Spiritual Warfare 101: How Triperspectivalism Can Shield You from the Enemy's Tactics
Learn to Defend Every Aspect of Your Being—Mind, Body, and Spirit—Against Spiritual Attacks
Recently, I came across something I wrote a couple of years ago and shared on Facebook. Revisiting it, I realized the ideas might be worth sharing here, as they still hold value. The topic? A Triperspectival understanding of Spiritual Warfare—an approach that I believe can offer deep insights into our spiritual battles.
For those unfamiliar with Triperspectivalism, it’s a theological method popularized by Dr. John Frame, a respected figure in Christian circles from Westminster Seminary and Reformed Theological Seminary. This method employs triads—threefold perspectives—to help us understand complex concepts from multiple angles. Frame argues that our knowledge and certainty grow when we consider different perspectives, grounding this approach in the Christian doctrine of the Trinity.
During my years of preaching, Triperspectivalism became a staple in my sermons. Week after week, I would draw triads on a whiteboard, illustrating how a passage could speak to our head, heart, and hands—or how it could deepen our understanding of the Father, Son, and Spirit. One Sunday, I applied this framework to spiritual warfare. Although I don’t lean on Triperspectivalism as heavily these days, I still find it a valuable tool, especially when considering how we engage in spiritual warfare.
Let’s break this down practically: Spiritual Warfare can be understood as occurring on three fronts—The Head, The Hands, and The Heart. Here’s an image to help you conceptualize it.
The Head: The enemy targets the mind by sowing seeds of catastrophic thinking, recurring disturbing thoughts, accusatory whispers, and mental exhaustion. These are the battles that wear down our resolve and distort our perceptions. It begins to change the way that we view the world and people.
The Heart: The enemy weighs down our hearts with anxieties, fears, depression, discouragement, and unrighteous anger, seeking to erode our emotional and spiritual well-being. This begins to lead us to an existential crisis.
The Hands: The enemy attacks our actions, often leading to sin patterns developing in our lives—a tactic as old as time itself. But it doesn’t stop there; the enemy also inflicts physical ailments (as seen in Psalm 91) and physical oppression (think of Job’s trials or Paul’s thorn in the flesh from 2 Corinthians 12), all designed to incapacitate us.
My theory is that when the enemy gains control over all three areas—head, hands, and heart—it results in what the church has historically called "possession." This occurs when an individual’s will is so overwhelmed that these three essential areas fall under the enemy’s control. Their mind is debased, their hearts are broken, and the actions of the enemy flow from the head to the heart, and out through the hands.
As C.S. Lewis shows in The Screwtape Letters, spiritual corruption often begins with subtle, seemingly inconsequential steps that gradually lead a person away from the light. Similarly, Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings portrays how the One Ring doesn’t just tempt but actively corrupts its bearer through continued use, altering their very nature. In the ancient world, idolatry functioned in much the same way. It wasn't just an intellectual exercise; it involved ritual practices that shaped the participants holistically, leading them to embody the patterns of the deity the idol represented. This is evident in my encounters with those who have been demonized—they aren't simply dabbling in occult knowledge but are engaged in rituals that involve mind-altering substances and physical actions, echoing both the incremental corruption that Screwtape describes and the transformative power of the Ring."
Given that Spiritual Warfare is Triperspectival, our approach to combat it must be equally so.
In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul reminds us that our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers in high places. His prescription for this struggle is inherently Triperspectival. He instructs us to:
Put on the helmet of salvation (to guard the mind)
Wear the breastplate of righteousness (to protect the heart)
Take up the sword of the Spirit (to wield in our hands)
Practically speaking, this means our strategies for dealing with spiritual warfare must address all three areas. We can’t afford to focus solely on the mind, the hands, or the heart; we must engage all three. Too often, our advice to Christians struggling with mental, physical, or emotional afflictions is to seek help from a doctor, as though that alone will suffice. This approach is incomplete because it neglects the rest of the person. We must help them wage warfare not just in their minds, but also with their hands and hearts.
Perhaps this is why the enemy has been so effective in afflicting the body of Christ—because we’ve reduced everything to the mind, treating people as though they are merely disembodied intellects. By doing so, we overlook the holistic nature of spiritual warfare, leaving the door open for the enemy to attack on multiple fronts.
To truly stand firm against the enemy's schemes, we must reclaim a holistic approach to spiritual warfare—one that sees the head, heart, and hands as interconnected and equally vital. Just as Lewis warns us of the subtle, creeping nature of spiritual corruption in The Screwtape Letters, and Tolkien illustrates the transformative, corruptive power of the One Ring, we must recognize that our battles are not fought on a single front. By addressing all three dimensions—mind, heart, and actions—we not only guard ourselves against the enemy's influence but also fortify our entire being in the armor of God. Only then can we resist the temptations, distortions, and oppressions that seek to pull us away from the light and fully embody the strength, wisdom, and righteousness that are ours in Christ.