The Callahan Crunch

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood (Ephesians 6.12)

Our enemies are not corporeal. They are headless, brainless and body-less. They are not people.
Don’t give me that line Paul! I have a nasty neighbor and I’ll admit that he is brainless but body-less, don’t believe it! He is real alright and he has a huge sound system to prove his reality.

I remember another example from my football days which will also prove that enemies have bodies. It was the fall of 70 and football practice was in full swing. We were in one of the worst losing seasons of Oxford High school history which made each practice session a misery.

To top off the fun coach Armstrong had devised a new instrument of torture to delight all of his disciples. The contraption consisted of about ten posts in two parallel lines. Each set of opposing posts had a rope that spanned them. Thus the ten posts formed a sort of morbid tunnel.

The drill was to test I don’t know what. In today’s reticent world it would have been law suit material. Two lines of players were formed one at each end of the “tunnel” and the first two players were to go head to head in a break-neck battle of strength and stamina. The ropes were about three and a half feet from the ground so bodies were kept low.

It seems to me that I was first in line. My opponent was John Callahan. I weighed in at 155lbs and John at 190lbs. John had a chiseled physique. Mine wasn’t bad either but John’s was muscle-building magazine material.

Coach blew his whistle and we both launched simultaneously. I cringe to this day when I think of the implications of what happened next. John and I met in the middle of the cruel trough where our helmeted heads met in a sickening CRACK of plastic on plastic. Only by God’s mercy and grace did I avoid becoming a quadriplegic. I believe that it was that hit that ended the Torture Tunnel Training session.

I had no doubt that John was real. He had a body, flesh and blood. He hit me like a ton of bricks and nearly knocked me into Ortonville! So, Paul, what do you mean by your statement, “we wrestle not against flesh and blood”?

Paul wasn’t saying that we are exempt from having human opponents. He was writing these words from a Roman prison. He was more than likely chained to a Roman soldier.

Paul was alerting the Ephesian believers and you and me to the real enemy. He was saying that there is something sinister behind all of our problems. There is an unseen enemy working to kill us or at best leave us all quadriplegics spiritually. Satan and his forces would like nothing better that to see us writhing uncontrollably or lifeless in the dust.

So, look around you today. Who looks like an ominous enemy? Who do you know as a loathsome foe? Beware. Don’t enter the Torture Tunnel with them. Your adversaries are others.