What Is the Greatest Fight Christians Face Today?
- Edward D. Andrews
- 1 hour ago
- 15 min read
The Greatest Fight Is Still Being Fought
There are conflicts that capture the attention of nations, change governments, redraw borders, and fill the pages of history. Yet the greatest fight in the world is not ultimately fought between armies, political movements, economic systems, or competing civilizations. It is the conflict between truth and error, faithfulness and apostasy, obedience and rebellion, the Word of God and the thinking of a world alienated from its Creator. It is a conflict over what men and women will believe, whom they will obey, how Christians will worship, what churches will proclaim, and whether those entrusted with the gospel will remain faithful when compromise appears easier than conviction.
That fight was real in the days of the apostles. It was real throughout the centuries that followed. It was real when Charles H. Spurgeon sounded his warning to Christian ministers and believers. It remains just as real in the twenty-first century.
The outward circumstances have changed dramatically. Technology places immense quantities of information before us within seconds. Skepticism that once circulated primarily in universities now reaches millions through social media, podcasts, videos, blogs, and popular entertainment. Moral standards that generations once regarded as obvious are openly rejected. Biblical illiteracy has entered churches that possess greater access to Bibles and study materials than almost any generation before them. Religious teachers can gather enormous audiences while handling Scripture carelessly. Churches can become occupied with programs, personalities, emotional experiences, political causes, entertainment, and institutional survival while gradually neglecting the one thing Christ commanded them to proclaim: the truth of God.
The battlefield has changed in appearance, but the essential conflict has not changed.
Paul reminded Christians, “For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but powerful before God for the destruction of strongholds. We are destroying arguments and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God” (2 Corinthians 10:3-5). The apostle was not calling Christians to physical warfare. He was describing a conflict involving arguments, knowledge, beliefs, ideas, loyalties, and obedience. Christianity advances through truth, persuasion, proclamation, teaching, godly conduct, and faithful endurance. Its weapon is not coercion. Its authority is not human power. Its message does not originate in human wisdom.
The Christian stands because Jehovah has spoken.
This truth establishes the purpose of this book. The greatest fight cannot be understood unless we first understand what is being defended. Christians are not called merely to defend religious tradition, denominational customs, inherited opinions, or personal preferences. They are called to “contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the holy ones” (Jude 3). The faith has content. It contains truths revealed by God, proclaimed by Christ, taught by the apostles, and preserved in the inspired Scriptures.
If those truths are surrendered, there is nothing distinctively Christian left to defend.
The Battle Is Fundamentally a Battle for Truth
Jesus prayed to His Father, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17). That declaration places the Word of God at the center of Christian faithfulness. Truth does not originate in the changing opinions of society. It is not created by religious institutions. It is not determined by majority vote. It is not revised whenever cultural preferences change. Jehovah is the God of truth, and His inspired Word communicates truth reliably to mankind.
This is precisely why attacks upon Christianity so frequently become attacks upon Scripture.
If confidence in the Bible can be weakened, Christian doctrine soon becomes negotiable. If biblical statements are treated as merely human religious reflections, the interpreter becomes the final authority. If difficult passages may simply be dismissed as errors, inconvenient teachings can eventually be discarded. If words may be detached from their historical and grammatical meaning, Scripture can be made to affirm almost anything an interpreter desires.
The greatest fight therefore includes the defense of biblical authority, inspiration, inerrancy, accurate interpretation, and faithful proclamation.
Paul wrote that “all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Scripture does not merely contain occasional religious insights. Its divine origin makes it authoritative. Because God is truthful, what He inspired is true. Because He intended His revelation to communicate meaning, the biblical text must be approached with disciplined attention to its words, grammar, historical setting, literary form, and context.
The Christian does not approach Scripture asking, “What meaning can I create from this passage?” He asks, “What did the inspired author communicate by these words?”
That difference is enormous.
The historical-grammatical method recognizes that God communicated through human authors who wrote actual words in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek within identifiable historical settings. Those words possessed meaning when written. Our responsibility is to recover that meaning as accurately as possible rather than replace it with modern preferences, imaginative allegories, theological systems, or cultural assumptions.
The Bible must be allowed to speak.
