Front matter
Christian Training, Combat and Victory
By R. Herbert
2015, Tactical Belief Books – an Imprint of TacticalChristianity.org & LivingWithFaith.org
The text and images in this e-book are copyright. All Rights Reserved. ISBN 978-1-943275-80-9 This book is not to be sold. It is made available without charge by the publisher and free copies can be downloaded from: TacticalChristianity.org or LivingWithFaith.org. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. In a few cases, the ESV (English Standard Version ©) HCSB (Holman Christian Standard Bible ©) and NKJV (New King James Version ©) are cited, and these translations are also gratefully acknowledged.
Cover: Base image of medieval knight's armor © by Adrienn Orbánhegyi
CONTENTS
Introduction PART ONE: TRAINING 1. Seeing Your Calling 2. Entanglement 3. Spiritual Training 4. Preparing to Put On the Armor of God 5. Using the Weapons of Our Faith 6. Strengthening Each Other 7. Meek Is Not Weak 8. Learning from the Past 9. Learning Leadership 10. Warriors of Word and Deed 11. It Takes Practice 12. Report to the Front – Any Front!
PART TWO: COMBAT 13. Basic Battle Plans 14. Where's Your Intel? 15. Always Aware 16. Do You Need Rapid Responses? 17. "Defusing" Misunderstandings 18. Incoming! 19. Everyone Is Fighting a Battle 20. Guard Duty 21. Offense and Defense? 22. Charlie Mike! 23. A Military Mantra 24. Hostage Rescue PART THREE: VICTORY 25. Limiting Victory 26. Why Settle for Second Place? 27. How Great Victories Are Won
28. I Want That Mountain 29. The Need for Decisiveness 30. The Peacemakers 31. Credit to Whom It Is Due 32. Operation Pearl 33. What Have You Accomplished? 34. The Triumphal Entry 35. The Victory of Sacrifice 36. Ultimate Victory Afterword
INTRODUCTION
Dedicated to all the men and women who have fought the good fight, and those who continue to do so. Does a "warrior" themed book about Christian living surprise you? Perhaps it should not – not only is God shown as a warrior figure more often than he is portrayed in any other way in the Bible, but also, directly or indirectly, the New Testament frequently uses the image of the Christian believer as a warrior. In fact, the warrior metaphor is probably used of the Christian more than that of any other occupation.
Just as God is a Father, a Helper, a Savior and a Friend to his people, he is also a Warrior (Exodus 15:3, Isaiah 42:13, Zephaniah 3:17), and Christians – although they are servants, brothers and sisters and friends – are also called to be warriors in the service of our "Captain" (Hebrews 2:10 NKJV) who is a Warrior King (Revelation 19:11-12). That is why this book looks at the Christian way of life from the warrior perspective in order to focus on some of the lessons that viewpoint can teach us.
Christianity involves many struggles which justify this concept, though the "warfare" in which the Christian warrior is engaged is spiritual rather than physical (Ephesians 6:12). Christian warriors do not war against people, of course; they fight against wrong and for good. They are warriors of "the Way" (Acts 9:2).
But what exactly does that mean? To answer this question we need to first define the word warrior itself. Dictionaries give definitions of varying lengths for the term. At its simplest, warrior just means "one engaged in combat or warfare," but a fuller definition is more helpful: "one trained to engage in combat or warfare toward the ultimate goal of survival and victory." That longer definition tells us how someone becomes a warrior, what a warrior does, and why. It also provides a framework for this book, as we will see.
The Warrior Calling Saying that God calls us to a military-like calling does not mean Christians are to be "Crusaders," of course, but it does mean that our calling is often best understood by means of a military analogy.
The apostle Paul, for example, uses the imagery of battles, war, weaponry and armor throughout his writings – more than any other type of analogy. This may have been partly because Paul spent a great deal of time in his last years in the company of the Roman soldiers who guarded him (Acts 28:16, etc.), but his writings make it clear that he felt the analogy of spiritual warfare was one which could be applied to any Christian and in many ways. The apostle certainly saw his own life in these terms and, when his life was nearly over, asserted with calmness and courage that he had "...fought the good fight" (2 Timothy 4:7).
Paul's metaphors regarding spiritual training, combat and victory are among the best known and most frequently quoted of all the analogies in the New Testament, but that does not mean that we cannot continue to learn from them through carefully looking at their historical background and modern applications.
And Paul is certainly not the only biblical writer to have used the concept of warfare to teach us valuable lessons. In addition to the many narratives describing battles and individual combat found in the Old Testament, military images and metaphors may be found in many places throughout the entire Bible.
