Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. (Galatians 1:3–5)

What comes to mind when you think of spiritual warfare? Perhaps images of Linda Blair’s contorted face or spinning head from the movie, The Exorcist. Those more biblically-minded might think of Jesus casting out a legion of demons, sending them into a herd of pigs to plunge over a cliff. Or, maybe you can find no other explanation for some experience of dark oppression in your own life, so you start to consider something demonic.

But The Exorcist was fiction and Jesus casting out demons was an occurrence that happened back in a unique period of time. Your experience of dark oppression could just as easily be related to something else, something less sinister.

Why bother with spiritual warfare? The reason is two-fold. One, it is evident throughout the Bible, part of living in this fallen world, what Paul calls the “present evil age.” Two, we are called by God to wage spiritual warfare.

Spiritual opposition is part of a biblical worldview. Spiritual warfare is an aspect integral to Christian discipleship, for which believers must be equipped. It is neither extraneous nor extraordinary to the Christian life but fundamental and ordinary.