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The DEEP

The Battle of Ideas

The action, not the people, is the key.

Nahum 3:5–7 (NKJV)

“Behold, I am against you,” says the LORD of hosts;
“I will lift your skirts over your face,
I will show the nations your nakedness,
And the kingdoms your shame.
I will cast abominable filth upon you,
Make you vile,
And make you a spectacle.
It shall come to pass that all who look upon you
Will flee from you, and say,
‘Nineveh is laid waste!
Who will bemoan her?’
Where shall I seek comforters for you?”

Notice that the agenda here is not the destruction of Nineveh. Sure, that will happen, and this passage references that fact, but the point is Nineveh’s shame.

God isn’t just destroying Nineveh; He’s making a spectacle of it. His goal isn’t merely to wipe Nineveh’s evil from Nineveh, it’s to wipe it out everywhere. The problem isn’t really Nineveh; that’s just where the problem flourished.

So, everyone cheers Nineveh’s demise.

 “It shall come to pass that all who look upon you
Will flee from you, and say,
‘Nineveh is laid waste!
Who will bemoan her?’

Ding dong, the witch is dead.


When we think of God creating the universe, we usually think of God creating things (light, the earth, plants, animals, man).

But those are all nouns. What about the verbs? Did God also create the action? What does it mean to create a universe?

Nahum teaches that God doesn’t just care about the objects in His creation, He also cares about the action. Good and evil are embodied in the action.

We typically see people and other things as the subjects of God’s wrath—they’re the things we see get hammered—but that’s just what’s happening on the surface. The real battle is spiritual.

Don’t get me wrong here. People are not unimportant. It’s just that the war is a battle of ideas. In the same way, a Supreme Court case is fought by litigants, but the battle is over the law.

In spiritual warfare, we can be warriors, even casualties, but we’re not what the war is about.

Like he did with Job, Satan’s trying to get people to sin.


All the weekly study guides, which include all five devotionals plus related questions for discussion or meditation, are available for download here:

https://www.ailbe.org/resources/itemlist/category/91-deep-studies

Mike Slay

As a mathematician, inventor, and ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church in America, Mike Slay brings an analytical, conversational, and even whimsical approach to the daily study of God's Word.

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