In verse 3, Paul says that while we walk—or live our lives—in the flesh, our battle is not “of the flesh” against external enemies. The battleground for Christians is not an external one, in the world around us. Paul is clear: the true battleground for Christians is inside of us, in our minds.

“Speculations” and “every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God” both refer to lies, and both are equated with “thoughts” by Paul in verse 5. And, he says Christians are to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Not “some.” All thoughts are being judged to see if they’re consistent with the Biblically-revealed knowledge of God and of what Jesus desires of us in the way of obedience.

This book opened my eyes to the truth that our minds—often—lie to us. And that it’s critically important for us to continually examine and judge our inner thoughts. Because if we don’t, those inner thoughts which are lies will work themselves out in distorted beliefs and disobedient actions.

Dr. Larry Crabb

Inside Out

Actually, I’ve read many books by Dr. Crabb. But there’s no question that “Inside Out” was the one that had the most significant impact on my life.

God used the information in this book to build on the perspective I’d adopted from “Telling Yourself the Truth”—that the real battle for the Christian is in the mind and the heart.

One of the most influential Bible quotations he provides was from Jeremiah.

Even though this passage is actually directed towards the nation of Israel, the sins God is describing applies to anyone who is guilty of similar thoughts and actions.

Just like Adam and Eve in the garden, sin starts in our minds when we choose to believe that God is withholding something from us that’s “vital” to life. Those thoughts—that God can’t be trusted to provide what we think we desperately need—lead us to actions of refusing to wait on God, and of instead trying on our own to take what’s at hand to provide what we think we need. Our unfaithful thoughts—based on the lies of Satan—always lead to horribly inferior results compared to what God had intended for us.

God says that He’s the “fountain of living waters,” which His people refuse. They walk away from God’s fountain to seek water from a broken, leaking cistern. As a “fountain,” God always flows with more fresh, clean water. A broken, leaking cistern on the other hand contains a relatively small amount of muddy water that’s always running dry.

What Dr. Crabb illustrates with the Jeremiah reference is that we all develop strategies for providing for ourselves, rather than waiting for our provisions for life to be given to us by God. He further explains that these sinful strategies are formed in our attempts to avoid pain and disappointment and to maximize pleasure. We want to experience heaven here on earth.

The Holy Spirit used both this book and “Telling Yourself the Truth” to help me better understand how people “work,” and how it is that we can experience real change and growth. As Dr. Crabb describes, real change in our Christian life comes when we’re wise and courageous enough to “take a look inside” our minds and our hearts— for the purpose of exposing and repenting of sinful thoughts, beliefs and strategies, and for reinforcing a determined conviction that “good” only comes from God Himself.

John Piper

Five Points, Look at the Book podcasts, and the Tagline for Desiring God

As indicated on the page, My Theological Perspective, I firmly believe the doctrinal truth revealed in the Bible is consistent with what’s generally known as “Calvinism.” (Although also on that page, I explain how I prefer to say that my understanding of Biblical doctrinal is through a “Reformed” perspective.

John Piper’s book, “Five Points” provides an excellent—and relatively succinct—explanation of the five major points of the Calvinist/Reformed position. Here’a a quote from his introduction.

This focus on knowing the Person of God has been a consistent theme—or series of lessons—that the Holy Spirit has continually led me through during my Christian life.

An appropriate question then is, “How is it that we’re able to more fully know Who God is?

The best answer is the Bible itself most effectively and accurately reveals the Person of God: His nature, character, purposes, plans and works.

Which is why I love Piper’s podcast series “Look at the Book.”

Every Christian should be taught the methodology he employs for studying God’s Word. Basically, he uses an “Inductive Study” approach. Specifically, every “lab” demonstrates how carefully he observes and analyzes each of the words and phrases in a passage. This is the same methodology that my mentor, Marvin Robbins taught me. It’s also the one methodology I try to share with other Christians who are wanting to become more skillful in reading, understanding and applying God’s Word.

In commenting on the tagline used by John Piper’s “Desiring God” ministry, let me get one point of disagreement out of the way from the outset: I personally dissaprove of his use of the phrase “Christian Hedonism.”

“Hedonism” is a philosophy that was developed over two thousand years ago by philosopher named Aristippus of Cyrene, who was a student of Socrates. Here’s a definition of this philosophy.

The word hedonism tends to have a fatalistic and amoral connotation to it—basically, living for pleasure, today, is all that matters.

And connotations are important to pay attention to.

For example, no Christian author with any sense of wisdom would write that “All true Christians should demonstrate a gay attitude about life” when trying to communicate that the Christian life should be characterized by an experience of deep joy. The word “gay”—unfortunately—now always carries the connotation of “homosexual.” I think in the same way, the word “hedonism” carries the inappropriate connotations listed above: pleasure is all that matters in life.

