God's Secret Plan: File #16

At the heart of Ephesians is God's secret plan--a plan once hidden which is now revealed--the plan of salvation--the plan of the church. Paul's main point in this letter is to reveal that masterplan which God had been working at since the very beginning of time and which is now coming to light. In the first several chapters, Paul showed how we are SITTING with heavenly places with Christ--like guests at a heavenly banquet, receiving blessings from God, especially the blessing of new life in Christ and the blessing of being a part of the church. Starting in chapter 4, Paul moves a practical application--showing that since we have been made a part of God's secret plan, we should WALK in a way that is worthy of our calling, walking in a new life. Paul goes through various facets of this walk, from the general to the specific, from high and lofty things to the relationships of worker and boss.

But having said all that, having gone through this entire book showing the secret plan of God, Paul has one more word to add. It is not enough to be sitting with Christ and walking with Christ. We must also be willing to STAND for Christ. Ephesians is more impersonal and academic than some of Paul's letters. But this is no ordinary lesson in theology--this is not just an academic discussion--THIS IS WAR. That is the burden of Ephesians 6:10-20.

In this passage, Paul tells the Christians at Ephesus to stand for Christ--to stand against the Devil--like a soldier standing his ground and fighting back the enemy. This seems to have both the idea of courage and loyalty--we must be willing to stand for Christ at the point where it really counts--but also of strength and mastery--we must be able to stand our ground and hold the enemy back. This passage is full of military imagery (which may have been suggested to Paul by the Roman soldiers who stood guard over him while in prison--[People's New Testament Commentary, Ephesians 6:11]) God's plan, like every great plan, has its enemies. If you are sitting with Christ, and walking with Christ, you will find opposition and you will have to stand for Christ. The Christian life is not abstract and academic, but a war--a war which may get very up-close and personal. In verse 12, Paul speaks of wrestling against an enemy. A. T. Robertson says that this word means "a contest between two till one hurls the other down and holds him down." Jamieson-Faussit-Brown adds, '"Wrestling" implies that it is a hand-to-hand and foot-to-foot struggle for the mastery.'

As Christians, we are the middle of a war, a war in which we must take our stand. Notice that Paul begins with the word 'finally' which ties this passage to the preceding one and, ultimately, to the entire Epistle. Paul had gone to great pains to lay out the scope of God's plan for His people, about the great work which God is doing. Adam Clarke paraphrases Paul's thought here at the point of transition, "Having laid before you, your great and high calling, and all the doctrines and precepts of the Gospel, it is necessary that I should show you the enemies that will oppose you, and the strength which is requisite to enable you to repel them." We can summarize it by saying that we fight in this war because we have something worth fighting for.

But there is something important to note about this war--specifically, about who the enemy is that we are fighting. If you go out into the world and try to do God's will, you will meet people who will do everything they can to stop you, who will mock and criticize you for your attempts to follow God, who will make it their business to try to destroy your work for God. But they are not the enemy. There are many prominent people in the world who use their power and influence to blaspheme God's name and His work and bring the cause of Christ to a halt in the public sector. But they are not the enemy. There are people in the world (though hopefully we may never meet them) who would be willing to kill you in order to stop you from following God. But they are not the enemy.

Verse 12: "We wrestle not against flesh and blood." There will be people who oppose us as Christians, but they are not the enemy Paul is instructing us to fight, though sometimes we will be forced to oppose them. In a paradoxical sense, we must oppose these people precisely because they are not our enemy. Because our real enemy is a spiritual enemy, we must oppose those who serve him for their sake more than for our own. During WWII one officer told his soldiers, referring to the enemy soldiers: “We are not fighting these men, but the thing they stand for.” And in this war this even truer. Our enemy is not the people in this world who oppose God, but the thing they stand for and the one who controls them. Though people may act as if we were their enemy, the Bible specifically tells us to do good to them and help them. In this we are like God, for He sends rain on both the just and the unjust and in Jesus laid down His own life for His enemies.

