1 Now I, Paul, myself plead with you by the gentleness and forbearance of Christ—I who am humble when face-to-face with you, but courageous toward you when absent! 2 But I beg that when I am present, I need not act so courageously with the confidence that I consider to daringly use against some, who consider us as if we walked according to the flesh. 3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, 4 for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the tearing down of strongholds, 5 as we tear down speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, 6 and are ready to punish all disobedience, whenever your obedience is fulfilled. 2 Corinthians 10:1-6 (LSB)
Satan opposes the believer in many ways. No matter how he attempts to subvert our faith, the method he uses is a fiery missile. With these fiery darts he attempts to attack or question or deny God’s character and credibility. We see this as he works through those who hate Christianity and the God of the Bible. Their attacks will always be to try to bring doubt into our hearts about God’s faithfulness and our faith. If we are successful in our service to God he will try to undermine our victories by generating trouble that makes life difficult, thereby temping us to forsake obedience to God’s standards and calling.
He attacks believers through doctrinal confusion and falsehood. Remember he cannot attack God so he attacks the church. He wants to destroy unity in the Body of Christ. What better way to divide God’s people than over doctrine? He also attacks God’s people by hindering their service to Him. I have a great deal of experience in this. It seems that every time I would have a role to play in some ministry at church, there would be things that would go wrong. These things could be anything, but many times it was people who seemed bent on thwarting our efforts through non-cooperation or some other method in which we could not follow through in what we needed to do. Through this, divisions in the body would become apparent.