The Whole Armor of God (Part 2)
Ephesians 6: 13 - 20
For this reason, take up the full armor of God so that you may be able to stand your ground on the evil day, and having done everything, to stand. Stand firm therefore, by fastening the belt of truth around your waist, by putting on the breastplate of righteousness, by fitting your feet with the preparation that comes from the good news of peace, and in all of this, by taking up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. With every prayer and petition, pray at all times in the Spirit, and to this end be alert, with all perseverance and requests for all the saints. Pray for me also, that I may be given the message when I begin to speak – that I may confidently make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may be able to speak boldly as I ought to speak.
In my last post two weeks ago, I began walking through the amazing metaphor that Paul creates in the end of Ephesians six: the Whole Armor of God. In this passage, Paul describes six pieces of God’s armor: the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the sandals of the Gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit. And he tells us to put on all of God’s armor, all of the protection that God has given to us as His children.
Now, I’m not going to take the time to go back over the symbolic significance of each piece of the armor that Paul lists here; if you want to be reminded of those ideas, feel free to go back to my last post and re-read what we covered there before moving on with today’s Musings.
Because today, I want to focus on some of the implications of the commands that Paul gives in this passage.
To Stand
If you look back to verse 13, you discover something that I found rather interesting. In this verse, Paul gives us two specific commands, and they are not the commands that you might expect in a passage like this, filled so pervasively with martial imagery. In verse 13, Paul does not tell us to attack, to charge, to strike, to massacre, or anything like that. Instead, Paul tells us to do two things. First, he tells us to put on God’s armor. And then, he tells us to stand.
I want to look at the second command first, because that is the one that strikes me as the oddest. If this had been me writing, I would have started this passage rather differently. I would want to put us on the offensive. Let’s pick up God’s sword and “storm Hell’s rusty gates” as one popular song puts it.[1]
But as he so often does, Paul has a different idea, and it is apparently an idea that is very important to him, because he says it three times, using two different Greek words, in the space of two verses!
He tells us, in verses 13 and 14, to take up the full armor of God so that you may be able to stand your ground on the evil day, and having done everything, to stand. Stand firm therefore…
The two words that Paul uses, each translated as “stand,” are very closely related. One is histemi, which has a variety of meanings, such as “abide, continue, covenant, establish, set (up), stand.” But it was also a military term; in that sense, it meant “to confound one’s enemy by refusing to give ground.” Remember the image of the shield wall that we talked about in our last Musings? This was a battle strategy invented by the Greeks and perfected by the Romans, where the front line of the army would lock their shields together, forming a nearly impenetrable wall. In that formation, the enemy could charge in and attack but they would be pushed back by this wall, while being freely attacked by soldiers from behind the wall. Once they got locked into this formation, the Roman army refused to be moved, and their enemies would be thrown back in confusion. That is the idea behind the military sense of histemi.
The second term he uses in these verses is a compound word built on histemi. Paul adds the prefix anti-, which in this context means “because of.” So you get the word anthistemi, which my Greek lexicon defines as “to stand against, or to withstand.” But because of that base word, histemi, it has the connotation of immobility; whatever happens, you will not be moved, because you are abiding in that place.
Paul uses these two words three times in these two verses. The first one, translated by the NET (and also the NIV) as to stand your ground, is anthistemi: when the day of evil comes, you will be able to withstand the attacks of the enemy; no matter what happens, you will not be moved. The other two, translated in the NET and many other versions as simply stand, are histemi: when you have done everything, abide, refuse to be moved.
I see two implications of these words. First, Paul’s main command is that we put on God’s armor, because if we arm ourselves with the protection God has provided, we will be able to withstand the enemy’s attacks. And when we have stood against those attacks, in His strength, we are able to abide in the place God has called us to be. In this way, we will confound the enemy because we can not be moved.
Second, these words more than imply that we are not called to fight God’s battle for Him. Remember the army of Rohan in the Lord of the Rings, encamped at Helm’s Deep, besieged by a huge army of Orcs? If they had marched out against the Orcs, they would have been slaughtered, because they were outnumbered something like 30 to one! Instead, they wisely stood their ground, safe inside their fortress. And that is what Paul calls for us to do as well. We need to go to the place where God calls us to be and then we need to stand our ground, secure in the protection of our armor, determined to hold our ground right where God has placed us.
And Pray
The second thing that strikes me about this passage is how Paul finishes it. In verse 18, he seems to shift gears. He tells us, With every prayer and petition, pray at all times in the Spirit, after which he continues on the theme of prayer for the next two verses.
Several modern translations, such as the NET and the NIV, make verse 18 a new sentence; others, such as the King James, see verse 18 as a continuation of the thought Paul begins in verse 14. This means there are basically two ways to view this final section on prayer.
