SW Classical Model

David Powlison believes that a great deal of spiritual warfare practices are the result of superstition, and are not actually effective in opposing Satan. Whereas most who study spiritual warfare think that the Third World has more insight than the West into opposing spiritual forces, Powlison believes the Third World perspective is influenced, and led astray, by false animistic beliefs and practices. He claims that Scripture does not support many of the practices that are promoted, citing that Paul's ministry had "No fireworks, no fuss and feathers, no binding and loosing, no authoritative pronouncements, no naming and claiming (p 97)."

I agree with Gregory Boyd's assessment that "Powlison has unwittingly overreacted to the excesses of many contemporary deliverance ministries and has consequently overly domesticated, and overly Westernized [spiritual warfare] (121-22)." However, I also think that Powlison offers a healthy emphasis on the more mundane aspects of spiritual warfare. Many assign the category of spiritual warfare to certain cases that require a special approach that has more to do with expertise in spiritual warfare than human agency. It is as if the recognition that we "do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against...cosmic powers" means that we should adopt an entirely different way of wrestling or fighting that engages the spiritual world rather than the world we are living in.

Powlison emphasizes the centrality of the more mundane aspects of righteous living as a focus of spiritual warfare. Consider the following passage...

To win spiritual warfare is simply to live as light in a dark world. It is to treat others with humility, patience, and thoughtful consideration. It is to live as a conscious and contributing member of “we the people” whom God has brought together by mercy. It is to have things to say that are worth saying: true, constructive, timely, and filled with grace. It is to live purposefully amid a thousand distracting voices. It is to seek God’s grace and strength. At its core, to win this war is to know God and consciously serve him. ....To lose spiritual warfare is to live the darkness, to revert to what comes naturally to every fallen heart. It is to walk “under the influence,” in the image of the powers of evil. It is to live as a world of one: willful, inconsiderate, bitter, fearful. It is to speak thoughtlessly, impulsively, falsely, and destructively. It is to live carelessly, unwisely, drifting with the zeitgeist of your time and place. At its essential core, to lose this war is to forget God and consciously serve yourself (p. 98)."

Most people rarely, if ever, encounter spiritual warfare in the form of direct confrontation with something that is clearly other than flesh and blood, like a personal experience of a demonic presence or a demon manifesting in another person. That is what people tend to think about with this topic, but that is not what Paul has in mind in Ephesians 6. That type of spiritual warfare does not fall under the category of something we would need to be told "we do not wrestle against flesh and blood." Powlison locates spiritual warfare in the more commonplace challenges of our everyday lives. He writes, "The overwhelming majority of evils, individual and collective, are not atrocities or paranormal oddities. They are everyday trespasses and sins; the common passions and fears; the unbelief, anger, lusts, and lies of our foolishness (p. 93).

So, rather than being alerted to the presence of spiritual warfare only when many things are happening against us or we are sensing a disturbing, oppressive atmosphere, Powlison's view calls us to be alert at all times. How would that change the way you approach your work day?