Book Review: Spiritual Warfare: A Biblical and Balanced Perspective

Spiritual Warfare: A Biblical and Balanced Perspective is an excellent overview of spiritual warfare. Using Ephesians 6:10-20 as the structure and the outline of the book, authors Brian Borgman and Rob Ventura expound what Paul tells us both about the spiritual war Christians engage in, and the weapons of that war.

The “Biblical Perspective” in the subtitle comes from the exposition of the text. The authors do a good job of giving the historical background of the book of Ephesians, and then chapter by chapter lays out what the text says before applying the text to the Christian life. However, the book doesn’t read like a commentary or someone’s sermon outlines, it is both instructive and readable.

The “Balanced Perspective” in the subtitle alludes to the interpretation and view of the spiritual warfare. In the introduction, C.S. Lewis is quoted from The Screwtape Letters “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.”  This book affirms the reality of our enemy and the spiritual struggles from both without and within on our Christian pilgrimage; however, the focus is not on the forces of evil, but on Christ which is the key to this book.

Spiritual Warfare is well written and engaging. The chapters are short and quick to the point, but also full of spiritual instruction. Each chapter concludes with questions for reflection and discussion, which makes this book valuable for study groups, family worship, or other small groups. The latter portion of the book is especially beneficial to preachers and pastors on the chapters on prayer, the Sword of the Spirit, and the proclamation of the Word of God.  I would recommend this book as a good place to start on spiritual warfare, or for a pastor studying Ephesians. My thanks to Cross Focused Media for providing me the review copy.

J.C. Ryle on the Prophetic Passages

J.C. Ryle

“All these [prophetic] Texts are to my mind plain prophecies of Christ’s second coming and kingdom. All are yet without their accomplishment, and all shall yet be literally and exactly fulfilled. I say “literally and exactly fulfilled," and I say so advisedly. From the first day that I began to read the Bible with my heart, I have never been able to see

these texts, and hundreds like them, in any other light. It always seemed to me that as we take literally the texts foretelling that the walls of Babylon shall be cast down, so we ought to take literally the texts foretelling that the wall so Zion shall be built up—that as according to prophecy the Jews were literally scattered, so according to prophecy the Jews will be literally gathered – and that as the least and minutest predictions were made good on the subject of our Lord’s coming to suffer, so the minutest predictions shall be made good which describe our Lord’s coming to reign.”

Amen.