health.) But though a small thing, it’s still a sacrifice, and part of the proper mindset: “God is more important than my palate.”

The One Sheep in a Hundred Story.

Matthew 18.10-14.

This particular story is often called the Lost Sheep Story, which makes it really easy to mix up with the Lost Sheep and Lost Coin Story which Jesus tells in Luke 15. It’s mighty similar: A shepherd has 100 sheep, one gets lost, and the shepherd leaves the 99 behind to find the one.

But too often when people tell the story, they skip its context. Because they’re focused on telling the parts which parallel with Luke 15; they only wanna talk about the shepherd finding the lost sheep. And then they wanna talk about evangelism, or about how Jesus loves us so much he’s willing to ditch all the other Christians and go after the lost, and how we gotta be willing to ditch all our Christian sisters and brothers and focus solely on missions.

It misses the whole point of the parable. What is the point of the parable? Duh, the context. Jesus told this story for a reason, and if you ditch his reason because you’ve got your own reasons for telling this story, you’re not preaching his gospel; you’re preaching your own.

So I’m gonna share this story, in context, so you can see for yourself what Jesus means by it. Beginning, not at verse 12 like they preach it, but verse 10.

Matthew 18.10-14 KWL

10“See to it you² don’t dismiss

even one of these little ones.

For I tell you² their heavenly angels

see the face of my heavenly Father

all the time.

11{For the Son of Man comes

to save those who are being destroyed.}

12“What do you² think?

When a certain person comes to have 100 sheep,

and one of them might wander off,

won’t he leave the 99 in the hills,

and go seek the wanderer?

13And when he happens to find it,

amen!—I promise you, he rejoices over it

more than the 99 who didn’t wander off.

14Likewise it’s not the will of your² heavenly Father

that one of these little ones be destroyed.”

Brackets around verse 11 are to remind you the Textus Receptus added this verse to the bible. Jesus legitimately says it in Luke 19.10, and St. John Chrysostom, when he taught on this passage in the late 300s, quoted it… so starting in the 700s, the copyists of various Matthew manuscripts decided to tuck it inbetween verses 10 and 12. That’s how it got into the Vulgate, the Textus, and the KJV.

The Luke parallel to this story isn’t about little ones—by which Jesus means children—being dismissed, overlooked, corrupted, or destroyed. It’s about how Pharisees objected to Jesus dining with taxmen and sinners. Jesus used this story to tell them his Father also cares about taxmen; that they’re lost, and the Father wants ’em found. But here, Jesus tells the story for a different purpose: He doesn’t want us to dismiss children, and permit them to go astray. We’re to lead ’em to Jesus and raise them to follow him. If they later go astray and apostate, it absolutely shouldn’t be because we pushed ’em thataway. It usually is, though.

Epiphany: When Jesus was revealed to the world.

Today, 6 January, is Epiphany, the day which celebrates how Jesus was revealed to the world.

True, the Christmas stories depict Jesus’s revealing when he got born, on Christmas Day. (Which was not 25 December. That date was set because it’s 12 days before Epiphany; not, as pagans claim, because we swiped the winter solstice holiday from Saturn. As I keep reminding folks, we stole our holidays from Jews, not pagans.) Jesus gets foretold by Gabriel and Elizabeth and whatever angel appeared to his dad in a dream, but to the rest of humanity, there are the angels who appear to the sheep-herders, there’s the two prophets who identify him after his circumcision, and a few years later the magi.

But in the Roman culture, you were revealed to the world at your adoption. That’s where your dad—whether biological or adopted—formally declared you his child. Joseph did that when he gave Jesus his name, but the Romans would do it when you reached adulthood, and Jesus’s heavenly Father definitely did that at his baptism. John the baptist described it thisaway:

John 1.29-36 The Message

29The very next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and yelled out, 30“Here he is, God’s Passover Lamb! He forgives the sins of the world! This is the man I’ve been talking about, ‘the One who comes after me but is really ahead of me.’ 31I knew nothing about who he was—only this: that my task has been to get Israel ready to recognize him as the God-Revealer. That is why I came here baptizing with water, giving you a good bath and scrubbing sins from your life so you can get a fresh start with God.”

32John clinched his witness with this: “I watched the Spirit, like a dove flying down out of the sky, making himself at home in him. 33I repeat, I know nothing about him except this: The One who authorized me to baptize with water told me, ‘The One on whom you see the Spirit come down and stay, this One will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ 34That’s exactly what I saw happen, and I’m telling you, there’s no question about it: This is the Son of God.”

35The next day John was back at his post with two disciples, who were watching. 36He looked up, saw Jesus walking nearby, and said, “Here he is, God’s Passover Lamb.”

Ancient Christians began in the third century to celebrate Jesus’s baptism in January. Why January? Two theories. One is Jesus’s baptism had to take place during the Jordan River’s flood stage, usually in January. Otherwise there wouldn’t’ve been enough water to immerse him.

The other theory is the ancient churches divided the gospels into a year’s worth of readings. If you begin with Mark, you’ll get to Jesus’s baptism story in the first week of January, so that’s when they’d observe and celebrate Jesus’s baptism. Two major problems with this theory: First, New Year’s Day in the Julian calendar is 25 March. (Yes, that’s a really odd place to put New Year’s Day, but that’s how it was till the Gregorian calendar moved it to 1 January.) Second, why would you begin the yearly gospel readings with Mark instead of Matthew?