When it corrects us, we must be corrected. When it exposes error, the error must be abandoned. When it establishes doctrine, Christians must believe it. When it commands obedience, Christians must obey. When it contradicts the wisdom of the age, the wisdom of the age must give way.
This is where the fight becomes personal. It is easier to defend biblical authority in theory than to submit to biblical authority when Scripture challenges our desires, conduct, habits, assumptions, or cherished theological traditions. Yet loyalty to God’s Word means more than declaring that the Bible is inspired. It requires allowing the inspired Word to govern what we believe and how we live.
The Bible Is the Christian’s Weapon
The imagery of spiritual warfare is unmistakable in the New Testament. Paul commanded Christians to “put on the whole armor of God” so that they could stand against the schemes of the Devil (Ephesians 6:11). He then identified “the sword of the Spirit” as “the word of God” (Ephesians 6:17).
A sword lying unused accomplishes nothing.
Possessing a Bible is not the same as knowing the Bible. Knowing isolated verses is not the same as understanding Scripture. Reading occasionally is not the same as becoming equipped to handle God’s Word accurately. The believer who enters spiritual conflict without serious biblical knowledge enters inadequately prepared.
This is one of the great dangers confronting Christianity today. Bibles are abundant while biblical understanding is often shallow. Christians may recognize favorite passages yet struggle to explain central doctrines. They may repeat theological expressions without knowing whether those expressions accurately represent Scripture. They can become vulnerable to persuasive speakers who quote verses while ignoring their contexts. They can be influenced by emotional appeals, popular personalities, philosophical arguments, or cultural pressure because they have not developed the biblical discernment necessary to distinguish truth from error.
Jesus demonstrated the proper use of Scripture when Satan tempted Him. His responses repeatedly appealed to what had been written. Jesus did not enter philosophical negotiations with the adversary. He did not revise divine commands to make obedience easier. He answered error with the truth of God’s Word.
Christians must learn to do the same.
This requires more than collecting proof texts. Scripture must be understood accurately before it can be used accurately. A verse removed from context can be misused just as easily by a believer as by an unbeliever. Faithful use of the Bible demands attention to context, vocabulary, grammar, historical circumstances, and the intention of the inspired writer.
Hebrews 4:12 describes the Word of God as “living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword.” Its power does not arise from mystical treatment of the physical book. The power resides in the truth God has revealed. Scripture exposes falsehood, identifies sin, corrects distorted thinking, teaches righteousness, reveals the way of salvation, strengthens faith, and trains the Christian conscience.
The believer becomes stronger in spiritual conflict by becoming stronger in biblical understanding.
The Fight Is for the Christian Mind
Every act of deliberate obedience begins with what a person believes to be true. Ideas therefore matter. Doctrine matters. Interpretation matters. What occupies the mind eventually influences the heart, speech, decisions, conduct, relationships, worship, and Christian service.
Paul commanded Christians to be transformed through the renewing of the mind (Romans 12:2). He also urged believers to bring their thinking into obedience to Christ. This intellectual dimension of Christianity is frequently neglected when faith is reduced to emotion or religious experience.
Biblical faith is not irrational belief.
The Christian believes because Jehovah has revealed truth and has supplied sound reasons for confidence in His Word. Christianity rests upon events presented as history: creation, the entrance of sin through Adam, God’s dealings with Israel, the ministry of Jesus Christ, His sacrificial death, His resurrection, the apostolic proclamation, and the promised return of Christ. Remove historical truth from Christianity and biblical faith collapses into subjective religious sentiment.
The Christian mind must therefore be educated by Scripture rather than surrendered to the world.
The danger is not merely openly atheistic thinking. Religious error can be equally destructive. Paul warned that people would arise from within Christian congregations and “speak twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them” (Acts 20:30). He repeatedly warned against false teachers because doctrinal corruption rarely announces itself by admitting that it is false. Error often borrows Christian vocabulary. It quotes Scripture. It speaks of Jesus. It uses familiar theological terms. It can sound compassionate, intellectual, spiritual, or sophisticated.
The protection is not suspicion of everything unfamiliar. The protection is biblical discernment.
