Astute observers of the pieces of “the full armor of God” listed by Paul :”(Ephesians 1:14-17)”: have noted that when compared to the Roman armor of the day, one item is conspicuously missing: the spear. The sword is for close-in fighting and was most commonly worn on the belt, ready to be pulled out when necessary. The spear was for keeping the enemy at a distance. It wasn’t actually “thrown” except in more desperate situations, but used more like a lance to keep the enemy from getting within arms length. I believe this is the inferred meaning of prayer, that it is the spear in our spiritual warfare arsenal.
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One of the quirks of my personality is that I not only grew up playing and mastering board games which replicated all the great wars throughout history, but parlayed that skill for a time as a real-world intelligence analyst. I’m mentioning this so you might have some understanding of what truly amazes me as we come upon what is probably THE best and most well-known biblical passage on spiritual warfare symbolized by the individual pieces of the “full armor of God“. The entire approach here does not conform to conventional wisdom where warfare is concerned because the call is not to equip and train one’s self in order to go out and seek and destroy the enemy, but “to stand firm“. This is really about the fact that it’s Christ who fights and wins the battle for us.
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It’s a blessing to live in a time and place where things are so well taken care of financially that we have such terms as “disposable income” to describe having an excess with which we can do anything we want. So I guess I’ll coin the phrase “disposable timeblocks” to describe the equally great blessing of having the choice of where to commit our time. Especially when compared to previous ages, we have far more time available to do with what we will. I wonder if the way we spend it is with the full view that “the days are evil“?
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The way that you can recognize within yourself that you’re allowing a wrong behavior to live side-by-side with your Christianity is if you read these verses, come to one of the terms describing a particular sinful behavior, and try to redefine it to mean something else. That’s the most common form of denial undertaken. To avoid allowing God’s Word to convict us of what we know in our heart of hearts to be wrong, we’ll redefine God’s Word to avoid having to be held accountable to it. We’ll find a way to say this really doesn’t apply to us.
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There are certain themes and metaphors repeatedly used throughout the whole of Scripture, even spanning both Testaments. Comparing and contrasting our relationship with God to a child is used often, yet how well do we put it into practice? To what degree are we the kind of child who is so attached to and enamored with their Father that we are almost giddy in our assertion that we want to be just like Him when we grow up? “Beloved children” are the kind who trust and love God the Father so much that they can’t think of anything more natural than being “imitators of God”.
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It’s easy to breeze through the beginning of these verses to study the core issues enveloping the heart of the unsaved, but it’s well worth noting Paul’s exhortation to “affirm together with the Lord“. What is it that we should consciously and proactively affirm with the Lord? “That you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk“. When we accept Christ as our personal Savior, it’s expected that we will no longer live like we did before we knew Him, but that we’ll actually live a changed and different life.
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There have always been false prophets, false teachers, and false messiahs in every era of history. Even during Jesus’ own time there were those who claimed that they were the Messiah. But something has fundamentally changed in my lifetime in this culture, because those who once called themselves Evangelicals during my youth were highly united in their stance against the false teachers. There was an almost universal recognition among them of who the whack-o’s were and why. But these days, among the ranks of those proclaiming themselves to be Evangelicals, false teachers and false doctrine of an unprecedented magnitude has not just been tolerated but embraced to the point that I don’t think these verses can be claimed by the majority any more.
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