The Art of (Spiritual) War

These chapters include concepts such as knowing yourself and your enemy, knowing how to mislead the enemy, and knowing when (and when not) to fight. Although penned over 2,500 years ago, it has stood the test of time as a must-read for those who wish to study how to gain victory in all manner of human conflicts, whether personal, political, military, or corporate.

The promo blurb for the book on one website1 reads:

[A]ll levels of military have used the teaching on Sun Tzu to warfare and civilization have adapted these teachings for use in politics, business and everyday life. The Art of War is a book which should be used to gain advantage of opponents in the boardroom and battlefield alike.

Waging Spiritual Battles

Now, even as a Bible-believing Christian, I can still appreciate some of the clever strategies and suggestions laid out in secular works as being legitimately effective.

After all, Jesus taught that people of the world are often more attuned to manipulating others to their best advantage, rather than those born-again believers who are only in the world. So, it shouldn’t surprise us that non-believers can produce clever works.

The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. (Luke 16:8)

Christians Should Be Prepared for Spiritual Battle

It’s an unfortunate truth that worldly people are often more clever with their contemporaries than spiritual people are. But this doesn’t have to be so for the astute Christian because we also have a book that tells us how to wage war in a spiritual sense: a book with ultimate authority—the Bible.

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. (Ephesians 6:12)

And as the battle for souls is obviously the most important battle of all, believers should study the art of spiritual war and our enemy’s deceptive tactics to achieve victory through the Lord as much as possible. And we should be aware of the enemy’s tactics so we can be on guard and properly defend ourselves as well.

The Practicality of the Book of Proverbs

The book of Proverbs contains an enormous amount of practical wisdom to apply in our day-to-day combat with the world, so to speak, and one of my favorite passages carried in the forefront of my mind (especially in my work as an apologist) is this:

Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself.
Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes. (Proverbs 26:4–5)

This proverb is often seen as confusing (or even contradictory), even by many Bible-believing Christians, as they may not have determined its proper application in the art of spiritual war. However, when understood, it provides insight into (and protection against) a strategy that many non-believers utilize against unwitting Christians.

And although I’ve gone over this before, let’s revisit some of the important concepts embedded in this proverb before moving on to a practical example: a well-known pastor who has stumbled headlong into this trap of fool’s folly, Andy Stanley.

Who Is “the Fool,” According to Scripture?

Although there are many interpretations of what foolishness entails among people, the Bible makes an unequivocal declaration as to one worldview that defines a “fool.”

The fool says in their heart that there is no God. (Psalm 14:1)

Biblical foolishness refers to a mindset or worldview that outright omits the idea of God, which cannot lead to wise conclusions.

Obviously, someone declaring God doesn’t exist (atheos) is defined as an atheist. And as some atheists have a high IQ, this particular foolishness the psalmist mentions can’t simply refer to pure, cognitive ability. Rather, biblical foolishness refers to a mindset or worldview that outright omits the idea of God, which cannot lead to wise conclusions.

As the Bible says,

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. (Proverbs 9:10)

And confirms,

Whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists. (Hebrews 11:6)

What Is the Fool’s Folly?

So, what exactly is the fool’s folly? Well, as the atheistic worldview is entirely naturalistic, atheists come to many wrong conclusions about the world we live in. Classical atheists declare there is no God, and the Bible reveals everything was created by a supernatural creator, so atheists declare the Bible’s historical authenticity false.

As they declare there is no God, they must have an alternative way to explain existence without a supernatural creator, and the only option then is some form of “naturalistic evolution.”2 Whether Darwinian evolution, neo-Darwinian evolution, chaos theory, punctuated equilibrium, etc., they declare that everything we experience came about through natural processes over millions of years.

So, all atheists obviously don’t believe in the authority and infallibility of the Bible (the only source of true knowledge) while simultaneously declaring belief in some sort of evolution. These are their main follies.

What Christians Shouldn’t Do

Now that we’ve examined who the fool is and what their folly is in this specific context (atheists disbelieving the authenticity of the Bible while believing in evolution), let’s examine the application of the proverb. Verse 4 says not to answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like him—so what does that mean?

