Many people view the church as merely a social club, but the
apostle Paul likened us to soldiers in an army - soldiers called to wage
a holy war. Paul laboured to make every thought captive to Christ, both
in himself and in others. This is a bold crusade: Paul equated it to the
waging of a war. If you wanted a picnic, you've come to the wrong place.
"The weapons of our warfare are not carnal: on the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish every argument and pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." - 2 Corinthians 10:4
In the above passage, we learn how Paul dealt with the many
excuses he encountered. According to Thayer's Greek Lexicon, the metaphor
of war and strongholds conveys the following idea:
"to pull down, to demolish the subtle reasonings (of opponents) likened to a fortress; that is, to refute, to destroy."
The sinner hides himself
behind a barricade of excuses - and we are called to tear down the walls.
Why must this be? No one likes war. This question was well answered by
Sir Norman Angell, who stated that "Every nation sincerely desires
peace; and all nations pursue courses which, if persisted in, must make
peace impossible." The analogy here is that sin has consequences;
we can therefore either try to stop people at the top of the cliff, or
try and pick up the pieces at the bottom. It seems that there is some
truth to the famous quote from Mao Tse-Tung:
"war can only be abolished through war"
"The 'reasonings', 'imaginations' are 'cast down'. The 'mental intents', 'thoughts', are made willing captives, rendering the voluntary obedience of faith to Christ the conqueror."
(Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown)
"Why do you call me Lord and not
do what I say?"
- Jesus Christ, Luke 6:46
A friend of mine once told me that an excuse is "a reason
wrapped in a lie." Not everyone is happy with such a blunt description
and would prefer a more sanitized portrayal of the concept. Sigmund Freud
helped to popularize excuses and gave them a veneer of respectability
by giving them another name. Today psychologists call them rationalizations
and define them as: "The justification of irrational, impulsive action,
or even failure, to oneself or other people by substituting acceptable
explanations for the real but unacceptable reasons." (Psychology
422)
Excuses and rationalizations seem quite similar. If there is
a difference, it is that excuses are usually intended to mislead others,
while rationalizations also deceive the one who holds them. Either title
implies that the reason is not valid. Rationalizations in various forms
can usually be reduced to "I can't" or "I had to"
- when that is not really the case.
Excuses are incredibly popular. On the Internet you can find
hundreds of sites giving advice on making excuses. You can find excuse
generators and humorous excuses, ranging from simple ("my dog ate
it") to outlandish, as in the following newspaper article;
"She (Hillary Clinton) explained that the president's numerous infidelities can be blamed on non-physical "abuse" he suffered at the hands of his now deceased mother and grandmother. Having grown up trying to please two women, she claims, he now feels compelled to "please" all women." (Daily Camera online)
Excuses come in many forms, but are always attempts to barricade
oneself from the truth. In this amazing passage, Justin Martyr summarized
the essence of excuses that exist in relation to God:
"In the beginning, He made the human race with the power of thought and of choosing the truth and doing right, so that all men are without excuse before God; for they have been born rational and contemplative. And if any one disbelieves that God cares for these things, he will thereby either insinuate that God does not exist, or he will assert that though He exists, He delights in vice, or exists like a stone, and that neither virtue nor vice are anything, but only in the opinion of men these things are reckoned good or evil. And this is the greatest profanity and wickedness."
(The First Apology of Justin Martyr, ch 28)
Rationalizations
The editor of The Discipleship Journal explained very well
why we use rationalizations when she said that we use them to escape the
cost of obedience, or to enjoy the pleasure of sin.
"Like Eve, we know in our hearts that what we want to do is wrong. But the promised results of sin are so enticing, we search for a way to get them without letting go (verbally anyway) of our Christian beliefs." (46)
We need to remember that we are often our own worst enemy.
"We can convince ourselves that the blame lies elsewhere, using self-deceit
as a means to avoid responsibility. As a result, the perpetrator and the
victim become one and the same."(Brunner 155) If you are a teenager,
you have probably heard of the song "My Own Prison", by the
rock group Creed. It reflects on this theme, as the author seems trapped
in it:
""A court is in session, a verdict is in / no appeal on the docket today just my own sin / the walls are cold and pale the cage made of steel."
