Captive Minds

 II Corinthians 10:1 I, Paul, myself entreat you, by the meekness and gentleness of Christ—I who am humble when face to face with you, but bold toward you when I am away!— 2 I beg of you that when I am present I may not have to show boldness with such confidence as I count on showing against some who suspect us of walking according to the flesh. 3 For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. 5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, 6 being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.

We once again notice Paul's "treading softly" in dealing with this troubled church.  With some of the hard things he had told them in his earlier letter, some were making him out to be some sort of bully who was picking on them.  Paul was bold - just look at Luke's account in Acts - but he was also meek, gentle, and humble.  Paul was not their enemy; their real enemy was unseen, and much more "dangerous" than Paul. Paul's great fear was that they were being deluded, by spiritual forces and their own carnality, into thinking they were justified in their sinful behavior. They needed to have their thinking "taken captive" by Christ. Paul goes on in the rest of the chapter doing two things: "defending" his ministry, and challenging them not to compare themselves to Paul, but to Christ. He is our standard. Let us fix our minds on that.