Wage The Good Warfare

Some don’t like it at all. The idea that Christians are engaged in a spiritual war conjures up notions of the crusades to retake the Holy Land and the more contemporary examples of so-called Christian Jihadists who make it their aim to re-take the culture and remake society into a modern-day theocracy. Much of their error is based in a faulty understanding of the Old Testament and how it is to relate to the New Testament age. None of that is the warfare that the New Testament speaks to. In 1 Timothy 6:12, Paul implores Timothy to “fight the good fight of the faith.” The language is inescapable. He said similar things elsewhere too (cf. Ephesians 6:10-20; and 2 Corinthians 10:3-6).

In this week’s passage, 1 Timothy 1:18-20, he hits it again. “Wage the good warfare,” he wrote to the young pastor. But far from this being about culture wars outside of the church, it is a battle for the hearts and minds of professing believers. This is a fight within the church to preserve her doctrinal integrity. To ensure the clarity of the gospel. And Paul’s injunction to Timothy and to us is to engage in this fight for the faith by each one of us playing our own particular role, keeping careful watch over our own backs, and accepting the harsh realities of this spiritual war…namely that there will be losses.

Series: The Good Fight (1 Timothy)
Todd Dugard
Message: 4 – Wage The Good Warfare
Harvest Bible Chapel
Text: 1 Timothy 1:18-20
March 23, 2025

Most religious error is born of moral rebellion rather than intellectual denial.
Thomas D. Lea

When I am engaging in the fight for the faith…

…I play my particular role (v. 18)

1 Corinthians 12:27

1 Corinthians 12:25

Matthew 16:18

2 Corinthians 10:3-5

Ephesians 6:10-20

1 Corinthians 2:2

…I keep careful watch on my own back (v. 19)

James 2:14

James 2:17

James 2:24

The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other poor [soul] die for his.
General George S. Patton

Avoid a sugar-coated gospel. Seek the gospel that rips up, wounds and even kills, for that’s the gospel that makes alive again.
Charles Spurgeon

…I accept the harsh realities of this spiritual war (v. 20)

A Christianity that avoids argument is not the Christianity of the New Testament. The New Testament is full of arguments in defense of the faith.
J. Gresham Machen