Christians must develop the habit exemplified by the Bereans, who examined the Scriptures carefully to determine whether what they were hearing was true (Acts 17:11). No preacher, teacher, author, institution, tradition, confession, or theological system stands above examination by the inspired Word.
That principle applies to this book as well.
The purpose of Christian instruction is never to replace the Bible but to drive the reader more deeply into it. A sound Christian book should help readers understand Scripture more accurately, recognize error more readily, reason more carefully, and obey Jehovah more completely. The moment human explanation displaces the biblical text, the proper order of authority has been reversed.
The Church Is Not a Spectator
The language of battle also reminds us that Christianity is not a spectator religion.
The church is not an audience gathered weekly to observe a handful of religious professionals. Every genuine Christian has responsibilities before God. Every believer must grow in knowledge. Every believer must develop moral courage. Every believer must learn to explain the faith. Every believer must resist Satan, reject falsehood, pursue holiness, encourage fellow Christians, and participate in proclaiming the good news.
Jesus gave His followers a commission to make disciples (Matthew 28:19-20). Evangelism was never intended to become the exclusive responsibility of clergy, specialists, missionaries, or exceptionally gifted speakers. Christians have received truth that the world desperately needs, and love for God and neighbor requires that they make that truth known.
The image of an army is therefore appropriate when properly understood. An army requires discipline, preparation, communication, courage, unity of purpose, and confidence in its commander. A disorderly collection of individuals cannot function effectively. In the same way, Christian congregations require sound teaching, qualified leadership, mutual encouragement, biblical discipline, and a shared commitment to Christ’s commission.
Yet the church must never confuse spiritual warfare with earthly aggression.
Jesus told Pilate that His kingdom was not from this world in the sense of originating from worldly political structures (John 18:36). Christians do not advance the faith by physical force. They persuade. They preach. They teach. They reason from Scripture. They answer objections. They demonstrate through their conduct that obedience to Christ produces a life governed by truth, self-control, moral integrity, love, courage, and hope.
A Christian congregation becomes strong not when it possesses impressive buildings, large budgets, influential connections, polished branding, or widespread social approval, but when its members understand and obey the Word of God.
The church loses strength when biblical knowledge declines.
It loses direction when entertainment replaces instruction.
It loses courage when social acceptance becomes more important than faithfulness.
It loses its distinct identity when the values of the surrounding culture determine what may or may not be preached.
The greatest fight therefore demands churches that understand why they exist.
Christian Leaders Must Lead with the Word
Those entrusted with teaching bear a serious responsibility. James warned, “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, knowing that we will receive a stricter judgment” (James 3:1). Paul instructed Timothy, “Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with complete patience and teaching” (2 Timothy 4:2).
The command was not to preach whatever would gain applause.
It was to preach the Word.
Christian leadership is not celebrity. It is not religious entrepreneurship. It is not personal empire building. It is not the cultivation of an image designed to attract followers to a personality. Biblical leadership is service under authority, and that authority belongs to God and His Word.
A pastor or teacher therefore has no right to manipulate Scripture in order to support personal ideas. He must explain what the text actually communicates. He must possess enough humility to acknowledge when he has misunderstood something and enough courage to correct error when Scripture makes the matter clear. He must teach what is popular and what is unpopular, what comforts and what rebukes, what encourages and what warns.
Leadership in the greatest fight also requires strengthening other Christians rather than creating dependence upon the leader.
Paul told Timothy that what he had heard should be entrusted “to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2). Sound leadership multiplies biblical competence. Mature teachers produce mature students who themselves become capable of explaining and defending the faith.
This is especially important in an age in which Christians can encounter theological claims every day from countless sources. A congregation whose members depend entirely upon one weekly sermon is poorly equipped. Christians must be taught how to study, how to interpret, how to evaluate arguments, how to recognize false reasoning, how to compare claims with Scripture, and how to answer those who challenge biblical truth.
The goal is not to create argumentative Christians. Paul warned against foolish controversies and quarrels. The servant of the Lord must be able to teach and must correct opponents with appropriate gentleness (2 Timothy 2:24-25). Courage and graciousness are not opposites. A Christian can be firm without being abusive, confident without being arrogant, and uncompromising without being needlessly combative.
Truth does not require rudeness to make it strong.
