"You Want A Piece of Me"

“You want a piece of me?”

What comes to mind when you hear this figure of speech? I am sure it didn’t take you long to conclude that someone is about to engage in a fight.
Or how about these familiar examples:
- “It’s raining cats and dogs” (raining intensely)
- “I will give you a piece of my mind” (stating a frank opinion)
- “I got your back” (rarely refers to an actual possession of someone’s spine)
- “Break a leg” (Good luck)
These are all figures of speech that are meant to bring emphasis to the literal thought. These are not literal but figurative.

“You want a piece of me?”

My question to you today is, can you think of an instance where this phrase should be part of our Christian vernacular literally and not figuratively? While we are called to a life of love, can you think of a time when we will have to engage in a fight?

“For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.” 2 Corinthians 10: 3

This scripture is referring to the battle that we wage against the enemy of our souls who is continuously harassing and provoking us to doubt God and turn from Him. But notice we do not wage war the way the world does.

“The weapons we fight with are not weapons of the world. On the contrary they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God and take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ.” 2 Corinthians 10:4-4-5 (emphasis mine)

Interesting that word knowledge…there are two words from the Greek that are translated in the New Testament as “knowledge” that I want to bring to your attention. The first one is gnosis . This is a word for general knowledge or pieces of knowledge. The second word is epignosis. This word is the same word only intensified. It refers to a fuller knowledge of something specific. In other words, epignosis is an accumulation of pieces of gnosis. While epignosis is full and perfect knowledge of God, gnosis are the pieces that we already know.

So here is where it gets exciting. The word for knowledge that we find in 2 Corinthians 10:5 is gnosis or pieces of knowledge. When the enemy is raging against us, we don’t need to know everything about God and His Word, we just need to know a piece of it for victory. The more pieces we have in our arsenal the more victorious we will be. These pieces are scripture. How about we try out a couple:

“’no weapon forged against you will prevail, and you will refute every tongue that accuses you. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and this is their vindication from me.’ declares the LORD.”
Isaiah 54:17

“In my anguish I cried to the LORD, and he answered by setting me free. The LORD is with me; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me? The LORD is with me; he is my helper, I will look in triumph on my enemies.”
Psalm 118:5-7

“What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”
Romans 8:31-32

Say them out loud…don’t you feel tough. God has given us everything we need to walk a victorious life in Christ but we are going to have to use our weapons of warfare to achieve it. I want to encourage you today, when the enemy comes after you with all manor of harassment, why not step up with the response “you want a piece of me?” Why not bombard Him with the “pieces” of scripture you know literally? Then stand back and enjoy the victory.