So who is our enemy? In verse 12, after emphasizing that it is not flesh and blood that we wrestle with, Paul says that we do wrestle or fight with principalities, powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world, and spiritual wickedness in high places. There is some debate about scholars about the meaning of each of these phrases, but the bottom line is that he is referring to spiritual powers, to devils and demons who exist in the spiritual realm and who are in opposition to God and to God's work.

We are told very little about the spiritual realm, so little that we cannot even exactly say what it is, except that it is something different than the physical realm. We know that there exist beings as real as we are, perhaps more so, even though they cannot be seen or touched--although angels, at least, can become visible at times. And in this spiritual realm, there are enemies and, especially, one enemy. We do not know exactly where Satan came from. We know he must have been ultimately created by God because everything is ultimately created by God. We know he must have created good because God makes nothing evil. And we know that he is now not good. From this, we deduce the rebellion and fall of Satan which is also said by some to be darkly hinted in the prophets. We do not know much about Satan, but we do know that he is our enemy.

And not just any enemy, but a malicious enemy. 1 Peter 5:8 contains a similar warning to this passage, a warning to "be sober" and "vigilant." Peter explains the reason for this, "because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour." In fact, the name Satan literally means enemy or advisory, which emphasizes the settled and determined nature of his enmity. It is almost as if he lives for no other purpose than to oppose God's work. There are some enemies which whom we can make some sort of peace or alliance, but in this spiritual war, there can be no hope of peace except through victory.

When thinking of spiritual warfare--or any kind of war, for that matter--we usually think of might or power. And we are given hints of the Bible of the power of the Devil and there are times when the power of God and the Devil put into conflict, though the conflict is so one-sided that it can hardly be called a conflict. However, that is not the main thought here. The point is not so much that the Devil is powerful, but that he is very tricky. Paul speaks in verse 11 of standing against the wiles of the Devil. The word translated wiles may mean trickery or even have the idea of following someone in secret as if to spy on them or sneak up on them. It is also related to the idea of making plans and is related to our English word method. Albert Barnes comments on this verse, "The idea here is, that Satan does not carry on an open warfare. He does not meet the Christian soldier face to face. He advances covertly; makes his approaches in darkness; employs cunning rather than power, and seeks rather to deceive and betray than to vanquish by mere force." (Commentary, Eph 6:11) This is not a war of pitched and open battle but of scheming and strategy.

We are in a war, a war in which we must STAND for Christ. But that is not the whole of the picture. When a soldier is to be sent out to fight, he is not (usually) left to fight on his own. If you go out and join the army today, you are not expected to bring your own gun. If a soldier is commissioned to fight, he is also given a weapon of some kind.

Since this is a spiritual war, it follows that the weapons must partake of the same nature as the war. In 2 Corinthians 10:3-4, Paul explains that "though we walk in the flesh, [that is, we are still humans living on earth with all the weakness and problems that entails] we do not war after the flesh: [our warfare is not conducted on the same terms as an ordinary war and is not performed by our own strength] (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds.)”

A saying of this world states, "Never bring a knife to a gun fight." In other words, you will be in trouble if your weapon is not as powerful as the weapon of those with whom you fight. And to try to use our own strength or power in this spiritual war would be far more unwise than trying fight a gun with a knife. Paul mentions six weapons and a seventh thing which is not exactly a weapon and yet is. In explaining these weapons, he uses the picture of the armor worn by soldiers in his day, what he calls the “whole armour” of God. The phrase is important because it means that God has given us not just some of what we need but all. He hasn't just given us some armor but a complete set. We have everything we need. Often in this world, soldiers complain about the quality of equipment the government gives them, saying it is not sufficient for the battle--but we have been issued weapons which are fully suited and battle-tested. There is much debate about the full meaning of all the pieces of this armor, the bottom line is that it contains everything we need. It is the whole armor of God and with it, we are enabled to withstand the wiles of the Devil.

