Dr. Kevin DeYoung | Every Thought Captive

our heavenly father we ask now that you would speak to us through your word help us to think carefully upon it that you would challenge us you would encourage us you would exhort us and we might learn from you in jesus name amen i want to direct our thoughts this evening very briefly to second corinthians chapter 10. so please turn in your bible or on your device or wherever you are at home to second corinthians chapter 10. in the book of second corinthians paul is frequently having to defend himself and his apostolic ministry and though he doesn't want to and at times he says i'm out of my mind to talk this way on the one hand he wants to let his ministry stand for itself and he isn't there to try to prove a point and yet at other times he finds the need not for his own reputation but ultimately for the establishment of the gospel ministry that he must say something in defense of himself and when we come to chapter 10 paul is taking a bit of a turn from the previous chapters and he is seeking to defend his ministry in the face of many accusations the heart of the accusation is this that the corinthians are impressed with these so-called super apostles who seem to have great presence and gravitas about them they're dynamic and paul they think is rather full of bravado in his letters but when they meet him face to face he seems to be much less than they were hoping for and so paul is going to say something about the way in which he conducts himself about the way in which he fights the fight of faith and tucked in here in a verse or two are some exhortations that have everything to do with how we ought to think about christian education whether that's christian education in the church in the home or in particular in our own school covenant day school or perhaps at another christian school or if you send your kids to another private school or a public school and when we lived in michigan we uh did all three of those and sent our kids to public school for the last five years before we came here and you are seeking to educate your children christianly and compliment and come alongside the school knowing that public schools are restrained in what they can do however you have chosen to educate your children it is incumbent upon all of us that we would be interested in this business of christian education in particular as we think about our own school so i want to read to you just to give you the context we'll start at verse 1. i paul myself entreats you by the meekness and gentleness of christ he's using those words intentionally there because they've accused him of being sort of a mousy character in person i who am humble when face to face with you but bold toward you when i am away that's their chastisement of him i beg of you that when i am present i may not have to show boldness with such confidence as i count on showing against some who suspect us of walking according to the flesh for though we walk in the flesh we are not waging war according to the flesh for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds we destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of god and take every thought captive to obey christ being ready to punish every disobedience when your obedience is complete here's what i want to do briefly is explain these verses and then offer very quickly four exhortations for us and for our school based on these verses paul lays out three steps in his battle plan have you noticed before how verses four five and six mapped on perfectly with the strategy in the ancient world to conquer a people what do you do first when you are attacking a people or a citadel well you destroy strongholds their fortresses their defenses we see that in verse four and verse five and what do you do after you destroy the stronghold well you take captives the end of verse five and after you have torn down the defenses you've taken captives then verse 6 you are ready to punish rebels destroy strongholds take prisoners punish rebels step one in paul's defense and in the laying out of his apostolic ministry he says is to destroy strongholds now the bible uses this military sort of language some people they find it offensive but it's right here we can't avoid it this is a term for defended fortifications and of course paul is using it as an analogy he's not talking about physical combat that's what he says here we are fighting warfare not according to the flesh he's not talking about demonic stronghold some christians use that language but quite clearly he tells us what he means by strongholds in verse 4 when we come to verse 5 we destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of god so part of spiritual warfare for paul is breaking through the objections that people raise in opposition to christ the world may fight with force and arms or manipulation or deception paul says we do not fight with coercion but with persuasion coercion but persuasion we are going to destroy arguments strongholds and then we take prisoners again not literal prisoners but once you tear down those arguments and those opinions you then take every thought captive so he's using again this military imagery and not to tie up physical flesh and blood human beings but once we have torn down those arguments and those opinions then we are as it were tying up those thoughts to make them captive to christ so the key is not only to tear down defenses or to create plausibility structures or remove obstacles to faith in christ but to take those thoughts captive that means we are eager to think our thoughts after god it means starting with god in his revelation rather than ourselves it means that we always test whatever conclusions we may reach from philosophy or the natural sciences or from literature we believe that there is much to be learned from the world of common grace and we test all of those things against what we see in special revelation about god god is not a nice addendum to our life but rather every thought is to be held captive to him destroy strongholds take prisoners punish rebels you see that in verse six this is a difficult verse to interpret what does it mean being ready to punish every disobedience when your obedience is complete well surely paul is not saying i'm going to punish you corinthians after you're obedient it doesn't make sense once you obey that's when i really crack the whip now part of their objection to paul is that they don't think he's been strong enough and they don't think that he's done enough to sort of protect them so i think what paul means is this i will punish those who oppose me i will confront those guilty of sin don't worry i will take care of the false apostles but you need to show me that you are willing to do the right thing you think i'm weak and powerless well don't worry i will discipline those who stand against the truth but only after you stand against them yourself so prove to me that you are on the side of christ in the gospel and then i will come and i will punish those who are not that's what paul is saying when you rouse yourselves to show that you are as passionate about these things as as you want me to be then yes i will exercise discipline as i'm called to do destroy