Regardless of why, ancient Christians began to celebrate Jesus’s baptism on 6 January. (Eastern churches which still use the old Julian calendar still celebrate it on 6 January, but since they’re out of sync with our calendar, to us they celebrate it on 19 January.) And since they hadn’t created the holiday of Christmas yet, the ancient Christians began celebrating everything having to do with Jesus’s birth and childhood on Epiphany, till they realized it needed its own celebration. Thus the 12 days before Epiphany evolved into the 12 days of Christmas.

Nope, we still don’t know when Jesus was born, or baptized. Does it even matter? We just need a day or two to celebrate. Or 12. And for the longest time Epiphany also lasted several days. Usually eight.

Epiphany also marks the end of Christmastime. Bummer.

Herod uses the scriptures for evil.

Matthew 2.4-6.

Christian myths say there were only three magi who sought the baby Jesus. The scriptures say no such thing. The magi brought three gifts, but Matthew says nothing about how many magi there were. One magus could bring all three himself. Likewise there could’ve been a hundred magi, each of whom could’ve brought a stocking-stuffer sized amount of gold, incense, and myrrh for Jesus. We don’t know.

But the magi, and possibly their entourage, left Jerusalem abuzz—all the more because they were asking about the newborn king of Judea, Mt 2.2 and the current king of Judea was pretty sure he didn’t have any newborn kids or grandkids around. Sounded like treason to him.

It didn’t help that Pharisees, as part of their End Times timeline, claimed a Messiah—one of the titles of the king of Israel—would show up and usher in the age to come. And Messiah would be a descendant of King David ben Jesse… and the last century and a half of Judean kings had not been descendants of David. They were head priests; they were descendants of Aaron ben Amram. As for King Herod, he was an Idumean Edomite; he wasn’t even descended from Israel.

So yeah, he was the wrong person to talk to about some newborn king of Judea. But Herod wasn’t one of those idiots who think they already know it all, and only surrounds himself with toadies who tell him so. He was a crafty old buzzard who knew knowledge is power, and went straight to the priests to learn what was up.

Matthew 2.4-6 KWL

4Assembling all the people’s head priests and scribes,

Herod is asking them where Messiah is born.

5They tell Herod, “In Bethlehem, Judea.

For this was written by the prophet:

6‘And you,¹ Bethlehem,’—land of Judah—

in no way ‘are the least of the chiefs of Judah:

A leader will come from you¹

who will shepherd my people, Israel.’ ” Mc 5.2

Quoting, of course, the prophet Micah of Morešet-Gath. In English-language bibles this is Micah 5.2, but in Hebrew this is verse 1, where the chapter begins. The previous verse ends in the paragraph-marker ס, meaning verse 2 isn’t part of Micah’s previous prophecy; it’s a new vision—a vision of a savior.

Micah 5.2 KWL

You,¹ Bethlehem Efrátah, little among Judah’s clans:

From you¹ will come forth

one who becomes the ruler of Israel.

His origin is of ancient times,

from eternal days.

The scribes left out that last part, ’cause they figured Herod didn’t need to know that part. He kinda did, though. I’ll get to why in the next section. But Herod was only interested in where Messiah might be—so he could go kill him. Mt 2.16 Spoiler, but I’m pretty sure you already know the story by now.

The Daniel fast.

Daniel 1.8-16, 10.2-4.

Every January, the people in my church go on a diet. Most years for three weeks, although individuals might opt to only do this for one. Generally we cut back on the carbohydrates, sugar, meat, and oils; we instead eat lots of fruits and vegetables. Considering all the binging we did between Thanksgiving and Christmas, it makes sense to practice a little more moderation, doesn’t it?

What does this practice have to do with prayer? Well y’see, the people don’t call it a diet. They call it a “Daniel fast.”

It’s an Evangelical practice which has taken off in the past 25 years. It’s loosely based on a few lines from Daniel 10. At the beginning of the Hebrew year, Daniel went three weeks—that’d be 21 days—depriving himself.

Daniel 10.2-3 KWL

2In those days I, Daniel, went into mourning three weeks.

3I ate none of the bread I coveted.

Meat and wine didn’t enter my mouth.

I didn’t oil my hair for all of three weeks.

That’s how the Daniel fast is meant to work. At the beginning of the year—for westerners, either the Gregorian or New Julian calendar—we likewise go three weeks depriving ourselves. Daniel went without bread, meat, wine, and oil; so do we. True, by ס֣וֹךְ לֹא סָ֑כְתִּי/sokh lo-sakhtí, “I oiled myself no oil,” Daniel was referring to how the ancients cleaned their hair. (Perfumed oil conditions it, and keeps bugs away.) But look at the approved foods of your average Daniel fast, and you’ll notice Evangelicals take no chances. Nothing fried, no oils, no butter, nothing tasty.

Though the lists of approved foods aren’t consistent across Evangelicalism. The list below permits quality oils. Including grapeseed… even though Daniel went without wine during his three weeks. Not entirely sure how they came up with their list.

This list permits oils… but no solid fats. ’Cause Daniel denied himself Crisco, y’know. The Daniel Fast

In fact when you look at these menus, you gotta wonder how any of it was extrapolated from Daniel’s experience. I mean, it generally sounds like Daniel was denying himself nice food. And yet there are such things as cookbooks for how to make “Daniel fast” desserts. No I’m not kidding. Cookbooks which say, right on the cover, they’re full of delicious recipes—so even though Daniel kept away from delicious food, who says you have to do likewise?

This is a fast, right?