It means Christians shouldn’t answer atheists by “buying in” or accepting their way of thinking or agreeing with their conclusions, or else they will become “like” the fool (the atheist) themselves. And here is where we’ll bring in a modern-day example of this by looking at a public demonstration of this folly played out in Christendom today by the well-known pastor, Andy Stanley.

Andy Stanley’s Fall into the Fool’s Trap

The following quotes are all taken from an address Pastor Stanley made at Dallas Theological Seminary, where he was teaching the next generation of potential Christian pastors how he feels they should approach the exposition of the Word of God.3

Stanley’s belief on what Christians should do when preaching and teaching is to focus exclusively on the resurrection of Christ rather than the authority, infallibility, or inerrancy of Scripture. (His statements in this transcript are timestamped for you to examine.)

[T]o begin from now on for the rest of our lives . . . our preaching, and our teaching, and our writing, to tether the faith of this next generation to the event of the resurrection rather than the authority and the inspiration, infallibility, or even the inerrancy of the Bible where it should have been tethered all along. (12:32–12:55)

Now I am only showing specific statements by Pastor Stanley for brevity here. Still, just in case you think I am quoting him out of context or omitting bits that would reverse the obvious intent of his statement, I invite you to watch the entire talk he gives (link below) so that you can see he is sincerely promoting this idea.

In fact, he describes it as an epiphany-like moment in his life where he realized suddenly that the authority, inspiration, or infallibility of the Bible (i.e., the truth of God’s revealed Word) needn’t be the foundation of the Christian faith.

Indeed, elsewhere Stanley has said that Christians need to “unhitch” the Old Testament4 from their understanding of the faith (meaning Christians should ignore the Old Testament and focus solely on the resurrection, especially in evangelism) and that

Jesus’ new covenant . . . does not need propping up by the Jewish scriptures [emphasis mine].

Now, rather than me spending time explaining the ridiculousness of a Christian stating they think believers should tell non-Christians to believe in the resurrection of Christ and to accept Jesus as their Savior while simultaneously telling them the Bible needn’t be inerrant or inspired, let’s just move past it and uncover where Stanley’s motivation to take this absurd stance originated.

Buying into the Opponent’s Beliefs

The most interesting thing to note is how Stanley came to the revelation that the Word of God (especially the Old Testament) need not be true as plainly written. It was all because of listening to a speech by (you guessed it) an atheist!

[S]o about nine years ago, I was sitting at home, and I'm watching the YouTube video of Sam Harris . . . famous atheist neuroscientist . . . somebody told me to watch. And he's at a university setting, and he is just completely dismantling the Bible, and the crowd is cheering, I mean every time he makes it—takes a shot at the Bible, they just cheer . . . and as I was watching, something dawned on me that I'd never thought about before . . . it rocked my world and changed the way I preached—I made the change almost immediately. (13:00–13:36).

So, what was it that Andy never thought of?

[I]t dawned on me that Sam Harris shared an assumption with everybody in the room that was a skeptic or an atheist or agnostic . . . and the assumption that he shared with them he also shared with most Christians . . . it’s an assumption that I was raised on, it’s an assumption that most of you were raised on . . . that the Bible is the foundation of the Christian faith. (13:36–14:10)

[T]he assumption being that, as the Bible goes, so goes the Christian faith. So he dismantles the Bible and all confidence in the Bible. He’s dismantling Christianity in his mind, and in the minds of the people in the audience, and in the minds and the hearts of people and students and high school students and college students everywhere. (14:19–14:36)

But of course, it’s an assumption by Christians that the Bible is the foundation of our faith. Because it’s where all Christian beliefs and doctrines come from, including the resurrection!

Harris’ argument that the Bible supposedly can’t be trusted in various areas (history, science, philosophy, etc.) is his (and other atheists’) stated purpose for his reasoning against belief in Christianity, because if the Bible isn’t true, then Christianity is false. And that assumption is not dangerous or foolish in some way, as it’s based on God’s Word itself!

Obviously, to have a logically consistent theological understanding, you can’t hold contradictory views simultaneously because true (actual, not simply misunderstood) contradictions are inherently false. And when people knowingly make false statements, they are lying. However, Scripture reminds us,

God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. (Numbers 23:19)

Truth is a central tenet of Christian apologetics. If believers accept contradictions within the Christian worldview, they would also have to extend that acceptance to any other worldview to be fair and logically consistent.

