The Story of the Cosmic Conflict

We have already mentioned the Warfare Worldview many times on this blog. It reframes our view of history and is reflected in our interpretation of current events. But if you are new to this line of thinking you might wonder how different the story of mankind looks through the lens of the Cosmic Conflict.

Citing from John Eldredge, Beth Snodderly, and Ralph Winter, who was intimately, personally acquainted with war, these reflections outline the history of this universal struggle in four acts. But, more importantly, it traces from the beginning, to the present, and beyond, our own role…

"Humanity wasn't created merely as a consequence of Lucifer's sin. We weren't intended only to fight a war. While the warfare theme permeates the Bible, so do other themes such as of love, joy, rest, relationship and righteousness. After all, what would be our role in the 'next' life, when sin and evil are no more, if we are merely infantry for this one?"

The Oscars and Self-Loathing

By Brian Lowther

Have you ever wondered why it is so easy to identify things we don’t like about ourselves? Or why self-loathing is such a natural human pastime? I wonder about this all the time. Human beings would seemingly be so much more fruitful if it weren’t for self-doubt. Granted we might make a lot more missteps, but with no self-doubt, those mistakes wouldn’t define us. In fact, failure wouldn’t bother us at all. Why is a lack of confidence such a pervasive aspect of life for so many of us?

Flickr/Disney | ABC Television Gro

The Oscars

I have a hunch that it has something to do with the Oscars. The Academy Awards ceremony—better known as the Oscars—occurred two weeks ago and for the first time, I attended an Oscar party with my wife and a few friends. I don’t mean that I went to Hollywood and hobnobbed with A-list celebrities. I mean I sat in a living room and watched the television broadcast, a yearly event of which I had watched a total of thirty-eight and-a-half minutes over the course of my lifetime. Apparently, the only thing you do at an Oscar party is watch the program and insult each celebrity’s attire/hairstyle/personality/existence.

My friends—who are ordinarily kind, decent people—channeled Joan Rivers during our Oscar party with their sharply acerbic opinions about fashion and personal appearance. I mentioned how this surprised me to one friend and she said, “Oh that’s just the price of fame. Celebrities expect it.” Another said, “It’s all in good fun. They can’t hear us.” As if to imply, if Scarlett Johansson were in the room, no one would mention how “her new haircut is atrocious and makes her look like Adam Levine.”

Unfortunately, I think we are oblivious to something lurking underneath all of this seemingly innocent criticism.

From Whence Do our Thoughts Originate?

It is generally accepted that we generate our own thoughts. But if that’s true, why can’t we stop them, or even slow them down for more than a few moments? And why do our thoughts continue in such incongruous ways while we’re asleep? And, what about when our basal ganglia are occupied with a routine task—like driving for example—and our prefrontal cortex runs wild with an endless array of unrelated and often opposing ideas? Sometimes they are profound epiphanies, and sometimes they are a lot like the comments my friends made during the Oscar party. “You look terrible today. You’ve accomplished nothing with your life. You might as well get fat and make a global warming documentary.” Would anyone in their right mind intentionally think such self-defeating thoughts? And if not, where do these notions originate?

Take Every Thought Captive

The morning after the Oscars, I was awakened by a Bible verse, which almost never happens. Actually, it was just a phrase from a Bible verse. The verse is 2 Corinthians 10:5. And the phrase is, “Take every thought captive.”

I’ve always understood “take every thought captive” to mean things like, “don’t entertain thoughts of adultery,” for example. But the context of the verse in 2 Corinthians has a warfare feel. In the preceding verses, Paul tells us how to wage war and the kinds of weapons we are to use. Even the phrase “take captive” has connotations of taking enemy soldiers as prisoners of war so those soldiers can no longer inflict damage or casualties. What if the reason Paul used this kind of language was because he wanted to emphasize that at least some of the self-defeating thoughts we experience are suggested by nefarious spiritual agents who are at war against God and his entire creation?

If I were an evil spiritual being, this is precisely what I would do. This is psychological warfare at its best, with all of the expected results of effective airborne leaflet propaganda, e.g., causing enemy soldiers to abandon their duties, prompting surrender, reducing morale, increasing defections, etc.

