Art of War - digg this
As you can see by my sidebar I'm reading what has become known as The Art of War by Sun Tzu. From today's reading this jumped out at me, "In war, then, let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns." This section focuses largely on the need to make war quickly and to use the bounty of your enemy to bolster your ranks and pay your way rather than relying on money from home. There's good sense here that could certainly be applied on a variety of fronts, not just war.
If you enjoyed this entry subscribe to this blog by email or feed readerI'm aware that I'm not the first to have such thoughts on this tome. It has been applied to business, sports, and politics. I'm tempted to apply it to the current war we're in, but of course not all of this could apply since we'd be hard pressed to use what resources our enemies have to add anything significant to our own forces. I will say that it would have been good to think about this particular pull quote before we entered the current conflict and leave it there.
I wonder if these principles could be applied in spiritual warfare. I've been thinking about that quite a bit, not just lately. I get together with a group of guys on a regular basis to pray and many of us are locked into some long standing battle with a sin. In some cases it's a sin particular to one of is. In others it's one that most of us share. In every case there's more than one. Together we fight the good fight and help one another up after a fall.
Of course I know that the war against sin and temptation is one that won't be won in this life, but our object is victory. Unfortunately the nature of the campaign is one that will require long suffering and patience. We face setback after setback. The length of the run is unknown to us, but the outcome (one hopes) is sure. So, perhaps Sun Tzu's wisdom isn't applicable to the spiritual realm.
The Bible says "For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses." (2 Cor 10:3-4). We trust that these divine weapons, not the least of which is grace, is sufficient to do precisely what God intends, no matter how long it may take.
Total Number of Comments: 3
In Chapter Three, Sun Tzu says:
Therefore, I say: Know your enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles, you will never be defeated. When you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal. If ignorant both of your enemy and of yourself, you are sure to be defeated in every battle.
I think in many cases, we can fight spiritually being ignorant of ourselves *and* our enemy. Specifically, this comes out as fighting the wrong enemy. Those who seem to be successful tend to still fight the wrong enemy, but they know themselves. For example, a person that knows they cannot refuse chocolate as a gift can go out of his way to let people know, "DO NOT WANT CHOCOLATE". But fighting the wrong enemy can make the conviction weaker. Who is the enemy? Is it Satan? Or is it as James says, that we are dragged away by our own desires? It would seem wiser to identify the enemy as our own desire instead of Satan. Besides, he has already been defeated anyway.
Then again, we do not wage war as the world does as you quote in 2 Cor. Proverbs says that the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God, not the knowledge of self. Grace, not self-knowledge, is what gives us power over our weaknesses. More specifically, the love of God as evidenced by his gift to us.
Still, Jesus praises the shrewd manager and even warns his disciples to be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves. Considering that Sun Tzu addresses the mental aspect, and Paul addresses the emotive and spiritual aspect, is it possible to do both?
I would think so. I find in my battles against sin, my defeats do not come so much from ignorance as the lack of power. Sun Tzu doesn't address the lack of will so much, but God appears to do so. My understanding of grace gives me the power to overcome whereas left to my own devices, I would know the right things to do without being able to do it.
But that's just me.
There you are! You make some good points. I think as I go through AoW I'll pick out some similar thoughts. I smell a book. "Art of Spiritual War: Sun Tzu vs Jesus"
Yea, that quote certainly does speak of vision!