In cleansing the temple, Jesus is setting true worship apart from hypocritical worship. True worship is conducted in spirit and truth, where God is graciously gathering outcasts from all nations into His house of worship. Hypocritical worship is founded on the lie that a sinner can escape the wages of his sin simply by going through the external motions of worship.

"Persecution" not only includes severe forms, like torture and martyrdom, but also milder forms, like reviling and slander. Genuine Christians will experience persecution because of our commitment to Jesus Christ and righteousness. The temptation is to deny Christ in order to escape persecution. While this is a serious sin, Peter's denial and restoration shows that God's grace abounds even above such sin.

When we distinguish between natural, preternatural, and supernatural, we understand how demons, like Python in Acts 16:16, can manipulate and deceive through diviners and fortunetellers.

Peace-breakers destroy peace. Peace-fakers say, "Peace, peace!" when there is no peace. Peacemakers are active in restoring and maintaining peace, using the law of God to identify sin and call sinners to repentance, and the gospel of grace to attain peace and reconciliation.

The Christian's war against "the world" is against unbiblical ideologies, not people. We dismantle "strongholds," false worldviews, with spiritual weapons. The goal is to capture people's minds for Christ, liberating them from bondage to sinful ideologies by bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. We fulfill the Great Commission when we faithfully fight against the right enemy with the right weapons.