Before we look at the details of this armor, there are two things to notice. One is that the passage is built around two commands, two imperatives--one, “stand” (v. 14) we already discussed, but we have to note the other: “Take” (v. 13, but also v. 17). These are things that Paul (and God, speaking through Paul) is telling, instructing, commanding us to do. When Paul says in the first half of the book that we, as Christians, are “sitting” with Christ, he is merely stating a fact. If we are Christians, then that is true. Here he is not stating a fact, but giving a command. This is something we must do, something that will not happen unless we do it ourselves, something which in doing we are going actively against the pressures around us--for, in the context, Paul is picturing a fight, he is talking of someone standing when others are trying to knock him down. (The NET Bible translates it “stand your ground” in v. 13) This is active, not passive. The same is true of the command “take.” God has provided us with the “whole armor” of God, but if we are to make use of it, we must “take” it, we must use it, we must put it into practice. Throughout literature, especially epic and adventure literature, there is a reoccurring motif of a person, often an ordinary and unexpected person, obtaining a powerful weapon in a time of trouble, a weapon powerful enough to win the day. But always with this comes the choice--they must make the choice, sometimes a costly choice, to wield the weapon, to take it up and join the fight. And as Christians, we must make the choice to take up the armor God has provided for us. The English dramatist W. S. Gilbert has a scene in Princess Ida in which he pictures a group of soldiers preparing to go into battle, who discard one piece of armor after another because it is too uncomfortable--and so they go into battle without any armor. And they lose. And we are doomed to lose this war as Christians unless we take on the whole armor of God. Adam Clarke summarizes the overall thrust of this passage, saying: “The grand design of the apostle was to show that truth, righteousness, obedience to the Gospel, faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, a well grounded hope of salvation, a thorough knowledge of the word of God, and a continual dependence on and application to him by prayer, were essentially necessary to every soul who desired to walk uprightly in this life, and finally to attain everlasting blessedness.” (Commentary, Ephesians 6:24)

There is another thing we should notice, something that often gets passed over in discussing the armor of God, and that is verse 10: “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.” When discussing the work of a slave, I said the key fact is that our life is not our own but belongs to God. And that follows through here. In this war, we can be strong but only in the Lord. Our strength is not our own strength but God's, and not just any strength but “the power of his might.” On this phrase, John Wesley comments: “A very uncommon expression, plainly denoting what great assistance we need as if his might would not do, it must be the powerful exertion of his might.” (NT Notes, Ephesians 6:10) Fanny Crosby wrote, "Not to the strong is the battle,/Not to the swift is the race,/But to the true and the faithful/Victory is promised through grace."

The first weapon Paul mentions is truth. “Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth." (v. 14) And since “girt” is not a common word in modern English, we might understand this better in the words of the NET Bible: “Stand firm therefore, by fastening the belt of truth around your waist.” The purpose of a belt in a suit of armor was to keep all the other pieces in place; it was the thing that bound all together and made it a unified whole. Having the best sword will do you no good if it falls off during the battle. Having the best breastplate will be pointless if it isn't covering your chest. The belt is essential to keep everything else in place, to hold the other pieces of the armor. But in order for that to work, it has to be a good belt, a strong belt, a belt capable of holding everything else together.

Paul says that this belt, for the Christian, must be truth. Throughout the book of Psalms, the Psalmists repeatedly refer to God's laws or commandments as being “true.” C. S. Lewis, commenting on this word, says: 'The word, I understand, could also be translated “faithful”, or “sound”; what is, in the Hebrew sense, “true” is what “holds water”, what doesn't “give way” or collapse... [The Psalmists'] delight in the Law is a delight in having touched firmness; like the pedestrian's delight in feeling the hard road beneath his feet after a false short cut has long entangled him in muddy fields.” (Reflections on the Psalms, 60-62) We must base our life on truth or it will collapse in the end. It one thing to have faith, to have righteousness, to have preparation. Those things are all good--but they will not do us any good unless they are bound in place by the belt of truth. Faith, without truth, is self-delusion. Hope, without truth, is wishful thinking. Love, without truth, is only sentiment. None of them can stand the test unless they are also bound by truth. We must know the truth and build our lives and armor around it if we are to survive this battle.

