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THE ARENA OF BATTLE (I)
FRIDAY, APRIL 3
Jude 3
2 Corinthians 10:3-5
 
“… though we walk in the flesh,
we do not war after the flesh …”
 
THE ARENA OF BATTLE (I)
 
The form of the battle, to which Christians are called, is described in verse 3: “earnestly contend for the faith.” Jude, writing out of sincere love for the brethren (“beloved”), giving all diligence to write unto them something truly beneficial, identified this as the particular need of the church: not so much that they should be reminded of the truth of the doctrines of the common salvation, but that they should be exhorted to defend those true doctrines against error and falsehood.
 
The arena of battle, therefore, is not a physical one. God forbid that Christians should ever engage in physical violence in the name of Christ! Jesus Himself taught against this, see, for example, John 18:36. No, Christ and His truth are not to be defended by physical conflict; ours is a spiritual battle: a conflict of truth against error. This is described by the apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5. We are set against “imaginations,” against false and prideful “knowledge,” doing battle in the arena of “thought.”
 
We live in a time where truth is under attack as never before. Postmodernism has chipped away at the very idea of truth; the advent of the internet, and now social media, has flooded us with a deluge of information, much of it false or misleading. More than ever, then, Christians must take seriously the concept and the question of truth. We must not easily be blown about by gossip and rumour, or the latest fashion in philosophy. We must oppose the modern portrayal of truth as something fluid, subjective, and changeable. We must resist the pessimism of this post-truth age, where it seems that nothing can really be trusted.
 
Instead, Christians must recognize that we have an infallible, objective standard and source of truth ‒ a “faith” (referring here not to the act of believing but to the thing believed) that comes to us as a written revelation from God. It is this truth that we are called to proclaim; not merely as a proposition to be intellectually accepted, but as a standard to be observed and practised in life (cf. Matt 28:20a). It is this truth against which we are to measure all that we hear (cf. Acts 17:11). It is for this truth we are called “to earnestly contend” (Jude 3).
 
THOUGHT: “… the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32).
PRAYER: Lord, help me to be a lover and a defender of Thy truth.

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