How To Take Your Thoughts Captive

This is an often used phrase in Christian culture that can sound intimidating and confusing. It’s not just a popular phrase or a pithy affirmation. It’s biblical. 

Paul is writing to the Church at Corinth and encouraging them about their power to demolish strongholds in their midst. He says “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

When I think of captivity, I associate it with violence, strength and power. It seems like I need to engage in a war against my own thoughts. And in some ways, that is very true. I’d encourage you to think of it as a trial where distorted thoughts or lies are chained up behind bars.

It’s not realistic to eliminate our negative thoughts. A healthy mind still produces fear, doubt, irritation, temptation. The question is not whether thoughts appear. The question is whether they rule.

Taking a thought captive looks like this:

1. Notice it.
“I just told myself I’m a terrible parent.”

2. Interrogate it.
What triggered that?

3. Put it on trial.
Is this globally true? Or did I lose patience once today?

4. Reframe it.
“I regret how I handled that moment. I can repair it.”

I once worked with a man whose reflexive thought was, “If I rest, I’m lazy.” That belief drove him into chronic exhaustion. When we traced it back, we discovered a childhood where productivity equaled approval.

That thought once helped him earn love. Now it was eroding his health. Captivity meant gently challenging it.

Rest is not laziness.
Rest is stewardship.

Not every thought deserves obedience. Some deserve questioning. Some deserve correction. Some deserve dismissal.

You are allowed to examine the narratives running your life. And you are allowed to change them.