Rather than the term, “Christian Hedonism,” I prefer the term “Christian Joy,” which, I believe is actually consistent with what John Piper means. In fact, I’m in complete agreement with the “tagline” he’s been using for years, and with his explanation of it.

My paraphrase of that statement would be this: the more joy we experience in God, Himself, the more our lives will bring glory to Him.

Actually, I think the experiential aspect of a proper, growing, intimate relationship with God should increasingly include spontaneous times of awe, worship and joy.

The natural question to follow that statement then is, “How is it that we can increasingly experience these times of spontaneous awe, worship and joy in our relationship with God?” The following comments about the next author will answer that question.

John Calvin

Institutes of the Christian Religion

The ePub version that I have of this book is around 1,500 pages. Which means it required a serious commitment to finish it. However, the blessings from reading it have been almost as numerous as the pages.

Since Institutes was written during the Reformation—at a time when there was major discord between Protestants and Catholics—there’s a significant amount of content focused on refuting common errors in Catholicism. But, that’s actually a good thing, as it allows the reader to understand how great the separation was then, and continues to be now, between the erroneous view and the Biblical view of the doctrines discussed.

Calvin wrote this book for the purpose of guiding serious believers in their own study of God’s Word and assisting them in the progress of their faith. The book presents a “systematic theology” from the Protestant perspective, and is divided into four main sections: God the Creator, God the Redeemer, Man the Receiver of God’s Grace, and The Church.

One of the central beauties of this book is the systematic nature of how the truth of God’s Word is presented. For me, reading this book after 40 years as a Christian “brought me back” to my earliest days as a believer. As I mentioned in My Christian Testimony, my attendance at Spring Branch Community Church provided a systematic, Bible Institute-level training in God’s Word. How blessed I was—and still am today—to have been led to and trained up in that church by God!

There’s a common figure of speech, “Can’t see the forest for the trees.” The corollary is also used, “Can’t see the trees for the forest.” Both of these statements describe the situation when someone is so focused on one thing that they cannot see another thing that’s equally obvious. More specifically, these statements contrast either seeing the details and missing the obvious big picture, or else, seeing the big picture without seeing all the individual, obvious details.

Rather than being an either-or scenario—either seeing the trees or seeing the forest—the systematic presentation in Institutes allows serious believers to not only properly understand the essential Christian doctrines (the individual details), but to also fully appreciate the interconnectedness of these doctrines, especially as they collectively illustrate the Gospel story (the big picture).

This book served to greatly expand my understanding of the person of God, my sense of wonder and awe of Him, the glory I perceived in Him and the depth of my love for Him.

A.W. Pink

The Attributes of God

This one book should be required reading for every Christian. Seriously.

I know it’s never permitted to add anything to the one requirement for salvation: faithful belief in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus as our Savior. So, it’s not correct for me to say someone must read this book. But, I sincerely, almost want to add that as a condition for salvation. (Please hear me… I’m NOT saying that.)

But, how can a child grow up and know who he is and what his place in the world is without knowing who his father is—especially if he’s been born to the king?

Every person ever born starts life without any understanding of the person of God—of Who He really is. We all start from zero. And even when we first become Christians, our understanding of God is still very much an infantile understanding.

One of the most important ways we need to grow as Christians is in our understanding of the person of God: His nature, character, purposes, plans and works… on our behalf.

For the attributes that I already had a basic understanding of, this book gave my a much more advanced understanding and appreciation. And for those I hadn’t know well, it helped me to at least begin to comprehend and appreciate them.

In the same way as Calvin’s Institutes, this book greatly expanded my understanding of the person of God, my sense of wonder and awe of Him, the glory I perceived in Him and the depth of my love for Him.

The Main Point

While the preceding descriptions might seem somewhat random and not all that important to you—the reader—please understand that from my perspective, the contributions these men made in the formation of my Christian perspective of life are great treasures.

I strongly recommend to any Christian who’s serious about their faith: read the great, classic works of reformed authors like Calvin (“Institutes of the Christian Religion”) and Pink (“The Attributes of God” and others). Their writing elevates and expands our perception of the great goodness of our God—more so, in my opinion, than almost all current day writers. Read the books and listen to sermon podcasts of people like Martyn Lloyd-Jones.

The most important life lesson that God has taught me through these authors, books and sermons is that whenever we read God’s Word, we should always, actively be asking—and answering—the question, “What does this passage reveal to me about God: about His nature, character, purposes, plans and works on my behalf?”