Friday, May 29, 2020 – Ephesians 6:14-20
No Pants Needed?
“14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. 19 Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.” – Ephesians 6:14-20 (New International Version)
In yesterday’s post (click HERE to read it), I mentioned that Paul was telling us that in order to stand our ground in spiritual warfare, we need to be prepared. To be prepared, we need supernatural power. Thankfully, God has provided this by giving us His Holy Spirit within us and His armor surrounding us. In today’s passage, Paul lists each component of the armor of God that we must don if we want to “do everything” (verse 13) to be prepared. It’s not possible to be prepared without having first done these things.
The key to understanding the armor of God is found in Ephesians 6:10 – “be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.” All the pieces of the armor belong to – and are from – God. The pieces of armor are truth, righteousness, the gospel, faith, and salvation – all of which are gifts of God to His people for their defense.
Just wanted to share that with you.
The reason there being no pants is likely because people did not wear pants back then – they wore ancient Hebrew clothing consisting of underwear and cloth skirts. When a man needed his legs free for battle, he would tuck his garment (i.e., cloth skirt) into his belt – thus, no pants. The belt of truth is the first part of the armor listed because, without truth, we are lost, and the schemes of the devil will certainly overpower us. And what is this truth? It’s Jesus, since He is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).
Next is the breastplate of righteousness. A breastplate shields a warrior’s vital organs during battle. The righteousness in this breastplate refers to the righteousness of Christ which guards our hearts against – and protects our innermost being from – the schemes of the enemy.
Up next: shoes. Having the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace as footwear suggests that we need to advance into enemy territory with the message of grace only found through Jesus. Satan has many obstacles laid out in the paths of followers of Jesus, and we’ll need this footwear to get through them.
After shoes comes the shield of faith, which has the purpose of blocking/deflecting the seeds of doubt the enemy hurls at us. After the shield of faith comes the helmet of salvation, which protects a critical part of our bodies – our heads/minds. This is meant to protect our minds from receiving false teaching and to help us stand firm in the assurance of our salvation.
Last – but not least – we have the sword of the Spirit. This is referring to the Word of God, which is the greatest spiritual weapon in existence. Jesus’ used the Word of God to resist the temptation of the devil, and we can – and should – do the same.
It’s important to note that we are told to pray in the Spirit in addition to wearing the full armor of God. Without relying on God and prayer, we will fail in our spiritual warfare fight. The full armor of God – plus prayer – are vital to our being spiritually victorious.
Finally – in verses nineteen and twenty – we see that Paul knew that unless people were praying for him, he wouldn’t be able to boldly go on preaching about Jesus, no matter what happened. And not only could he not do it without the prayers of others, it wouldn’t mean anything if he did. So having begun the letter with an extended prayer, and then an extensive report of his own prayers for the young Christians in the area, he finished with the urgent request that they join him in this ministry.
Prayer:
Thank you, Lord, for providing us these powerful tools with which we can combat the lies, deception, and other tactics of Satan. Without these, we know that we are exposed and do not stand a chance. Help us to wear these boldly, and to ask others boldly for prayer. We can’t do this without you, Lord, and I pray we don’t try.
In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen!
