Spiritual Warfare- Introduction

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Eph 6:12

Before I started Leavened Lives, I participated in a conference that was designed to equip people to start a faith and work ministry in their city. During the conference there was a session on the full story of the Bible. It is a common theme in Theology of Work circles that many Christians have accepted a truncated gospel that focuses on individual salvation and fails to appreciate the full story of how the gospel impacts everything. So this session outlined and summarized the story of Genesis to Revelation, presenting this fuller picture that was necessary for believers to grasp how their faith is meant to impact their work.

At the end of this session, intended to highlight the major characters and themes in the story, I noted that there was no mention of Satan or any opposing spiritual forces. When I questioned this, the answer was that this was deemed too controversial a topic to include in the presentation. I could understand that sentiment, but I also felt like this could not be omitted and do justice to the story, or how we experience our lives.

This conference was influenced by Reformed Theology, which emphasizes the sovereignty of God. To human logic, if God is truly sovereign, then He cannot really be opposed, so it does not feel like a glaring omission to leave opposing supernatural forces out of the story. This makes sense to our minds...... but it is not Biblical.

I asked AI about how often opposing spiritual forces are mentioned in the NT. From the response, "the broader theme of a supernatural realm actively resisting God's kingdom is woven into nearly every book of the New Testament....appearing well over 150 times." Does this seem like something that can be left out of the story? One of the weaknesses of Reformed Theology (and all theologies have weaknesses) is that its commitment to human logic sometimes makes it less Biblical than it claims to be.

I determined to explore this topic, but I did not know how to go about it. In my search, I came across the book Understanding Spiritual Warfare: Four Views. This book acknowledges the controversy around the topic and seeks to provide a platform where different perspectives can engage with one another. Each view has a chapter followed by the other three authors responding to that chapter. I initially thought this book would help me to determine the best view. But while reading the book, I decided to abandon that task and to focus instead on whatever I found interesting and applicable to integrating faith and work in each of the views.

So, I will be sharing sections that caught my attention with my own thoughts about how they might speak to what we experience while trying to serve the Kingdom of God in our work. I am not interested in evaluating a particular perspective on spiritual warfare, but rather am mining what struck me as valuable from what I was reading in each one.

The four views are titled "The World Systems Model" by Walter Wink, "The Classical Model" by David Powlison, "The Ground-Level Deliverance Model" by Gregory Boyd, and "The Strategic-Level Deliverance Model" by C. Peter Wagner and Rebecca Greenwood. If you want to go deeper into what I am writing about, here is a link to the book on Amazon. You may gather more insights as you interact with the material, and I would love to dialogue with you about them.

As we begin, I wonder how often you think about spiritual warfare impacting your life. What is your understanding of what that looks and feels like? What difference would it make to look at your life with that lens? With regard to your work life in particular, where are you experiencing spiritual warfare and how should you be responding to that?