Baptist Press
By Chuck Lawless, posted December 12, 2024
I’ve studied and written about spiritual warfare for more than 30 years now. In fact, you can study the topic with me through the Church Answers “Church Equip” course, “Engaging in Spiritual Warfare.” In some ways, that short course reflects the core of what I’ve taught over the years.
What I don’t always talk about when I’m teaching this topic, however, is why I started studying warfare in the first place.
My father drank when I was quite young, and he had a violent, explosive temper for many years. My first memory is a time when my dad was angry at my mom for being at the store too long, and he destroyed the bottom floor of our home. Now more than 60 years later, I can still walk you through that house and show you the upheaval as if it happened yesterday. Every detail remains etched in my mind. Even my Christian conversion at age 13 did not erase that memory – or many others, for that matter.
Indeed, more than once I stood between my mom and dad – both of them towering over me when I was younger – hoping to shield my mom as she shook and cried in fear under the barrage of my dad’s verbal assaults. I was equally afraid, but I felt a compulsion to somehow guard my mom. In fact, I lived in dreaded fear of my dad until I was big enough to stand up to him (or more likely, just avoid him) – but the fears of my young years then turned to hatred in my teen years.
Again, though, my conversion at age 13 did not free me immediately from those feelings; it just left me confused under what I would later learn was Holy Spirit conviction. It would be more than 15 years before I found victory over that anguish. That’s where the topic of spiritual warfare entered my story. More Here
