Are You Prepared? - Bellator Christi

By: Jerry Bogacz, PhD Candidate and Retired Biologist | September 22, 2024

Apologetics Is Warfare

Bellator is a Latin word that means “warrior” or “soldier.” Hence the name of this ministry is Bellator Christi or Soldier for Christ. In Philippians 2:25 and Philemon 1:2, Paul describes fellow Christians as “fellow soldiers.” He made frequent use of military metaphors in many of his writings. In Ephesians 6:10-18 Paul describes how we are to be prepared for spiritual warfare by taking on the “whole armor of God…fastened on the belt of truth…put on the breastplate of righteousness…take up the shield of faith…take the helmet of salvation…the sword of the Spirit.”

In this essay I want to briefly engage the text of 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 that also addresses spiritual warfare and is central to the apologetic enterprise and methodology. In this text, Paul writes:

“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh (for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the casting down of strongholds); casting down imaginations, and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.” (Authorized Standard Version)

The Corinth of Paul’s day was not a Greek city like the older Corinth overrun by the Roman army in 146 BC. It was still a Roman colony with Latin as the official language although the common language was Greek. Yet it was still a center for the worship of many of the old Greco-Roman gods.Paul’s relationship with the Corinthian Christians spanned about seven years from AD 50–57) inclusive of three visits. 2 Corinthians describes a community struggling with moral issues and under siege from false apostles. In Chapter 10, Paul responds to the personal attacks made against him by the ‘false apostles’ with a spirited defense.

Fighting the Battle

Like the Ephesians 6 passage, Paul uses military metaphors: waging war (v. 3), weapons and strongholds (v. 4), things raised up, taking captives (v. 5). The weapons of war Paul discusses are not of this world but are sourced in divine power. He does not identify the weapons that have divine power, but his statements elsewhere suggest that they consist in the proclamation of the gospel through which the Holy Spirit releases his power to transform lives. Paul is a warrior ready to confront the worldview presuppositions and propositions that are lifted up against God. The goal of his confrontation is to defeat those minds and arguments in the power of the Holy Spirit; hence their thoughts and minds are taken captive, and they become people with the mind of Christ.

The word “strongholds” (ochyrōmatōn) is not found anywhere else in the entire in the New Testament. The strongholds or fortress that Paul is addressing are those intellectual arguments employed by those who reject the gospel. “Demolish” [καθαιρέω, kathaireō] means to eliminate or cause to cease to exist. “Arguments” [ λογισμοὺς] means fallacious and deceptive reasoning and, by implication, based on evil intentions. “Every Pretension” [ὕψωμα, hypsōma] means an attitude and the behavior of arrogance, pride, conceit that sets itself up as an obstacle to the emancipating knowledge of God.

Murray Harris views this passage as describing a military operation in enemy territory that seeks to thwart every single hostile plan of battle, so that there will be universal allegiance to Christ.^[1] By no means, given the military metaphors, is this engagement directive to be construed as passive or negotiable. Spiritual warfare is a battle between persons, demonic and human, and the primary way persons influence other persons is through the ideas they get others to accept. Thus, Paul makes it very clear that intellectual tools and reasoning are an important part, though not the whole of spiritual warfare. The other primary components are spiritual preparedness, discernment, courage, and wisdom.

Confronting Ideologies

This passage delivers to the church and disciples of Jesus Christ a spiritual mandate to stand against destructive ideologies. And as in Paul’s day within the Church of Corinth and broader Corinthian culture there is no shortage of ideologies and worldviews that stand against the knowledge of God. Historian Herbert Schlossberg states,

“In their uncompromising determination to proclaim truth, Christians must avoid the intellectual flabbiness of the larger society. They must rally against the prevailing distrust of reason and the exaltation of the irrational. Emotional self-indulgence and irrationalities have always been the enemies of the gospel, and the apostles warned their followers against them.”[2]

The message of this passage at the beginning of Corinthians 10 is of a stronghold breached and those sheltering behind its walls taken captive. The purpose was not only to demolish false arguments (the wisdom of the wise, 1 Corinthians 1:19), but also to bring people’s thoughts under the lordship of Christ.

A Gentle Warrior

One final thought, the mission is to destroy arguments not people. We must be winsome and gracious in this battle with our fellow image bearers. Francis Schaeffer gives a warning about engaging this battle for the wrong reasons,

As I seek to do this, I need to remind myself constantly that this is not a game I am playing. If I begin to enjoy it as a kind of intellectual exercise, then I am cruel and can expect no real spiritual results. As I push the man off his false balance, he must be able to feel that I care for him. Otherwise I will only end up destroying him, and the cruelty and ugliness of it all will destroy me as well. Merely to be abstract and cold is to show that I do not really believe this person to be created in God’s image and therefore one of my kind. Pushing him towards the logic of his presuppositions is going to cause him pain; therefore, I must not push any further than I need to.[3]

The battle will find you. Are you prepared?

About the Author

Jerry Bogacz was born and raised in the Chicago area. Jerry and his wife Kathy relocated to Lexington, Virginia in 2015 where they reside to this day. As a scientist, Jerry worked as a research scientist and project manager in immunodiagnostic and DNA diagnostic product development for Abbott Laboratories in northern Chicago. Jerry is a PhD Candidate in the PhD in Theology and Apologetics program at Liberty University. He graduated from Biola University with two degrees–an MA in in Apologetics and an MA in Science/Religion. He was a resident in 2013 at the C. S. Lewis Fellowship at the Discovery Institute. Also, Jerry received training at the CrossExamined Apologetics training in 2014. Ministerially, he served as a pastoral and teaching elder at Evanston Bible Fellowship in Evanston, IL (2001-2015). Jerry’s primary areas of research are focused around the integration of science and theology, biblical anthropology, bioethics, and worldview studies.