When the Teacher Becomes the Student and the Students Become the Teachers

A couple of weeks ago, in my Systematic Theology class, we came to the topic of the essence of man. This topic asks the question, what is the composition of a human being? This is not a biology question. It’s about the fact that we, as human beings, are more than flesh and blood. There is something immaterial, or spiritual, about us. Our textbook is Systematic Theology (original, huh?) written by Wayne Grudem, a professor of theology at Phoenix Seminary. Grudem argues that man is made up of basically two parts: the physical and the non-physical. He demonstrates from Scripture that the words “soul” and “spirit” are used interchangeably to speak about our non-physical part of who we are. I tend to agree with Grudem.

This is where things get interesting.

I was explaining the Scriptural evidence for soul and spirit to refer to the same non-physical part of us when one of the students in the class raised his hand with a question. This is Maurice, and in every lecture he has some very good, thoughtful questions. Maurice surprised me. He said, “Up until this point, I have agreed with Grudem completely. But on this issue, I disagree. I believe if Grudem was an African, he would teach that the soul and spirit are two different parts of a human.”

I had two initial responses in my mind: 1. Why would this student feel so strongly about this rather mundane and uncontroversial doctrine? and 2. What would Wayne Grudem look like if he were African? Well, I let the student explain what was on his heart, for he truly was passionate about this topic.

Maurice began to explain to me some of the common practices of witchcraft, which are encountered throughout Africa. There are some who are involved with witchcraft that bind their “spirits” to other living creatures for security or protection purposes. They reason that as long as that living creature is alive, their bodies (with their souls) are secure from ultimate harm. And the opposite comes to be true as well. If the living creature is harmed or killed, that person ends up dying themselves, unless they are able to get back to the creature in time to “retrieve” their spirit.

In my western ways, I have never heard of or encountered any such activity. I asked the whole class if the rest of them witnessed these practices and they all responded with a resounding yes. They knew of people who died under these circumstances. Now it was time for the teacher to become the student. I threw out the rest of the lecture plan and just learned from these students about spiritual warfare in Cameroon. On a regular basis, Christians in Africa wrestle with the spiritual forces of evil.

Eventually, we decided that the realities of spiritual warfare in Africa have nothing to do with whether or not the soul and spirit refer to the same immaterial part of humans. But one question has lingered in my mind since we had that class discussion: what about spiritual warfare in the United States? It seems that we do not encounter or talk about spiritual warfare on a regular basis. It’s more of an oddity. And when someone does speak about spiritual warfare, people respond with suspicion. Does this mean there is less spiritual warfare in America?

I have come to two answers for that question. First, perhaps spiritual warfare is a very present reality in America; we just don’t recognize it for what it is. This would prove to be most unfortunate because we are not fighting the good fight. Paul says in Ephesians 6:12, “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against… the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” When we ignore or don’t recognize our enemy, he has a great advantage against us.

An American missionary here in Cameroon suggested the second answer to me. He said that the gospel has long been established in North America and the spiritual dominion of Satan has been broken. Therefore, spiritual warfare is greatly decreased in America compared to Africa, where the gospel has just begun to be established in the last 100 to 200 years. There are two implications with this answer. One, there is much work still to be done in Africa to establish the church with the true gospel to stand against the spiritual forces of evil. And, two, America is at risk of falling back into the dominion of spiritual darkness if the gospel is not held onto tightly.

Can both answers be correct?

So how do you wrap up the class discussion? I wanted to remind us of our only hope as we left the discussion of spiritual warfare. I quoted Romans 1:16, where Paul says, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes…” The gospel is God’s power made available for us. It is the power to inherit eternal life. It is the power to overcome sin. And it is the power to not live in fear of evil forces, but to gain victory in the ongoing spiritual battle. Let us hope in the gospel of God.