Jumpstarter 7 of 10

Direct Answer Dean teaches that Christians fight through spiritual means—prayer, godliness, self-denial, and cross-shaped witness—rather than attacking people as enemies. A church trains us to fight the wrong enemies when it ends the verse at “we wrestle not” (passivity) or when it frames solutions mainly in worldly categories instead of spiritual warfare.

Support from Transcript:

• Dean intentionally stops and restarts the verse: “We wrestle not… (period)” is a mistake; the text continues “not against flesh and blood,” meaning we do wrestle, just not carnally.
• He names the true targets: “principalities… powers… rulers of the darkness… spiritual wickedness in high places.”
• He presents prayer as warfare that “defeat[s] all demons who stir up war” (Origen) and as “arm and missiles against the foe” (Tertullian).
• He adds “self-denying exercises” joined to “righteous prayers and meditations” as part of fighting for the good.
• He highlights ministries that go into “troubled areas” (crisis response, inner city work, refugees, trafficking/prostitution) as active engagement with evil without violence.
• He warns against framing life around preserving “the American dream,” which shifts our focus away from Christ’s kind of battle.