CHAPTER SIXTEEN
PERSUASION
The Problem with a Spiritual Warfare Model
My friend Aaron tends to see everything through the lens of spiritual warfare. He’s a self-appointed watchman and warrior for God. He envisions himself and his church as frontline soldiers in a great spiritual battle between the forces of evil and those who uphold biblical values.
As a result, most of his interactions with non-Christians are adversarial.
He does a lot of debating but very little persuading.
He’s fallen into a common trap. He’s replaced the paradigm of persuasion with the paradigm of warfare. His focus has subtly shifted from persuading the lost to fighting the spread of sin on all fronts.
When we shift from persuasion to warfare, we stiffen resistance to the gospel. Non-Christians don’t want to live like Christians. When they feel pressured to do so, they fight back. And when people are fighting, there’s one thing they never do.
Listen.
Once the battle has been engaged, no one listens.
Seeking to Persuade
Daniel and his friends never treated their captors as enemies. They followed the advice of Jesus long before it was given. They loved their enemies and did good to them.1
We’re supposed to do the same thing. Our great assignment is to go out into all the world and recruit Jesus followers, teaching them to obey everything he taught us. Jesus never told us to create a Christian nation, impose our standards on nonbelievers, or preserve a particular culture.
He told us to win over the lost.
Those who trade the persuasion paradigm for a warfare paradigm often forget the awful cesspool that the New Testament church was birthed in. The Roman Empire knew nothing of political freedoms. There were no family values. Sexual perversion was the norm. Life was cheap. Justice was out of reach for all except the rich and powerful.
And even though Rome tolerated most foreign religions, it didn’t tolerate Christians. The early church suffered fierce persecution. All but one of the apostles died a martyr’s death.
Yet the focus of the New Testament is entirely upon changing hearts, not changing governments or culture. When the biblical authors speak of spiritual warfare, it’s always framed in the context of our personal spirituality.2
Who’s Our Enemy?
The warfare model focuses on the wrong enemy. Non-Christians are not the enemy. They’re victims of the Enemy. Victims need to be rescued, not wiped out.
The apostle Paul spelled out the response we’re supposed to have toward those who live like hell and actively advance the cause of the Enemy. It’s not what many would expect.
And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.3
Notice that these are people who are doing the will of the Devil. They’re not just in his parade. They’re leading the parade.
Yet the goal of our interactions is not to see God pour out his judgment upon them. It’s to see him pour out his grace and mercy, granting them repentance and knowledge of the truth. In other words, our primary goal is persuasion.
Notice also the attitude and specific actions we’re called to take.
We’re not to argue or quarrel.
We must be kind to everyone. And, yes, everyone means everyone. No exceptions. I checked the Greek. I was hoping it was a rare word for almost everyone. No such luck.
We must also be prepared to teach and explain the truth, but it must be done gently, without resentment. The apostle Peter put it this way: “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.”4
Frankly, it’s here that many of us can miss the boat. The more Babylon-like our culture becomes, the more our resentment builds, resulting in bitterness, slander, rumormongering, and harsh critiques that no one would characterize as a kind and gentle rebuke.
Many excuse their words by pointing to Jesus’s harsh rebukes of the Pharisees and other religious leaders of his day. But they miss the point. Jesus didn’t rail on the sinners of his day. He pursued them. It was the religious hypocrites who were attempting to keep the sinners at bay that he blasted.
Nebuchadnezzar was as evil as they come. He served a demonic god. He trashed Jerusalem and God’s temple. He mocked God. He was unreasonable, hotheaded, vain, murderous, and cruel.
Yet every interaction Daniel had with him was respectful and gracious. He understood that every time we treat God’s enemies as our enemies, we harden their hearts and build up a wall that makes repentance all the more unlikely.
When Babylon Prospers, We Prosper
A final problem with the spiritual warfare paradigm is that it creates a false impression that success of the wicked means failure of the righteous.
It’s one reason so many of us have a hard time humbly serving a profane boss or submitting to godless governing authorities. We assume that if they succeed, we fail. Yet that’s not how it works.
Now obviously our submission to those in authority doesn’t include sin. When offered a nonkosher diet, Daniel refused to eat it. His three friends chose a fiery furnace rather than bowing down to a golden statue of Nebuchadnezzar. And Daniel continued to publicly pray even after it was declared a capital offense.
But the fact remains, that when our leaders prosper, we prosper. And when our nation prospers, we prosper, even if it becomes as wicked as Babylon. Consider the words of Jeremiah to the Jewish exiles in Babylon.
This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”5
It’s a principle that still applies. In order to bring fame and honor to the name of Jesus, we must bloom where we’re planted. We’re not here by accident. God has not only numbered our days, but he’s also preordained when and where we spend them.
Daniel was assigned to Babylon. Joseph was placed in Egypt. The early Christians were asked to serve God in Rome. And we’ve been assigned to this time and this place. Our task is unambiguous. We are to proclaim the gospel to lost people in the hope they will repent and bow the knee. Our goal is to win them over, not to wipe them out.
But we’ll never be able to persuade anybody if our knee-jerk response to those held captive to do the Enemy’s will remains one of anger, resentment, disrespect, and scorn. We can’t toss verbal Molotov cocktails in the name of Jesus and claim we’re loving our enemies.
No one will believe us.
And no one should.