Taking Every Thought Captive

2 Corinthians chapter 10. We're going to start

2 Corinthians 10 · chapter mention

with verse 1. We're going to read kind of a big

little section right here. And then we'll pray

and we'll talk about it. So 2 Corinthians chapter

2 Corinthians 10:1

10 verse 1. Now I, Paul, make a personal appeal

to you by the gentleness and graciousness of

Christ. I, who am humble among you in person,

but bold toward you when absent, I beg that when

I am present, I will not need to be bold with

the confidence by which I plan to challenge certain

people who think we are behaving in an unspiritual

way. For though we live in the body, we do not

wage war in an unspiritual way. Since the weapons

of our warfare are not worldly, but are powerful

through God for the demolition of strongholds.

We demolish arguments and every high -minded

thing that is raised up against the knowledge

of God, taking every thought captive to obey

Christ. And we are ready to punish any disobedience

once your obedience has been confirmed. Look

at what is obvious. If anyone is confident that

he belongs to Christ, He should remind himself

of this. Just as he belongs to Christ, so do

we. For if I boast some more about our authority,

which the Lord gave us for building you up and

not for tearing you down, I am not ashamed. I

don't want to seem as though I'm trying to terrify

you with my letters. For it is said, his letters

are weighty and powerful, but his physical presence

is weak. And his public speaking is despicable.

Such a person should consider this. What we are

in the words of our letters when absent, we will

be in action when present. Let's pray. God, we

come to you. We thank you for these good words.

I pray that we would focus on them, that we would

think about them. That maybe there's something

in here that we can use to apply to our own life,

dear Lord. That maybe we could learn through

what Paul is going through and the things that

have come up in his life and the way that he

handles things, dear Lord, the way that he serves

you. So I pray, God, that you would just help

me to be able to preach and teach in these next

few minutes in a way that's going to bring all

the focus to your word. Let your Holy Spirit

speak to us. And I ask these things in Jesus'

name. Amen. Now, a little refresher of what we

saw really throughout the book, but in the beginning,

and this kind of thread's kind of continued to

be woven along through the book, and that is

it appears as though people are questioning Paul.

They're questioning maybe his motives. They're

questioning his authority. They're questioning

his power, and they're being tempted to turn

to other teachers, other teachers who are not

teaching them well. They're not teaching them

right. And so Paul had already written 1 Corinthians,

and it is believed by many scholars that Paul

might have written a couple of other letters

that we don't have. But we know some of the things

that he addressed in 1 Corinthians. And here

in 2 Corinthians, he's continuing to address

some of the problems, but really he's offering

up a defense for himself. And that's not so that

Paul can say, hey, you need to follow me and

not them, or I'm better than them. I mean, certainly

he does say that. but not in a proud sense, more

in a sense of concern for the people of Corinth.

That, hey, there's these other teachers that

are coming, and they're teaching you other things.

They're presenting to you other thoughts to ponder,

and don't think on these things they're telling

you, and don't give in to these practices and

these other things. It's not a competition between

Paul and these other people, but Paul is concerned

for the people of Corinth, that they won't be

led astray. And so here we see when we get to

chapter 10 that he's kind of defending himself

again. And he says, now I, Paul, make a personal

appeal to you by the gentleness and graciousness

of Christ. Okay, so how does Paul deal with the

Corinthians when he's among them? Well, we saw

as we read through this passage that there is

a certain gentleness and graciousness that Paul

shows when he is present. among the Corinthians.

Now, we already saw earlier in the book that

he does not want to come in and be forceful with

them. Even though there are some things that

they're doing and the way that they're acting,

he doesn't want to come in and be strong. He

wants them to see what's going on, to realize

the error of their ways, to straighten up, to

not be led astray, so that he doesn't have to

really address these situations in a powerful

way. But he realizes that that may be a possibility.

Now, he has dealt gently with them when he's

with them, but there appears to be a difference

between what he writes and the way he acts. Now,

when he wrote to them in 1 Corinthians, you can

go back and read it, boy, he's pretty strong

there on some things. He's pretty stern on some

things. He writes to them. He writes to them

with boldness so that when he's in person, he

doesn't have to act boldly. So he's trying to

give them an opportunity to turn and to do what's

right. But some have questioned Paul. They've

questioned the way that he speaks and things

that he says. We see that in verse 10. For it

is said, his letters are weighty and powerful.

but his physical presence is weak and his public

speaking is despicable. Now, those quotation

marks are there in the text. He's quoting something

that was being said among the people of Corinth,

okay? So when they read his letters, they were

like, wow, this guy's, man, he's got some authority.

