On Fighting Good Fights

You could be forgiven for thinking that Christianity was a mild business. Its founder is called the prince of peace (Isa. 9:6), who famously said “blessed are the peacemakers” (Matt. 5:9), telling the meek they would inherit the earth (Matt. 5:5), and rebuking his followers for pulling swords on Roman centurions (Matt. 26:52). One of his most ardent followers went on to tell us that Christianity is about the preaching of peace to those near and far (Eph. 2:17), that this peace ought to guard our hearts and minds (Phil. 4:7), and that we should live peaceably with all (Rom. 12:18), pursuing quiet lives which stay out of trouble (1Tim. 2:2).

Christianity, it seems, is a gentle affair. The kind that goes down well with a pair of slippers, a pension, and a bathroom extension. Except that it isn’t. Despite all its pleas for gentleness and peace, Christianity seems to have caused an awful lot of trouble in this world. And it wasn’t by accident. It did it on purpose. Simply put: if Christianity really is a religion of peace, the Bible has a funny way of showing it.

Biblical Fight-Talk

It’s true, of course, that the Christian Gospel is a message of peace. It promises peace with God, peace in our hearts, peace toward our neighbours, peace on earth. But when Christians actually try living this message out, it certainly doesn’t look all that peaceful from the outside. The Apostle Paul said, after recalling some of the trouble he got into for preaching it: “all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2Tim. 3:11-12). This Gospel of peace always seems to find trouble, even when its preachers deliberately set out to avoid it. And it’s not like this was a mistake.

How Jesus Talked

The direction of Jesus’ life in itself gives a pretty good indication of what to expect. There’s also the many distinctly less peaceful-sounding statements he made along the way, such as: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Matt. 10:34). Jesus, the ultimate manifestation of peace on earth, knew the kinds of division he would cause. He caused such division not by seeking to divide people, but by offering His peace to a world that really wants something else.

Christianity has caused
an awful lot of trouble in
this world. And it wasn’t
by accident. It did it
on purpose.

Notice how Jesus is entirely unperturbed at using such militant language: “not…to bring peace, but a sword.” It’s the kind of talk that would get him into all kinds of trouble on Twitter today. One can well imagine good Christian organisations taking him to task on grounds of “inappropriate tone”.

And it’s not as though such militant language is a Biblical one-off. Paul outright tells Christians to act like soldiers rather than civilians (2Tim. 2:3-4), to equip themselves with armour and weaponry (Eph. 6:11-17), to “wage the good warfare” (1Tim. 1:18), and “fight the good fight of faith” (1Tim. 6:12).

Going on the Offensive

I preached a sermon during the first COVID-19 lockdown, at a time when far too many churches were saying far too little about far too much. In it, I felt the need to challenge some of the ways we’ve understood the Sermon on the Mount. Although Christians are called to love their enemies and live peaceably with all, this is not an encouragement to sit back and let the world walk all over you. The call to be “salt of the earth” (Matt. 5:13) is far punchier than Christians usually let on.

One way Christians are called to love their enemies is by going on the offensive, “to destroy strongholds, arguments, and lofty opinions which blaspheme the knowledge of God” (2Cor. 10:3-5). Again, such language is distinctly aggressive and militaristic. This Gospel of peace is not intended for risk-averse placid spectators, it’s for those willing to stand up for what they believe and stand against those who oppose it.

God of Peace and War

The greatest “call to arms” is really not about what we do anyway. God is undoubtedly the most notorious combatant in the Bible. We’re told by Paul not to avenge our enemies. But not because retaliation is bad. Rather, because God is the One who’ll be doing it: “‘vengeance is mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord” (Rom. 12:19). Indeed, perhaps the most curious Biblical verse on peace is when Paul tells the Christians in Rome that “the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet” (Rom. 16:20).

The fact we often find such verses so troubling demonstrates just how much we’ve skewed the meaning of “peace” by excluding the kind of fight-talk that is essential to its mission. And all this without even mentioning the Old Testament or the Book of Revelation! Time and again the Biblical refrain is to seek peace by fighting for it, even if such fighting looks very different to the world’s.

When the Church Loses its Fight

This Gospel of peace
is not for risk-averse,
placid spectators, it’s
for those willing to
stand up for what
they believe and to
stand against those
who oppose it.

The Church today does its best to airbrush such militaristic emphases away or to downplay their significance. Many Christian leaders merely want to be good civilians, keeping life neat and tidy, and avoid getting told off. This, incidentally, is at least one reason why there has been an exodus of men from the churches of the modern west and a sharp decline in missional fruit in the twenty-first century. (But more on that another time!).