Our Strength Does Not Come From Ourselves
Anyone who takes the Christian fight seriously quickly discovers the inadequacy of human strength.
Intelligence alone is insufficient. Education alone is insufficient. Personality, eloquence, organizational skill, discipline, and courage all have value, but none can replace dependence upon Jehovah. Human beings remain imperfect. Christians contend with sinful tendencies, discouragement, fear, exhaustion, distraction, temptation, and the pressure of a world that does not share their loyalty to God.
Satan also remains a real adversary.
Peter warned Christians: “Be sober-minded, be watchful. Your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith” (1 Peter 5:8-9). The proper response is neither obsession with demonic activity nor denial of its reality. Christians remain alert, grounded in faith, and governed by Scripture.
James gives the same basic pattern: “Subject yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). Resistance begins with submission to God.
This is why spiritual strength cannot be separated from biblical obedience.
The believer who wants strength while neglecting Scripture wants the result without the means Jehovah has provided. Psalm 119 repeatedly connects spiritual stability with knowing, remembering, loving, and obeying God’s Word. Jesus likewise connected discipleship with remaining in His word: “If you remain in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32).
The Christian becomes strong by learning to think as Scripture teaches him to think.
His conscience becomes better trained.
His moral judgment becomes sharper.
His ability to recognize deception increases.
His confidence in God grows as he learns what God has actually promised.
His prayers become more consistent with God’s revealed will.
His evangelism becomes more accurate.
His response to suffering becomes more stable.
His resistance to temptation becomes better informed.
Spiritual maturity is therefore not mysterious. It develops as Christians continually expose their minds to the Spirit-inspired Word and apply that Word to their lives.
The Holy Spirit and the Spirit-Inspired Word
No discussion of the Christian fight can ignore the Holy Spirit. Yet neither may Christians define the Spirit’s present work through subjective impressions, private revelations, emotional experiences, or claims that cannot be examined by Scripture.
The Holy Spirit inspired the Word through which Christians are instructed today.
Peter explained that prophecy did not originate in human will, “but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21). The Spirit’s work in inspiration means that Christians possess an objective, written revelation by which religious claims can be examined.
This protects the believer from spiritual confusion.
A private impression cannot correct Scripture.
A dream cannot add doctrine to Scripture.
A claimed revelation cannot overrule Scripture.
A powerful emotional experience cannot make an unbiblical teaching true.
The Spirit who inspired the Word does not contradict the Word He inspired.
For the first-century apostles and others specially empowered during the establishment of Christianity, the Holy Spirit performed functions connected with miraculous gifts, revelation, inspired instruction, and the authentication of the apostolic message. With the completion of the inspired Scriptures, Christians possess the revealed truth necessary to teach, correct, train, and equip the servant of God for every good work.
Thus, reliance upon the Holy Spirit today is inseparable from reliance upon the Spirit-inspired Scriptures.
Christians seek spiritual strength by filling their minds with what the Spirit caused to be written. They allow those words to educate their consciences. They compare teachings with Scripture. They make decisions according to biblical principles. They cultivate the qualities Scripture identifies as pleasing to God. They reject the works of the flesh and pursue the conduct commanded by Christ and His apostles.
This is not a lesser dependence upon the Spirit. It is dependence upon the very means the Spirit has provided.
The Bible is not spiritually weak because it is written. Its written form is precisely what allows Christians across generations, cultures, and languages to possess a stable standard that does not shift with personal experience. Jehovah has not left His people dependent upon uncertain inner voices. He has given them His revealed Word.
An Old Fight in a New Century
A twenty-first-century presentation of The Greatest Fight in the World must do more than replace old vocabulary with modern expressions. The deeper responsibility is to confront the same fundamental issues in the circumstances Christians actually face today.
The battle for biblical authority now takes place in a culture saturated with information but frequently confused about truth. The fight for Christian conviction takes place in an environment that prizes personal autonomy and often treats moral limits as oppressive. The fight for sound doctrine takes place when anyone with a camera and an internet connection can present himself as a teacher before a worldwide audience. The fight for faithful preaching takes place when churches experience constant pressure to entertain, soften difficult teachings, avoid controversial doctrines, and measure success primarily through attendance, popularity, or financial growth.