He's really, he's writing some strong and some

bold and some stern stuff. And then Paul comes

onto the scene, but what do they say about him

when he shows up? That's him? Well, he's just

a weak guy. He's not a good speaker. His speech

is despicable. His public speaking is despicable,

it says. And so when they saw him in appearance,

they kind of began to question what he was saying.

Even though they believed it when he wrote it,

they weren't ready to listen to him when he came.

And part of that was because, man, he wrote with

a lot of strength. But then when he... shows

up on the scene, it says that he shows up with

some graciousness and some gentleness. And sadly

in life, we want to be gracious and we want to

be gentle, but sometimes we have to be stern.

And that's a fine line to walk. And Paul was

trying to walk that line. He was trying to give

these people every opportunity possible to do

what's right. He didn't just come in guns a -blazing,

and maybe that's something we can take from this.

There's a way to handle situations, and Paul

gives us a good example of how to handle situations.

He didn't just fly off the handle from the get

-go. He didn't come in like a tyrant from the

get -go and just says, okay, I see what y 'all

are doing wrong. I'm getting on a ship. He just

showed up over there, and he started just tearing

everybody up. That's not what he did. He wrote

a strongly worded letter, and sadly, they didn't

pay attention to it. But he acknowledges in these

verses that, look, If I have to come to you,

I might come to you with the same boldness as

in these letters, and that's not what I want

to do. And so they saw this gentleness that he

showed. They saw this graciousness that he showed,

and they didn't take him serious. But Paul says,

look, you better take me serious. I don't want

to be this way. I don't want to act this way.

What I want more than anything is for you guys

to live in obedience. I'm trying to hold off.

He says in verse 6, and we are ready to punish

any disobedience once your obedience has been

confirmed. I think what he's saying there is,

look, we're holding off because we want you to

be obedient so that we don't have to punish any

disobedience. But he also acknowledged in this

passage that he has some apostolic authority.

Okay, God has called me to serve in this way,

and I'm trying to be gracious to you, but there

comes a time when I'm going to have to put my

foot down. And he says something great that we

need to consider at the end of verse 4. He had

talked about there, you know, even though we're

fleshly, even though we live in the flesh and

we're in the fleshly world, like our battle's

not really. really a battle against flesh and

blood. It's a spiritual battle, and some had

accused him of being unspiritual, or another

way to say that, they had accused him of being

fleshly in the things he was doing. But Paul

says, no, wait a minute. Our power comes from

God. Our power comes from God, and we are serving

God, and we are trying to be obedient to God.

And at the end of verse 4, he says, based on

this power that comes through God, he says, but

our power... Let's see. Since the weapons of

our warfare are not worldly but are powerful

through God for the demolition of strongholds.

Okay. Well, that's good that God has the power

to release people from strongholds because we

probably all have some strongholds that we wish

we could break free from. Maybe it's sweets.

Maybe it's something more serious. Maybe it's...

alcohol, maybe it's drugs, maybe it's a bad attitude,

maybe it's laziness, maybe it's gluttony. I mean,

whatever it is, we all have these strongholds

in our life and we're like, golly, I know this

isn't good for me and I shouldn't act this way

or I shouldn't do this thing, but man, this stronghold's

got a hold of me. Well, praise the Lord. Paul

shows us here that God has the power. to free

us from our strongholds. And then what does he

say? That power is also used to demolish arguments

and every high -minded thing that is raised up

against the knowledge of God. Okay, so people

are coming at Paul. There's always arguments

against the word of God, against Christianity,

against Jesus. We still see that in our world

today. But what does Paul say? The power of God

gives us strength. to be able to battle against

these things, to demolish these arguments that

come up, that we're going to stand on the Lord,

on the Word of God, on Jesus Christ, and there's

great power in that, and there's nothing else

in the world that can stand up to the power of

God that comes against the knowledge of God,

he says. And then at the end of verse 7 here,

he says, taking every thought captive to obey

Christ. Paul says, all right, we take every thought

captive. So there's a lot of thoughts that go

through our mind. And the question that we have

to consider is, do we take every thought captive

or do our thoughts take us captive? When we begin

to thinking about things, are we captivated by

those things so much so that... that the thought

and the idea and the thing that's on our mind

kind of controls us, and that's what we focus

on, and that's what we desire. Do our thoughts

take us captive, or do we take our thoughts captive?