I have heard it said by many in recovery movements such as
AA that accepting responsibility is one of the most important steps towards
change. Hopefully this is the case with President Clinton. After the initial
interview with Hillary was reported, Clinton went on record as saying
"I have not made any excuses for what was inexcusable, and neither
has she, believe me." (Associate press) Whether or not this is "just
politics" I do not know; but I do know that we need to stop clinging
to excuses.
THE ARMOR OF SALVATION
The Apostles were very aware
that people need to take responsibility for their actions, and as a result
treat excuses very seriously. Many rebuttals in scripture deal with the
excuses that people use to keep sin in their lives. This is a war, fought
not with swords made by men, but with the Sword of the Spirit, Truth,
and Love. In Ephesians 6:11 we are told to put on the whole armor of God
so that "[we] can take [our] stand against the devil's schemes"
I want to discuss four doctrines which the Apostles had to
defend against those who would distort them to escape a sense of obligation:
grace, liberty, faith, and knowledge. In the following we will see that
rationalizations do not relate as much to an effective use of the armor,
as they do to a surrendering of it.
Strongholds (Prov 21:22)-namely, in which sinners entrench themselves against reproof: all that opposes Christ; the learning, eloquence, and philosophical subtleties, the pride of the Corinthians. So Joshua's trumpet-blast cast down Jericho's walls. (from Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1997 by Biblesoft)
Kathairesis (NT:2506) is an old word from kathaireoo (NT:2507),
to take down, to tear down walls and buildings. Carries on the military
metaphor. Ochurooma (NT:3794) is an old word, common in the Apocrypha,
from [ochurooo], to fortify, and that from [ochuros] (from echoo (NT:2192),
to hold fast). Nowhere else in the New Testament. In Cilicia the Romans
had to tear down many rocky forts in their attacks on the pirates. (from
Robertson's Word Pictures in the New Testament, Electronic Database. Copyright
(c) 1997 by Biblesoft & Robertson's Word Pictures in the New Testament.
Copyright (c) 1985 by Broadman Press)
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CAST DOWN-DEMOLISH NIV "demolish"- dialogzomai NT:1260, "to reason" (dia, "through,"
logizomai, "to reason"), is translated "cast in (her) mind,"
Luke 1:29. See DISPUTE, MUSING, REASON, THINK. (from Vine's Expository
Dictionary of Biblical Words, Copyright (c)1985, Thomas Nelson Publishers)
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Argument NIV "argument"- logismos NT:3053, "a reasoning,
a thought" (akin to logizomai, "to count, reckon"), is
translated "thoughts" in Rom 2:15, suggestive of evil intent,
not of mere reasonings; "imaginations" in 2 Cor 10:5 (RV, marg.,
"reasonings," in each place). The word suggests the contemplation
of actions as a result of the verdict of conscience. See THOUGHT. (from
Vine's Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words, Copyright (c)1985, Thomas
Nelson Publishers)
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High thing ochuroma--high thing the walls of a castle that need to be torn down
1) a castle, a stronghold, a fortress, fastness
2) anything on which one relies; used of the arguments and reasonings by which a disputant endeavors to fortify his opinion and defend it against his opponent
(from The Online Bible Thayer's Greek Lexicon and Brown Driver & Briggs Hebrew Lexicon, Copyright (c)1993, Woodside Bible Fellowship, Ontario, Canada. Licensed from the Institute for Creation Research.)
Every high thing that is exalted pan (NT:3956) hupsooma
(NT:5313) epairomenon (NT:1869). Same metaphor. Hupsooma (NT:5313) from
hupsooo (NT:5312) is a late Koine word (in the Septuagint, Plutarch, Philo,
papyri) for height and that figure carried on by epairomenon (NT:1869).
Paul aims to pull down the topmost perch of audacity in their reasonings
against the knowledge of God. We need Paul's skill and courage today.
(from Robertson's Word Pictures in the New Testament, Electronic Database.
Copyright (c) 1997 by Biblesoft & Robertson's Word Pictures in the
New Testament. Copyright (c) 1985 by Broadman Press)
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