First, we could follow William Barclay’s interpretation, which is that Paul lists our figurative protection in verses 14 – 17 (what is, traditionally, the Whole Armor of God section) and then, in verse 18, he switches out of symbolism and back into reality by listing and teaching about our greatest weapon of all in this spiritual battle: prayer.[2]
Or, we could go with Warren Wiersbe’s view. Wiersbe suggests that verse 18 is actually Paul’s answer to the obvious questions raised by verses 13 – 17. How do I obey Paul’s command? How do I actually go about putting on God’s armor? In practical terms, what does it mean to put on the whole armor of God? And Wiersbe’s answer is, through prayer. As he puts it, “Prayer is the energy that allows the Christian soldier to wear the armor and wield the sword”[3]
But either way you want to look at it, there are several principles that Paul highlights concerning prayer in verse 18. First, we should pray always. Now this obviously doesn’t mean that we must continuously be praying. Occasionally we need to sleep, and God knows that! Beyond mere physical concerns, Jesus Himself condemned the unbelieving Gentiles for thinking they would be heard by God because of their many words.[4] Instead, this refers to our attitude. Prayer is a time of communion with God, a time where we share our concerns with Him and He shares Himself with us. It is time that we consciously spend in God’s presence. Paul’s point here, I think, is that we ought to always be aware of standing in God’s presence. We ought to live our lives in such a way that we are constantly in communion with Him. Because there is very little that Satan can do to deceive us when we are consciously standing in the light of the presence of God!
Second, Paul says we should pray With every prayer and petition. It is fairly obvious, when you think about it, that all prayers are not the same. Many of you are probably familiar with the prayer acronym ACTS: adoration, confession, thanksgiving and supplication.[5] The idea behind this acronym is to remind us not to simply focus on requests from God; He does not want us to view Him as our spiritual vending machine from which we can order and obtain any blessing that we ask for! Though God does want us to ask Him for the things we need, He also wants us to practice other kinds of prayer: prayer for others (intercession), prayers of gratitude (thanksgiving), prayers of worship (adoration), as well as many others. And this is what Paul reminds us of here in this verse: prayer is not simply a way to get what we want from God. It is a time of communion with Him, a time to build our relationship with Him. Imagine a friend who only ever comes to you when they need something. You probably wouldn’t consider them much of a friend, because they are obviously only interested in what you can give them, not in who you are. Of course, such an analogy doesn’t completely fit when applied to God, but I think the principle is the same. God wants a relationship with us, and if we only come to Him when we want or need something, we are treating Him just like that cosmic, spiritual vending machine. He wants to be more than that in our lives, and He absolutely deserves to be more than that in our lives!
Third, Paul tells us to be alert. There were several different opinions on this phrase in the commentaries that I read as I was originally preparing this message. However, I think Albert Barnes said it best. He suggests that we should be “Watching for opportunities to pray [and] watching against all those things which would hinder prayer.”[6] In other words, we ought to be praying intelligently and we ought to always be quick to fall to our knees.
This is one of those concepts in Scripture that I find really humbling. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve faced problems and I’ve tried everything that I can think of to fix things. Then, someone, usually my wife, will say, “Have you prayed about it?” Which is a really annoying question because usually the answer is, “No, I haven’t.” Prayer ought to be our first line of defense, the first impulse we have in every situation. We ought to be watching for opportunities to pray, and always take those opportunities when we find them. If you know anyone like this, as I do, someone who lives their life looking for ways to pray for their own situations and for the problems of others, then you know what a blessing they are. And you probably know some amazing stories, like I do, of times when God has used their faithfulness in prayer to do amazing things. That is what Paul is calling us to in this verse, that we might be people who are constantly alert, looking for ways to call out to our Father, so that He can bless us far beyond all that we ask or think![7]
Fourth, Paul tells us that we should persevere in prayer. This is a fairly basic concept that I suspect we all understand pretty well already. I know that my children understood it when they were growing up. Those of you who still have kids in the house probably know exactly what I mean! When your kids want something from you, how often do they ask you just once? If any of you answered that question with, “All the time,” please message me in the comments; I want to talk to you about getting a copy of your parenting book! Because when my kids wanted something, they would never quit asking until they got an answer or got sent out of the room. And that, of course, is because they really wanted an answer, so they wouldn’t rest until they got one.
But when it comes to making requests of God, we tend to be much less persistent, don’t we? If you’re anything like me, you tend to pray once about something and then just let it drop. That should be troubling to us, because think about what that means. If my kids asked for something and then just walked away before I had a chance to answer them, I would probably have assumed that they really weren’t very interested in the answer, or that they didn’t think my answer was worth waiting for. When we walk away from God in prayer, I think we are revealing something about our opinion of Him: that we really don’t believe that He will, or that He can, answer our prayers.
Paul says we should pray… with all perseverance, or, as Wiersbe puts it, we should not stop praying, “until the Spirit stops [us] or the Father answers [us].”[8]
Finally, we should pray unselfishly. Or, as Paul puts it, we should, pray… for all the saints. Now, this is another of those ideas that I feel a little silly mentioning. Because of course we all pray for other people, right? The churches you attend likely set aside time in the service every week to focus on praying for the needs of people both in and outside of your congregations. The students at the school where I teach regularly take time to publicly pray for each other, and I’m sure that, in your private prayer times, you also regularly lift up the needs of others. This is one of those things that feels like it doesn’t really need to be said.