Simply put, what we see in God’s Word matches what we see in his world when interpreted correctly.

Because God cannot lie and he knows all things, he cannot be mistaken. So we can trust that God would not actually make statements that contradict anything in his creation. Simply put, what we see in God’s Word matches what we see in his world when interpreted correctly.

This is what Stanley should have held to. However, under the influence of an atheist’s Bible critique, he didn’t. He stepped onto the opponent’s playing field and started playing by their rules.

[S]o after I watched this, I thought, “This is terrible, and someone needs to do something.” And I looked around, and it was just me. (14:43–14:56)

And this is where the trap was sprung, as Stanley began to accept the fool’s (Harris’) folly. By agreeing that the Bible need not be correct in all areas (except apparently the resurrection account), Stanley bought into the fool’s argument that assuming the Bible is totally reliable is incorrect and began answering him “according to his folly.” And if you think I am overstating things here, watch Stanley’s admission to this here in his own words:

[S]o I thought, “I am—this is—this is like a big deal because I was raised—most Christians were raised—and it’s again an assumption—[which] is a dangerous thing.” (14:56–15:08)

This assumption is what I want you to focus on; this assumption is absolutely false . . . . (19:24–19:30)

Astonishingly, Stanley says that Christians’ assumptions that the Bible is authoritative, infallible, inspired, and inerrant (11:57–12:49) is a dangerous thing (14:56–15:08) and is incorrect (19:24–19:30)! Why? Apparently, that’s what the atheist’s assumption was.

Losing the Battle of Biblical Authority

And (in addition to conceding the infallibility and inerrancy of Scripture), what else has Stanley “answered according to the fool’s folly”? Well, he recently declared in another video that evolution is compatible with the Genesis creation account, which means he’s accepted evolution as a reality and that this is somehow the process God used to create.

So, upon final examination, Stanley has completely bought into the atheists’ presupposition, which, in case you have forgotten, is “thinking atheists don’t believe in the authority and infallibility of the Bible while simultaneously declaring belief in some sort of evolution.”

Stanley has adopted both of their main positions and declares we should somehow hold to the truth of the resurrection. However, that’s like saying to a skeptic, “Yes, you are correct. The Bible isn’t necessarily trustworthy throughout, but it doesn’t matter because we can still trust this other part of it for sure.” But my question (like any other logical person’s question) would be why—based on what authority?

Stanley has become just what Proverbs 26:4 predicted. He has become like the fool himself. And because he has a large influence over many in the church, Stanley has likely convinced many other professing believers to adopt these foolish ways unwittingly.

Losing the Spiritual Battle

Can you imagine the foolhardiness of a soldier who could be persuaded by their enemy to voluntarily remove their armor and toss aside their weapons before entering combat? As preposterous as it sounds, Sun Tzu definitely could, as one of his most famous quotes in The Art of War is this:

Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.5

And this is exactly what Stanley has done: given up his protection (the faith in God’s Word) and his weapon (the sword of the Spirit). So by buying into his opponent’s lies, he has been placed on a spiritual battlefield of his enemy’s choosing, with nothing to defend against or attack the enemy’s stronghold.

Stanley has fallen to the age-old tactic the enemy has always used since the beginning of the creation, causing Stanley to question, “Did God actually say?” (as per Genesis 3:1). And this deception has consumed so many in the church today, despite the Apostle Paul’s warning against it:

But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. (2 Corinthians 11:3)

What Should Stanley Have Done?

Of course, what Stanley (and any true Christ-follower) should have done is follow the advice of Proverbs 26:5 (Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes) and challenge Harris’ incorrect presuppositions (that the Bible is not defensible, and that evolution is a fact).

He should have begun with the presupposition that God’s Word is true and put on the full armor of God as Ephesians 6 exhorts us to do. He should have followed the command in 1 Peter 3:15 to have answers for our faith and answered Harris’ false presuppositions by showing them as unwise. He should have stood on the full authority of the Word of God.

Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. (Ephesians 6:14–17)