“For this reason take up the full armor of God, so that you may be able to resist in the evil day…” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Spiritual warfare is an interesting topic. It’s one that attracts a lot of interest, but about which no one seems to have very much knowledge. This is because we don’t have any reliable source of information outside the Scriptures, and those don’t seem nearly as exciting as whatever popular culture has to offer about it. This week I’m away at camp and the theme of the week happens to be spiritual warfare. Since it’s fresh and active, I’m going to take this week to offer some reflections on our theme verse, Ephesians 6:13. Let’s start here.

Paul’s letter to the Ephesian church is all about defining the Gospel and offering up some practical instructionsfor how to live a life worthy of its high calling. Right at the end of the letter, Paul offers a closing acknowledgement that we can’t do any of that on our own. We need help. This help comes in the form of what he calls the armor of God.

The idea of the armor of God easily lends itself to the prepackaged Bible study format. You can walk through each piece of armor and offer all kinds of practical applications for what exactly it is and how to effectively utilize them. And I’ve done that before on here. For now, though, I just want to make a couple of observations about Paul’s initial exhortation here.

First, Paul tells us to put on the “full armor of God.” Studying the armor in piecemeal fashion is understandable. But doing that can start to lead us to the conclusion that we can wear only parts of it. That won’t work, though. We need every single piece. The full uniform is mandatory if we are going to be able to effectively engage in the great spiritual battle we are facing as followers of Jesus. Trying to take one or even some without the full set will leave us unprepared and vulnerable to attack.

There’s something else here as well. Paul tells us to put on the armor. The implication here is that we don’t already have it on. It would be nice to think that I’m following Jesus having on God’s armor is part and parcel with the whole venture. But it’s not. We far too easily take it off. We take it off when we try to fight the various battles we face on our own strength rather than God’s. Yet if we don’t wear our armor, we won’t be prepared when the battles come. We have to put it on.

One more thing. Paul gives us the why behind the armor. We wear it so we can successfully resist evil. There are two things to note here. Number one, we live in evil times. We have always lived in evil times. Never has there been a time since the fall when evil wasn’t the rule of the day. And thinking that our day is somehow more evil than the days that came before us. They aren’t. Every day is evil. If we can’t stand firm in its face, we will be swept up in the current and washed away.

The second thing is this: our call is to resist evil. If you read this whole passage carefully, Paul never once tells us to fight. This is incredibly counterintuitive. Our natural instinct when thinking about a battle is to get ready to fight. Yet we are not called to fight. We are called to resist. We are called to resist because the battle is not ours. The battle belongs to the Lord. The armor Paul calls us to wear is not for fighting. It is for standing firm and letting God fight.

That’s all for now. Camp activities are calling. For now, keep your armor on and stand firm in it.