Can evil spiritual beings really do this? I don’t know. But a few passages hint at an answer. One is 1 Chron. 21:1-4 where Satan provoked David to number Israel. Another is Acts 5:1-5, where Peter says that Satan filled Ananias’ heart causing him to lie to the Holy Spirit. How did Satan do this exactly? Did he whisper insults into David and Ananias’ psyches, capitalizing on some pre-existing neurosis or desire in each man’s heart? Again, I don’t know. But I think it’s worth exploring a bit deeper.

Fighting Back

I think that understanding these things might help us mitigate the damage. My hunch is that when we experience harmful thoughts, we can defeat them and take them captive by simply opposing them with alternative thoughts, thoughts that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy. (Phil. 4:8) For example, if my thought is “my head is misshapen and looks like a cabbage,” perhaps I can nullify this thought with, “I am God’s possession, his child, his masterpiece, his friend, his temple, his co-laborer, his precious jewel, and my head is perfectly normal for a man of my height and mental acuity.”

Brian Lowther is the director of the Roberta Winter Institute. 

Choices: The Challenge of the Evil One

By Beth Snodderly

A Story to Illustrate Ralph Winter’s "12th Frontier of Perspective: The Challenge of the Evil One." 

Flickr/Steve

Once upon a time …
Well, actually, before our time began,
God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit called for a very special meeting of the Heavenly Council. “We have decided to make a new kind of creature in our image,” the Trinity said. “And we want some of you angels to be their guardians and watch over them and help influence them to make wise choices. We are appointing Lucifer, the cherub closest to our glory, to be the ruler of the new world where these humans will live.”

A dialog between God and Lucifer might have gone like this:

God: We are taking a big risk in creating humans and putting you in charge of their world. But we think the risk is worth it because of the GREAT potential for GREAT LOVE. We want heaven’s rule to be freely chosen on earth.

Lucifer: I’m honored that you have chosen me above all the other angels, to be the ruler of these new creatures in my world. 

God: Well, you need to realize that they may not always choose to follow your leadership. They may rebel against you, or even try to harm you. We’ve already taken that risk in giving free choice to you angels.

Lucifer: Don’t worry. I won’t let them disobey. I’ll MAKE SURE that they follow my rules.

God: “The meek shall inherit the earth.” My kingdom is not ruled by force.

Lucifer: You made ME the prince and ruler of the earth. Now it is MY kingdom and I’ll do things MY way. I’ll KILL OFF anyone who doesn’t want to do what I say. In fact, I, the cherub closest to your glory, will expect my humans to worship ME.”

God (sadly): “You were the seal of perfection
          Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
          …You were on the holy mountain of God.
          You walked amidst the fiery stones.
          You were blameless in your ways
          From the day you were created—
          Until wickedness was found in you.”

Then there was WAR in heaven.

“Michael and his angels had to fight the dragon.” “The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.”

“How you are fallen from heaven, day star, son of the dawn; you are cast down to the earth.”

As for the earth, after Michael and his angels got done battling with Satan and his angels, the earth was a mess. It was tohu wabohu. You can read in Genesis 1 how God went about refashioning the earth to make a place where humans could live—because he still intended to create those humans.  

But you might think that now God had a problem. How was heaven’s rule going to be freely chosen on earth when the ruler of the earth had already rebelled against heaven’s rule? Now the whole world was lying in the power of the evil one. And God couldn’t just take back the rulership he had given Satan. That would be to go back on his word. That would be to deny God’s own trustworthy character.

But God had a plan.

God always finds a way to overcome evil with good.
God always knows how he will respond to every possible choice that angels or humans could make.

God planned to work through humans who would choose whom they would serve. In a way they would be voting for who their ruler should be—Satan, or God. 

In his wisdom, God knew that humans would not be able to resist the wiles of the devil without supernatural help. And they needed Someone who would show them what God’s will looks like on earth. Someone who is wise and good and loving. And Someone who would be willing to take the risk of being rejected by the very people he was trying to help. Since no one else in heaven was willing to take that risk, God himself had to make the choice to risk being betrayed and killed.

And sure enough, God the Son was the victim of violence. He was the Lamb who was slaughtered. But we are called to have faith in the God who has faith in himself. The Lamb was willing to be slain, from the foundation of the earth. Because he knew that God’s power is greater than death. He knew that death would not be able to hold onto him. And that was God’s peacemaking way of defeating the enemy. 

“And the God of peace — will soon crush Satan under YOUR feet.” Because he has brought us out of darkness into the Kingdom of his beloved Son.

Dearly beloved, If God so loved us, we ought to choose to love — one another.
We can choose to be a display window of what God’s will looks like — on earth.