But the warriors of the Bible were not all armored men carrying spears and swords. Some certainly were that, but not all were armored, not all were men, and in the biblical world, just as today, we find warriors of many types. Some, like Joshua and Gideon (Chapters 17 and 15), were front-line warriors; others were strategists who planned and directed battles, like Deborah and David in his later career (Chapters 29 and 31). Yet others were covert warriors – "agents" as we would call them today, such as Joshua's spies and the woman Rahab. But all of these warriors and many more servants of God – whether armored or not – successfully faced the difficulties, dangers, and struggles against which they were pitted.
Today Christians are not exempt from many of the same challenges faced by warriors of the Bible. Our battles may be different, but in the service of God, there is no place for those who wish to have nothing to do with fighting against evil and for good.
In fact, we might say we are either a warrior of God or a pagan! You may not know it, but the word pagan that we use of a "godless" person comes from the Latin word paganus. It originally meant "relating to the countryside," a "villager" or "rustic." In Roman military use a paganus was an "unskilled soldier," a "noncombatant," or a "civilian." As a result, early Christians used the word to refer to individuals who had not "enlisted" through baptism to serve as spiritual soldiers of Christ!
Details like this form the rich backdrop of "warfare" and "warrior" images used by the Bible and in the early Church and are a part of the material on which this book concentrates. Not all of its chapters look directly at the idea of struggle or combat – that is one, but only one, of our concerns.
Using the typical dictionary definition we saw above – that a warrior is "one trained to engage in combat or warfare toward the ultimate goal of survival and victory," this book looks first at issues of spiritual training and preparation and then at some of the struggles we all face and must undergo. But it does not stop there. Just as the goal of all warfare is survival and victory, the third section of this book looks at issues related to our goals and how they can inform and inspire us to better train, fight, and be victorious.
Part One looks closely at Christian training. As the warrior David wrote: "Blessed be the Lord my strength which teaches my hands to war, and my fingers to fight" (Psalms 144:1 ESV). This applies as much to us spiritually as it did to the ancient writer physically, and for the Christian, spiritual training is just as important as physical training is vital for the military man or woman. In the first chapters you will see that the Christian life goes far beyond simply "confessing Christ" or "giving one's life to the Lord," and that vital as they are, these things are in reality only the "signing on" that every Christian does and that should be followed by ongoing training to help us better follow our Commander-in Chief and to do the work he gives us to do.
"Training" can have a somewhat ominous tone that suggests long periods of hard work, and it is true that in many areas of life training is something that goes on for a long time and only then, when it is completed, are the trainees able to practice what they have learned. In the Christian's case it's a more exciting process – we can begin to use every bit of training we get the instant we receive it. Read these first chapters and you will find things you can apply today!
Part Two is labelled "Combat" and that too can have an ominous sound to it. But we must remember that to talk of threats, struggles and battles as we do here is not in any way to take a pessimistic or negative view of Christianity. Christianity is ultimately the most positive of all faiths in regard to the struggles of this life, but Christ himself warned that we would face difficulties and urged his followers to be ready for them (John 16:1-4). As is often said, those who are not aware that they are engaged in a battle are doomed to lose it. For the Christian, as any other warrior, that awareness is honed by training and is then applied in combat.
The spiritual battles Christians face today are not experienced equally by believers everywhere. If you live in one of many countries in the Western world you may experience problems and battles, but they may be nothing like those experienced by people in Africa, South America or Asia. But all Christians face battles of some type: whether internal or external, of the mind, the environment, or both. The Combat section of this book looks at ways we can successfully fight those battles.
Part Three, "Victory," looks at the ultimate outcome of the struggles we do face and fight. Its basic premise is simple – that when the struggles we face are met with proper faith and God's help, we are assured victory! That is something we may take for granted at one level, but it is something we need to understand deeply and be encouraged by in the course of our daily lives. There are also different aspects of victory that are important to understand – there are ways we can actually limit the victory we seek and there are ways we can be sure of ultimate victory.
Understanding what true Christian victory is and is not can help us to achieve it in our own lives. As every physical warrior knows, there are no second-place winners in combat – only winners and losers – and this section looks at how we, as Christian warriors, can be the winners.
Precisely because the sounds of battle are heard throughout the Bible – from Genesis to Revelation – we need to be attuned to them, and the lessons we can learn from stories and analogies regarding the spiritual struggle are of great importance to us all. As the spiritual warrior Paul wrote to Timothy: "You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus ... like a good soldier of Christ Jesus" (2 Timothy 2:1, 3) and "…fight the battle well…" (1 Timothy 1:18). So the chapters of this book aim to help the Christian be strong – to prepare, fight, and succeed in the struggles we all face. That is the challenge, the responsibility and the certain hope of the warrior of the Way.