I thought I was done with this subject of Principalities and powers until another question was thrown at me again based on the above from 2 Cor. 10:4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds).

Well this individual is likening the word STRONGHOLDS to mean DEMONS am sure; and of course, that is what the majority, I think, in Christendom have come to see it to be especially as it began with the issue of WARFARE.

That’s another thing again, once the word warfare is mentioned in any passage, the focus is now devils, etc.

But Paul also said this to Timothy,

“This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare,” 1Tim. 1:18 KJV.

“Warring a good warfare with the prophecies” is not to bind devils but to keep the prophecies in focus and pray them through. It has to do with your faith and focus in what the Lord has said about you and your ministry not to be distracted, etc. So warfare is not always the binding of devils.

Now to what Paul said in 2Cor. 10; let us read three verses out of it all and make other comparisons in translations:

3 “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:

4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) {through God: or, to God}

5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.”

Notice the emphasis of what the warfare is all about or targeted at…STRONGHOLDS, IMAGINATIONS.

Now strongholds, as I said before, are not demons but thought patterns of an individual or a collective set of people that governs their day-to-day living. It’s simply a belief system.

For we read in history that the Calabar people here in Nigeria used to kill their twin babies with the belief that they were demons and would take them to the evil forest and cast them away killed until a missionary, Mary Slessor, came there and educated them to the fact of why twins are born and not that they were devils. And the killings stopped.

What was the stronghold? That twins were devils! What was the casting down of their thought patterns (warfare)? By educating them.

And that was the deliverance they got, and now they had a free society where twins are welcomed and honoured. The labels (devils?) changed by a simple reorientation. And that was the warfare.

We have read of missionaries going into regions and certain villages with the whole community naked clad with only leaves. That was their thinking and lifestyle until they would see missionaries come in there and gradually educate them to the sense of good clothing. They have been set free from that stronghold.

So strongholds are climates created by a general belief by a set of people in an area that they have lived with for a long time and that governs their lives.

A simpler translation would say this;

MSG., 2 Cor. 10:3, “The world is unprincipled. It’s dog-eat-dog out there! The world doesn’t fight fair. But we don’t live or fight our battles that way — never have and never will. 4 The tools of our trade aren’t for marketing or manipulation, but they are for demolishing that entire massively corrupt culture. 5 We use our powerful God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ. 6 Our tools are ready at hand for clearing the ground of every obstruction and building lives of obedience into maturity.”

You see that? Strongholds are simply CORRUPT CULTURE held by a group of people based on warped philosophies which can stand against the true knowledge of Christ.

For instance I grew up in a family where snails were forbidden. If you eat them in my family your skin would start piling off with scales like that of a snake and looking like the skin of a lizard. It was not a story; I saw it happen.

On this occasion after my graduation and I had gotten a job in Rivers State and gotten into the faith, I visited Port Harcourt with a friend whose wife ran an eatery. There they asked me if I eat snails, I said yes I do.

Then they offered me snails with a bottle of coke. I ate the whole lot and watched my skin for three weeks; nothing happened to my skin.

Then I traveled home, told my parents; and they were shocked and asked me who cleansed me with sacrifices offered, because it was actually being an honour to the family’s diety. I said no one but that it’s just my faith in Christ. And my Father who was an idol priest said to me, “This your Jesus serve Him well.”

So you see strongholds are mere corrupt cultures, wrong thinking and belief systems; not devils or principalities ad powers.

Paul speaking would say;

1 Cor. 8:4, “As concerning therefore the eating of those things that are offered in sacrifice unto idols, WE KNOW THAT AN IDOL IS NOTHING IN THE WORLD, and that there is none other God but one.”

Did we get it? So we empower that which is called idols by our belief systems. Even if it was what your fathers worshipped, it is only as you believe and continue to practice it that the powers work.

For Prov. 26:20, said “Where no wood is, there the fire goeth out.”

Where attention is not given to anything be it shrine or faith, the power associated with it dies out on its own.

Your true warfare is the ability to change your belief into who Christ is and His teachings. For “to them that believe He gave power to become the sons of God,” John 1:12.