The reticence to embrace Biblical fight-talk often happens because Christians don’t want to be associated with militant extremism. But the greatest danger in our time is not that too many Christians are prone to calling down fire from heaven to incinerate their opponents. Undoubtedly, the greater danger is our proneness to eliminate the ‘saltiness’ from Scripture’s way of putting things. And if you lose Christianity’s fight-talk, you transform Christianity into something else entirely. Mild Christianity is no Christianity at all.

The Greatest Fighter

Christianity is, and must always be, a fight, following Christ into battle against the world, the flesh, and the Devil. Think of the ways in which Christ fought, the way He began the mission to “crush the serpent under his feet”. He fought him in the wilderness, on the road, in the temple, in the synagogue, in the marketplace, in the city. He fought him via Herod, via his disciples, via his friends, via the Pharisees, via the Romans, via the demons. Jesus’ life from birth to grave, was a fight, one which led to him conquering sin and death itself (1Cor. 15:55). Jesus shirked no fights and nor should we. To be a Christian is to follow the greatest fighter who ever walked the earth into the greatest war the world has ever known.

How This Kingdom Fights

The culmination of Jesus’ lifelong fight to conquer sin and death was, of course, the crucifixion. When the Roman Governor Pilate asked Jesus why the people of his own kingdom had delivered him up to be put to death, Jesus replied: “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” (John 18:36). Jesus could have gone the way of all the other Jewish freedom fighters and insurrectionists who tried to overthrow the Roman yoke, all of which ended in failure and death. Jesus had a longer game in mind. Rome would eventually fall, but not before it had first bowed the knee to Christ. His kingdom does things differently to Caesar’s.

What Kind of Fight?

What kind of fight are Christians in, then? If we’re not called to fight like the world, where does all the Bible’s militaristic language take us? It’s notable that Paul’s call to “fight the good fight of faith” is preceded by the call to flee the love of money, and to pursue “righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness” (1Tim. 6:12). So too the verse about demolishing strongholds and tearing down arguments, preceded by the caveat that “the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh” (2Cor. 10:4). To be in this kingdom often means fighting for things which don’t always occur to the world to need fighting for, and fighting in ways it would never have occurred to the world to try.

To be a Christian is to
follow the greatest fighter
who ever walked the earth
into the greatest war the
world has ever known.

The Old Enemy

Since we rely on divine power – the kind of power that led the most powerful human being ever to be humiliated on a cross – we know this fight is predominantly a spiritual fight. It’s a fight of faith, a fight against the sinful desires that war within us (1Pet. 2:11), dragging us into the wrong kinds of fights with one another (Jas. 4:1).

This is the fight that’s been raging from the very beginning, to combat the sin that crouched at Cain’s door (Gen. 4:7), threatening to ruin us all. This battle against sin is ultimately the fight to take God at his word, to worship no other gods before Him (Ex. 20:3). This means more than merely believing that God “is there”; it means staking your whole life on Him, standing on His Word despite all the junk inevitably thrown at you for doing so.

Heads Above Parapets

Standing on God’s Word (rather than apologising for it) means living out the adventure of faith. This in turn inevitably means being willing to take more than a few hits for it and persevering to the end. This is what makes the fight of faith more than just an internal battle with your own sin. It takes place here in the world, with real-time consequences embedded in the drama of this life. However much we should see our fight as “spiritual” and personal, we mustn’t allow this to be a temptation to escape from where the battles of our generation are actually happening.

Wisdom Is For Fighting, Too

Fighting this good fight isn’t a reckless charge into no-man’s land, of course. It requires wisdom and discernment for knowing what little battles might actually be much larger battles. But wisdom will not allow us to stay hidden in self-protective isolation forever. You must be prepared to stick your head up from time to time and get shot at by the many enemies of this kingdom.

The martyrs of the early Church refused to protect their own livelihoods and reputations in order to glorify the reputation of their all-sufficient Saviour. Tertullian called such martyrs the “seed” of the Church because over time such radical witness has a tendency to catch on, fanning the flames of mission, discipleship, and faith.

Where Faith Might Take You

It should be indicative to all Christians that the great list of the heroes of faith in Hebrews 11 ends by noting such people

³³ who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, ³⁴ quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. ³⁵ Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. ³⁶ Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. ³⁷ They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated— ³⁸ of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.

(Heb. 11:33-38)

The average western Christian has literally no idea how to apply a paragraph like that. We may know this kind of thing still happens somewhere far, far away, but it’s not the experience of “our” Christianity. Our Christianity consists of polite conversations, weak tea from polystyrene cups, paying the mortgage on time, saving up for vacations, going to Christian conferences, and retweeting our favourite Christian celebrities. Not so in Hebrews 11. Why all that intense dramatic description?

