The Latin word "paganos," from which we get our modern English term "pagan," originally meant "civilian," as in "non-combatant," that is, a person who was not a soldier. The 1st century Christians amended the usage of this word to our current meaning because they discovered that---after their spirit had been born of God by accepting Jesus' Messiahship and receiving His Holy Spirit---they were also awakened to the spiritual war that had been raging all around and within them, (though they had been completely unaware of it). So, they took to calling the idol worshippers, the demon-worshiping Greeks, and the Caesar-worshiping Romans "pagans" to signify that these poor souls were still in the Matrix, what the New Testament calls "the world" or "this world," ("kosmos" or "kosmon" in Greek), and therefore the pagans' wrongheaded actions to thwart the cause of the Gospel were not to be taken personally. Thus, the Holy Spirit, through Paul, tells us that "we wrestle not against flesh and blood [human beings], but against principalities, against powers, against the world-rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual things of the evil in the heavenly places." (Ephesians 6:12) If anyone has been astonished by the events of the past six years, the explanation now has been given to you: It's a war. There's always a game going on, and if you don't know what it is, you're probably it.