Beth Snodderly is President of William Carey International University and holds the degree of Doctor of Literature and Philosophy in New Testament from the University of South Africa.

This Week's Links: What Science Can Tell Us About the Past and Future of Disease

Flickr/bartolomeo - African Buffalo like these were nearly wiped out as a species in the Rinderpest epidemic in the 1890's. But thanks to the efforts of UN scientists, Rinderpest was eradicated in 2010.

By Emily Lewis

For once we're talking about the history of disease, and not about making disease history. Modern advances in science have allowed us to chart the genetic code of diseases that plagued mankind for decades. In this case, literally. Researchers are digging up the bodies of "Black Death" victims in London and using them to garner "direct insights into the evolution of human pathogens and historical pandemics."  

If science can do that for the way we see diseases in the past, imagine how it could change the way we see diseases in the future. Already, researchers have invented a game that could use crowdsourcing to help diagnose Malaria, and the day may not be so far off when we have a vaccine for cancer. New technologies are not just changing the way we see disease and the body, but changing what we are able to see. 

But we couldn't talk about the history of disease without mentioning one of our favorite events in modern history, the eradication of Rinderpest. Yes, all you Germanophiles, it's a cow virus. But we can't help it, we just love when the word "virus" and the phrase "wiped out" appear in the same sentence. At the RWI, we're working hard to make the history of Rinderpest the future of all viruses.

Emily Lewis is a graduate of Gordon College with a degree in Communication Arts and Journalism. She lives outside San Francisco, where she's writing a book about her personal journey coming to understand the will of God in regard to sickness.

Frontier Ventures Rebrand

Yesterday, we announced the renaming of our parent organization. The Frontier Mission Fellowship (and the U.S. Center for World Mission) will now be known as Frontier Ventures—a new name for a new day. What hasn’t changed is its mission and passion to catalyze breakthrough among the remaining unreached people groups of the world. This is a passion that we share as part of the Frontier Venture family of ministries. Please visit Frontierventures.org/rebrand to read the press release and learn more about the change.

For His glory among all peoples,
Brian Lowther
Director, Roberta Winter Institute

Image of Man, Image of God

By Jeffrey Havennner

Editorial Note: This material, written by Jeff Havenner, was actually written for Advent. However, we considered it too good to wait most of a year to share. Hope you enjoy.

In the season of Advent, followers of Jesus look back on the coming of God’s Son in human image, as a human child, born of an earthly mother in the humble setting of a stable long ago. His birth itself looked back on another event much longer ago, which was God’s creation of man in his own image. The account in Genesis depicts God speaking from heaven saying, “Let us make man in our image and let him have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on earth” (Genesis 1:26).  We are told in passages that follow that both male and female human beings together carry the imprint of God’s image and bear his stamp of authority on the earth. Why is this of importance?

Elamite Head of an Ruler, Iran - 2300-2000 BCE Flickr/Mary Harrsch

Dr. Richard Pratt, Professor of Old Testament studies at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, FL made the analogy to the practice of kings in the ancient world. When kings wanted to demonstrate their control over territory they would erect statues of themselves to emphasize their control to any forces that might contest their power. Normally these would be tall impressive statues of stone that projected the intimidating power of the king. Dr. Pratt said the creation of man was similar, only instead of creating stone statures of imposing size, God made more modest images of clay. God thus intended to declare his rule over the territory of earth that was in rebellion against him at the time of his creation of man.

Dr. Gregory Boyd, in his book God at War, argues that the rebellion on earth was manifest in the Serpent's presence in the garden. Eden was established as a beachhead from which to liberate the earth from Satan who was already present. By creating and filling the earth with his image, God was announcing his claim to the earth and putting Satan on notice that he did not even need to use his own power directly. Rather God would use just little clay images of himself.

The serpent broke those images by inducing man to disobey God's command about forbidden fruit and probably thought, "That was easy."  God however said, “I shall put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He shall crush your head and you shall bruise him on the heel” (Genesis 3:15).  In effect God told Satan that a struggle would continue between him and the broken clay images of God. God would gain the ultimate victory and Satan's powers would be held up to ridicule. So Advent prepares us for the coming of the seed of the woman in the likeness of broken clay images.  He will be bruised on His heel but deal the serpent a mortal blow to the head and restore the universe completely under the rule of God.

Jeff Havenner is a retired microbiologist who worked at the Frederick Cancer Research Center and the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.