strongholds take prisoners punish rebels what might this mean for us as we think about christian education in the church in the home and in our very own school very quickly number one our approach to education ought to have an apologetic function that is especially as kids get into middle school and high school especially juniors and seniors we ought to be giving the best arguments that are out there against a biblical worldview of course as a christian school we don't just leave them there to tear down but then to build back up it ought to be that if our children are going to go off to elite secular universities and encounter objections to christianity there that they would say you know what in my christian school in my church i've i've encountered all these things i knew that these objections were out there it's not going to be at the same level you have to understand where children are at and their aptitude and their learning but part of christian education is giving not just the right conclusions but providing the right arguments to get to those conclusions so it isn't just enough to say as bible christian people here's what we believe about sex and marriage here's what we believe about abortion here's what why we believe racism is a sin you can't just give the right conclusions you need to show the arguments that have led to those conclusions so our education ought to have an apologetic function second our approach to education should aim to destroy arguments not people there ought to be a striking difference between the way we approach education and the way discourse so-called happens online it was spurgeon who said that the minister ought to deal with soft words and hard arguments and isn't it the case that most people today have just the opposite they have very hard harsh words and actually very soft arguments and so contrary to popular opinion we in the church hold forth the importance of reason it has been throughout history often the church and sometimes no one else who has been willing to say we believe in the proper role of reason the instrumental role not the foundational role reason is important we see it in the scriptures for two years paul reasoned daily in the lecture hall of taranis he reasoned with felix and drusilla he pleaded with festus quote i am speaking true and rational words the truth of the bible will at times be beyond rational comprehension you can't fully unders understand or articulate the mystery of the divine and human natures of christ or of the godhead three in one but the truths of the bible are never nonsensical they are beyond reason but they are never contrary to reason they are never irrational our approach to education should deal with the best arguments and reasons third our approach to education must do more than put christianity as a sort of piety on top it should build our ideas on christian doctrine from the bottom up we must always be pressing back to first things to first principles refusing to let alien categories set the terms of the debate and this can often happen and it happens on both the left and the right christian education may adopt the conclusions of the world and look for a few verses on top of it rather than doing the hard work of going all the way down read widely think deeply slow down learn the from the best of the christian tradition i can tell you that these these are the the values and the aims and the goals of covenant day school and and i would hope and presume that many of the other christian schools in our area we want to do more than just have the same kind of education environment plus a chapel or the same education plus the teachers pray we want to do more than that we want to build from the bottom up from the the richest understanding of the bible the best of our christian tradition and then see how that applies and helps us then through that lens read everything else and then finally our approach to education should be about more than thinking christianly it must be about obeying christ james k a smith who i don't always agree with a professor at calvin but has written i think perceptively uh something of a a a critique against some of the the worldview thinking that can dominate christian educational institutions uh i still believe in christian worldview thinking but his basic argument goes like this all of us are formed by habits we're formed by liturgies whether formal worship liturgies or the the liturgies of sporting events or sort of habits of the heart that are formed and shaped by the media we consume his point is that our spiritual formation is not always as intellectual and academic as we would like to think that if i just get the right worldview planks everything else follows and so while i don't always agree with his assessment i think he is certainly right about that that we are formed not just by you get the 10 right doctrines in place and you'll be a mature christian but we're formed by the sort of habits the patterns the rhythms the ways in which our parents in our church and our school make things look normal to us and so the goal of christian education is not simply to come out to be able to correctly answer a doctrinal test but to come out ready to obey christ isn't that what paul says take every thought captive not just to get your ideas right but verse five to obey christ not just the checking of boxes or the ticking off of certain ideas but to cultivate habits of intellectual formation habits of the heart that we want students as they graduate to say my parents my church my schooling has equipped me intellectually and inspired me affectionately to love jesus more and to obey him more completely i think this ties in so well with the passage from this morning about the nazarenes who were those from nazareth who were so familiar with jesus that they did not believe in him the goal in christian education whether in the home or school or church is not just have people who have had a lifelong familiarity with jesus there is such a danger that people would have just an inoculation a little bit of jesus and not the real thing no the goal must be the prayer must be the curriculum the aim must be that students would leave graduate more amazed with jesus more committed to jesus more passionate about jesus more eager to think their thoughts after jesus take every thought captive to obey christ well we will have time to pray and let's do that now as we turn heavenly father we thank you for your word and we pray that you would work it deep into our hearts as we turn now fully in the remainder of this service to praying through song and to be led in prayer remind us that we are not simply listening to men come to a pulpit and say something with their eyes closed but we are called to join with them in our hearts and that through jesus you father listen to us and you are eager to respond and act on our behalf when we pray in faith so hear us we ask in jesus name amen

Channel: Christ Covenant Church

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Keywords: Christ Covenant Church, Bible, Sermon, Kevin DeYoung

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Length: 18min 14sec (1094 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 24 2020