Yet the answer has not changed.
“Preach the word.”
“Contend earnestly for the faith.”
“Resist the devil.”
“Stand firm.”
“Make disciples.”
“Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.”
These commands contain no expiration date.
The Christian task is not to reinvent Christianity so that the modern world will approve of it. The task is to communicate the unchanging truth of Scripture accurately and understandably to the modern world. Methods of communication may change. Vocabulary may require explanation. New objections require thoughtful answers. Cultural circumstances demand careful application. But truth itself does not become obsolete.
The gospel does not require modernization in the sense of doctrinal revision.
Scripture does not need rescue from its own teachings.
Christ does not need to be reconstructed according to contemporary expectations.
What Christians need is renewed confidence that Jehovah knew what mankind needed when He gave His Word.
The Fight Begins with the Individual Christian
It is easy to speak of “the church” as though its weaknesses belong to someone else. It is easy to condemn false teachers while failing to study enough to recognize error ourselves. It is easy to lament declining biblical literacy while leaving our own Bibles unopened. It is easy to criticize cowardice in Christian leaders while remaining silent when we personally have an opportunity to explain the gospel.
The greatest fight becomes meaningful only when the individual Christian recognizes his place in it.
Paul’s description of the armor of God is addressed to believers who must personally put it on. Truth must become their belt. Righteousness must characterize them. Faith must become their shield. Salvation must shape their hope. The Word of God must become their sword.
No one else can develop biblical understanding for us.
Teachers can instruct us. Scholars can provide valuable tools. Pastors can explain Scripture. Mature Christians can encourage us. Yet every believer remains responsible for what he believes and how he responds to the truth.
This is why disciplined Bible reading and study are not optional activities reserved for unusually serious Christians. They belong to normal Christian discipleship. The believer who desires to withstand deception must know truth. The believer who desires to answer skeptics must understand why Christianity is credible. The believer who wants to teach others must first learn accurately. The believer who wants to overcome temptation must train his mind to recognize sin as Scripture defines it. The believer who wants to remain faithful under pressure must develop convictions before the pressure arrives.
A soldier does not learn how to use his weapon after the battle has begun.
Preparation must come beforehand.
Standing Where God Has Spoken
The deepest question raised by this book is therefore not whether Christianity faces opposition. Scripture already tells us that it does. The deeper question is whether Christians will remain standing when that opposition comes.
Standing requires conviction.
Conviction requires knowledge.
Knowledge requires careful attention to the Word of God.
The Christian cannot defend a Bible he rarely reads. He cannot explain doctrines he has never studied. He cannot recognize distortions of Scripture if he does not understand Scripture in context. He cannot effectively teach others while remaining satisfied with shallow knowledge himself.
This book therefore calls Christians back to the place from which effective spiritual resistance begins: the revealed Word of Jehovah.
The chapters that follow address what the greatest fight looks like in our time, why Scripture is the indispensable weapon of the Christian, how the Bible must be used accurately in spiritual conflict, how the church functions as a disciplined body of believers, how Christian leaders must strengthen those entrusted to their care, where genuine spiritual strength originates, and how believers rely upon the Holy Spirit through the truth He caused to be written.
The objective is not merely to produce Christians who can identify error.
It is to produce Christians who love truth.
Not merely Christians who can defend the Bible in argument, but Christians who submit to the Bible in life.
Not merely churches that confess biblical authority in doctrinal statements, but churches whose preaching, teaching, worship, leadership, moral standards, evangelism, and congregational life demonstrate that Scripture actually governs them.
Not merely ministers who speak forcefully, but teachers who handle the Word accurately.
Not merely believers who recognize that a battle exists, but believers equipped to stand in it.
Paul’s command remains urgent: “Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm” (Ephesians 6:13).
That is the responsibility before us.
The fight concerns the truth of God.
The weapon has been placed in our hands.
The command has already been given.
And the Christian must stand.
About the Author
EDWARD D. ANDREWS (AS in Criminal Justice, BS in Religion, MA in Biblical Studies, and MDiv in Theology) is CEO and President of Christian Publishing House. He has authored over 220+ books. In addition, Andrews is the Chief Translator of the Updated American Standard Version (UASV).
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