<p>2:26 <em>And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the Devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will</em>- As noted throughout this chapter, the problem Timothy faced was from Judaizing false teachers, whom Paul was urging him to ban from the platform at Ephesus. Already the &quot;Devil&quot;, the Jewish opposition to the Pauline Christian churches, had gained some converts and taken captive some of the converts. But good teaching, with the Lord's additional help, could lead to some of these lost ones being recovered. The parallel is with how the false teachers &ldquo;overthrow the faith of some&rdquo; (:18). &ldquo;Overthrow&rdquo; is the same word translated &ldquo;subvert&rdquo;. Nearly every other time it occurs it is in the context of the Judaizers subverting the Christians - Titus 1:11; 3:9-11 (an equivalent word); Acts 15:24 (the Judaizers &ldquo;subvert your souls, saying, Ye must be circumcised, and keep the law&rdquo;). The Jewish satan, the great adversary to true Christian mission in the first century, was seeking to make converts. The only other usage of the word for &quot;taken captive&quot; is in Lk. 5:10 about 'catching men' i.e. making converts.</p><p>For a critique of the standard view of the Devil in this verse, see <a href=http://www.realdevil.info/5-26.htm>http://www.realdevil.info/5-26.htm</a> .</p><p>The RV reflects an alternative manuscript reading: &quot;Having been taken captive by the Lord's servant unto the will of God&quot;. It seems to me that whilst on one hand preaching can be likened to a warfare, a tearing down of the bastion of unbelief, the Lord&rsquo;s servant taking people captive unto the will of God, this is only one facet of the picture. Taken too far, we can become motivated perhaps by a fear of failure, we try harder and only get into a verbal battle, a jousting match, or worse. We will often &lsquo;lose&rsquo; these exchanges, because we were unable to convince our 'adversary'. Thus such exchanges become like a court battle of who's right and who's wrong, one-upmanship and point scoring. We will then end up feeling that the person has rejected the calling of the Father simply because&nbsp;my argument wasn't good enough. This need to win, this fear of failure, is the way of the world not the way of God, it is not &ldquo;reasoning together&quot;. There is too much ego involved. Preaching, though it might seem otherwise at times, is not a competitive sport. If we failed it's not because we did not try hard enough, nor is it because we did not&nbsp;know enough, perhaps it's because we tried too hard driven by a fear of failure, or perhaps we have thought too highly of ourselves, thinking we speak for our God?</p>