Why the Bible Speaks Like This

Couldn’t the writer to the Hebrews have simply said something like: “lots of Christians believed in God and kept following him even when it was hard”? Why include details about stopping the mouths of lions, hiding out in caves, and being sawn in two? Because faith is a fight. Always. And a fight well worth having. This is the kind of trouble that will come to Christians who are in such a fight. It is a fight that not only requires endurance in the midst of the battle, but boldness to step forward in mission to counteract the kingdom of darkness, exposing it with the light of Christ (Eph. 5:13). The fact we don’t seem to see this very clearly today is indicative of just how far we have strayed from the tenor of Scripture.

The Subtle Fight

The challenges that come our way in the fight of faith are not easily predictable. They’ll usually come at you when you least expect them, and in ways that don’t necessarily look anything like being stoned or imprisoned or going about in the skins of sheep and goats. They will usually come at you more subtly, in ways that don’t seem like compromise, or temptation, or faithlessness. The devil is on a mission to quash our fight for faith, to undermine the fight in any way he can. One of the chief ways he does this is to masquerade as an angel of light (2Cor. 11:14). Why does Satan do this? Because he knows it works. Because we fall for it far too often.

Why include details of
stopping the mouths
of lions, hiding out in
caves, and being sawn
in two? Because faith
is a fight. Always.

When We Shirk the Fight

We’re called at all times “to contend for the faith” (Jude 1:3) because “the faith” has many enemies who will try to undermine it. Shirking this fight is understandable but is not without consequence. If you run from the fight in order to be “safe” from accusation or misinterpretation or persecution or crucifixion, you could actually be in greater danger than you know. Peter eventually realised this in that terrifying moment after which he “went out and wept bitterly” (Luke 22:54-62). Our hearts and minds can be easily seduced when we “lie low” for too long. It’s easy to get comfortable down beneath the parapet.

Don’t Stop Contending

When Paul tells Timothy to wage the good warfare, he tells him to do this by “holding faith and a good conscience,” adding a warning that those who reject this battle have often “made shipwreck of their faith” (1Tim. 1:19). If you’re a ship on the high seas, you can’t simply let the ocean take you anywhere; you can’t simply “see how you go”. Soon enough you’ll hit a storm which will take you somewhere you didn’t intend to go. You have to contend with the sea. You have to use the equipment you’ve been given to battle through the storm. And according to Paul, the “equipment” needed for this battle is God-breathed Scripture. (2Tim. 3:16-17).

Fight with your Sword

Our neglect of Scriptural authority in the modern Church is astonishing. It’s ironic that the Church often hides from the parts of God’s Word they dislike, when these are often the very parts of God’s Word so desperately needed for today’s fights. To quote another militaristic image, “the Word of God is living and active, sharper than a double-edged sword” (Heb. 4:12). It exposes our hypocrisy whether we own it or not.

By deceiving us away from God’s Word, by questioning whether God “really” said what he seemed to say (Gen. 3:1), Satan may take the form of a serpent, or an angel of light (2Cor. 11:14), or perhaps the less subtle “prowling lion” (1Pet. 5:8). Either way, he wants to devour you. The more you resist his advances, the more you fight that good fight, the harder the fight may seem to get. It’s much easier to devour a dead corpse than a living one which has some fight left in it.

But if you resist Satan, as Jesus did in the wilderness (Matt. 4:4), if you take up your sword and armour to “stand firm” against Satan’s schemes (Eph. 6:11-13), then he will flee from you in the end (Jas. 4:7-8). You can win this fight because it’s not just you that’s fighting. Not only did Christ go before you with this fight, but He sent His Spirit to empower you for it and gave you many brothers and sisters to help you in it.

Peaceful Fightmakers

Precisely because Christianity is about peacemaking, Christianity must be about fightmaking. It always has been and always will be, until the end of time. One day, Christ will return to make all things new and render all the enemies of His kingdom a footstool for his feet (Ps. 110:1). He will be the One to bring true peace to the rages of our troubled world. In the meantime, our mission is to keep fighting this good fight, to never give it up until the day He calls us home. This means fighting the big fights and the little fights, the hidden fights and the public fights, the winsome fights and the unpopular fights. He never told us these fights would be easy, but He did tell us that He would be in our corner fighting with us to the very end of the age (Matt. 28:20).

What fights have you been called to? Are there some fights you’ve been shirking? How are you choosing the right fights at the right times? And what are you doing to encourage your fellow fighters in the faith?