But I think it is important to remember that Paul specifically directs us to pray for two things in this passage. He asks the Ephesian church to pray for all the saints and for his personal ministry. In these verses instructing us about prayer, the one person he does not tell us to pray for is ourself. Now, of course this does not mean that we shouldn’t pray for our own needs. In many places, Scripture enjoins us to pray for what we need. However, when I think back and remember the prayer times we had as a family as my kids were growing up, or even when I look at my own private prayer life today, I’m forced to acknowledge that it is very easy to slip into patterns of selfish prayer. We pray for our own needs, we pray for our own safety, we pray for our own health, we pray for our own desires. And unless we diligently remind ourselves, we tend to ignore the needs of those around us, focusing only on those needs that touch us directly.
It is good to remember, I think, that prayer is one of the greatest ways that we can be a blessing to others. And it is good to remember that we are commanded to pray for those who labor with us in the service of God’s Kingdom, no matter how near or far they might be.
Final Thoughts
If you’ve gotten all the way down to this point, you might be thinking (as I was, when originally preparing this message and I re-read my notes) that this post seems to be less and less about the Armor of God and more about prayer. In my defense, I can only say that I followed where Paul led, and in his mind, the two ideas seem to be inseparable. In this spiritual battle that we find ourselves in, prayer is the key to our success, for, I think, two reasons.
First, prayer is our primary means of communication with our general. In a battle, almost nothing is more important than communication. There is a battlefield in Georgia from the American Civil War near where some of my children now live called the Chickamauga Battlefield. It was the site of a major victory for the Confederacy. The Northern troops were positioned on a ridge and the Southern troops were trying to take the ridge. Normally, if you have the high ground, unless you are vastly outnumbered, you are in pretty good shape, and the armies fighting that day were basically the same size. So the North should have won the battle. However, in the midst of the fighting, the Northern army’s lines of communication broke down. There were reports of gaps in their line, and various commanders shifted their troops to fill those gaps. Unfortunately for them, the gaps didn’t exist. At least, they didn’t exist until the troops shifted, which created gaps. Once this happened, the Southern army was able to pour through those newly formed gaps, scattering the Northern troops and ultimately driving them from the field. On that day, lack of communication cost the North what probably should have been a fairly easy victory.
In this spiritual battle, if we can’t communicate with our commander, we won’t know what to do. It is through prayer that He can tell us where to stand, what ground to defend, and it is through prayer that He can encourage us to stand firm in that place, helping us to withstand the attacks of the enemy.[9]
Second, prayer gives us the power to put on all of God’s armor. Remember what some of these pieces of armor represent: the helmet of salvation, the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness. In our own strength, we can not lay claim to any of these characteristics. But as we grow nearer to Jesus through prayer, we are empowered to be more like Him. And as we become more like Him, we begin to take on the armor. Without prayer, we are fighting in our own strength, without the protection that He offers us. For only as we look to God in prayer can we be assured that we are fully armed, fully prepared with His armor, to meet the foe that stands against us.
Albert Barnes sums this up better than I think I can, so I’d like to end today’s Musings with his thoughts on the subject. He says:
Prayer crowns all lawful efforts with success, and gives a victory when nothing else would. No matter how complete the armour; no matter how skilled we may be in the science of war; no matter how courageous we may be, we may be certain that without prayer we shall be defeated. God alone can give the victory; and when the Christian soldier goes forth armed completely for the spiritual conflict, if he looks to God by prayer, he may be sure of a triumph.
This is the kind of triumph that Paul is wishing for all of us in this verse. Go to God in prayer, consistently, persistently, with all kinds of prayers. So that you might be prepared to stand your ground, arrayed in the whole armor of God.
[1] “What if His People Prayed,” by Casting Crowns
[2] Barclay, William. The Armor of God (Ephesians 6:10 – 20). Barclay’s Daily Study Bible. https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/dsb/ephesians-6.html
[3] Wiersbe, Warren. The Wiersbe Bible Commentary: New Testament. David C. Cook publishing, 2007. P. 624, electronic edition.
[4] Matthew 6:7
[5] I would give credit here to whomever came up with this acronym, but I have no idea where it came from; if any of you know, please enlighten me!
[6] Commentary on Ephesians 6:18. Albert Barnes’ New Testament Commentary, accessed in The Power Bible software.
[7] Ephesians 3:20
[8] Wiersbe, Warren. The Wiersbe Bible Commentary: New Testament. David C. Cook publishing, 2007. P. 625, electronic edition.
[9] I do not, of course, mean to imply that God can only communicate with us through prayer. He is God and can do whatever He wants. I merely want to point out that His normal avenue for communication with us is through prayer, and I think we are unwise to assume that He will communicate with us in some other way in spite of the fact that we are eschewing the communication He has made available to us through prayer.