The Triumphant Church5 Yes, we can pull down the CONCEITS OF
MEN, every BARRIER OF PRIDE which sets
itself up against the true knowledge of God.
You can readily see that this passage is talking
about taking thoughts, imaginations, arguments,
theories, reasonings, deceptive fantasies, conceits of
men, and barriers of pride and bringing them into
subjection to the true knowledge of God—the Word of
God.
This is not telling me to take captive the thoughts in
your mind and pull them down. I can take authority
and control of my own thoughts, but I can't take
authority over your thoughts.
You see, because the mind is the greatest area of
"battle" for the attacks of Satan, the devil's strategy is
to erect strongholds in our thinking that "exalt
themselves against the true knowledge of God."
That is one reason believers need the full armor of
God with the helmet of salvation and the shield of faith
—so they can protect themselves from Satan's attacks
on their minds. And the Bible teaches that we are to
repent of wrong thoughts and conform to the image of
Christ in our thinking (Rom. 8:29; Phil. 2:5). That is one
of our greatest defenses against Satan.
There is an overemphasis today on some aspects of
spiritual warfare, that is based in part on a
misapplication of this scripture here in Second
Corinthians 10:4 and 5 about "pulling down
strongholds," and on the scripture in Ephesians 6:12
about "wrestling." But both of these passages of
Scripture must be taken in the contexts in which they
were written, not lifted out of context to build extreme
doctrines of spiritual warfare.