Well, Paul says, hey, look, I got the power of

God here, the power to take every thought captive.

And that's what I think he wants his audience

to do. Because there's all these other teachings

that are going on that may be, you know, opposed

to what Paul says or differ in some way from

what Paul says. And he said, hey, you don't need

to be thinking on those things. You don't need

to be dwelling on those things. You need to take

what I've taught you about Jesus Christ, about

the word of God, about the power of Christ. And

you need to know that, look. These things don't

have a stronghold over you, and you don't need

to let your thoughts take you captive, but you

need to say, look, I'm going to think about the

things of God. I'm going to take my thoughts

captive, not vice versa. And what does he say?

Taking every thought captive to obey Christ.

Okay, so what are our thoughts on? Are our thoughts

on doing the things of the world? And when those

other thoughts come into our mind, we say, nope,

I'm going to push that out. I'm not going to

let that have the final say. I'm going to focus

on Jesus Christ. Or when those thoughts pop into

our mind, do we just kind of let them take over?

We start thinking about things of the world,

things that we want, things that we want to do.

We start thinking about people that we're angry

at. Man, you let something like that, that thought,

it creeps us away in. And if you don't take it

captive instantly, man, it starts working its

way into your mind, and pretty soon you just

work up and you get so angry or you just get

so focused on something that it just completely

takes you away from hearing what God's trying

to say or the way that God's trying to lead you.

So Paul says, hey, look, we need to be those

who take every thought captive. And he tells

his audience, look, you may say these things

about me, but I'm trying to be patient with you.

And that's exactly what God does to his people

throughout the scripture. God is patient, not

wanting any to pass away, not wanting any to

be destroyed, but all to come to repentance.

God is patient with us just as Paul was patient

with these people and are we patient with those

that we encounter. Maybe there's a time for gentleness

and patience in our life, but... There may also

be a time that we have to exercise some boldness.

How do we know when to do that? Well, we have

to pray a lot about it. We don't want to be one

that's quick to jump on somebody about something.

There are some times that we need to be bolder

than we are, and there are some times that we

don't need to be as bold as we've been. And so

I can't tell you when that is, but the Holy Spirit

can lead you in that way. If we pray and say,

okay, God, help me to know how to act and when

to act. what to say and what not to say, when

to say it and when not to say it. We want to

be compassionate. We want to be gracious, just

as Paul was. But Paul also knew, well, you can't

let these things go on forever. You can't let

these bad habits and these bad things continue

to take place because, man, once these bad teachings

and these bad thoughts entered the people, he's

fighting for their attention now. And he says,

look, you need to trust in the Lord and take

every thought captive. And that advice is good

for you and I still today. Let's pray. God, we

come to you. We thank you for these words. I

pray God that you would help us to exercise that

same graciousness and gentleness in our lives

that Paul exhibits here. I pray God that you

help us to know when we need to be bold, if we

need to be bold, dear Lord. Perhaps there are

times that we need to be a little firmer than

we are. God, I pray that you just guide us and

help us to know what to do in those times and

when to do it. I pray, God, that you would help

us with our thoughts. They continually run through

our mind, a million of them a day. But don't

let our thoughts get control of us and slow us

down and sidetrack us. God, help us to know that,

God, we don't have to give in to our thoughts

and our strongholds, but through Jesus Christ,

we have freedom. So I pray, dear Lord, that you

would help us to take our thoughts captive, to

think about how we're going to live our life,

to think about the decisions we make. Are they

going to be for your kingdom or are they just

for us? Are they pulling us away from you or

are they drawing us closer toward you, dear Lord?

So help us to take our thoughts captive as they

come before us, dear Lord, the temptations and

the distractions of the enemy that we would not

give in to those, but that we would stand firm.

In Jesus Christ. And I ask these things in Jesus

name. Amen.