The second part of the armor is righteousness. "Stand therefore... having on the breastplate of righteousness." Albert Barnes explains that the word breastplate means "the armour that covered the body from the neck to the thighs, and consisted of two parts, one covering the front and the other the back. It was made of rings, or in the form of scales, or of plates, so fastened together that they would be flexible, and yet guard the body from a sword, spear, or arrow." (Commentary, Eph. 6:14) It was the primary protection for a soldier, to keep him from being injured.

The word righteousness simply means right-ness and is used to refer to the character of one who does right and is right, of one who is like God. Thayer's lexicon defines it as the state of one who is as he ought to be, the state acceptable to God. This, like all of the armor, is obtained through faith in Christ for “therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.” (Romans 1:17)

It shouldn't surprise us that righteousness is an important thing for the Christian since one of the reasons why Jesus came was that we might serve God in righteousness and holiness all the days of our lives. (See Luke 1:74-75) What may seem less obvious is its connection to the armor of God. We tend to think of righteousness as something humdrum or even boring. Paul reminds us here that it is a weapon--it is a part, and an essential part, of our armor as Christians. But how is righteousness like a breastplate?

We may understand this if we think of a couple people from the Bible. 1 Samuel 25 tells the story of David and Nabal. David was a good man, but he had a problem with anger and in a weak moment the insulting treatment of Nabal stirred his understandable anger to a point where he set in motion a plan of revenge which, if it were not for the timely intervention of Abigail, would have resulted in a mass slaughter which David himself saw as wrong once he calmed down. Matthew 26:33-35 tells of a pivotal moment in the life of Peter when Jesus warned Peter of the coming test and his ultimate betrayal. Peter was a good man but his problem was self-confidence. Because of that, he refused to listen to the warning of Jesus and make preparation for the coming test and so betrayed his friend and master.

In both cases, in a moment of testing, the man fell--because of one thing in their life, one 'chink' in their armor. That is why we need the righteousness of God active in our lives because if the Devil can find any opening, he will use it to destroy us. That is why Charles Wesley, wrote: “Leave no unguarded place,/No weakness of the soul;/Take every virtue, every grace,/And fortify the whole.” The words of a modern Christian song say: “Guard your heart”--and the thing which guards our heart is the breastplate of God's righteousness imparted to our lives.

But there is an interesting point about this breastplate of righteousness. Isaiah 59:17 has some parallels to this passage (and probably was in Paul's mind as he wrote). In that place, the Messiah is described as wearing a breastplate of righteousness. And while this may be reading too much into the passage, it is certainly true that Jesus in His earthly life had a righteous life, so much that the only way He could be convicted was through lies and tricks. And our only hope for living a righteous life is by having His righteous. It is almost as if an old soldier, having completed a victorious campaign, gave his armor to one of his followers, saying: “This has kept me safe in battle and so I know it will now keep you safe.”

The next weapon is the preparation of the gospel. "Stand therefore, having... your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace." There is some question whether the footwear in question here means merely the sandals worn on the foot or something more like a boot which protected the lower part of the leg. In either case, it was very important. Napoleon said that an army travels on its stomach, but the truth is that an army travels on its feet. The feet must be properly prepared if the soldier is to be ready to fight.

The first thing to notice is the phrase “the gospel of peace” or, as it could be more literally rendered, the good news of peace. Paul may have chosen this phrase particularly to remind his readers that though he is using the analogy of a soldier, the ultimate purpose of the gospel is peace and not war. Adam Clarke comments: “The Gospel is termed the Gospel of peace, because it establishes peace between God and man, and proclaims peace and good will to the universe.” (Commentary, Ephesians 6:15)

There are two ways to translate and understand this verse, this idea of the “preparation OF the gospel.” The Twentieth Century New Testament gives one view: “And with the readiness to serve the Good News of Peace as shoes for your feet.” The idea is that we should be ready to spread the good news when God gives us an opportunity. Just as a soldier with good shoes is ready to march whenever the order comes, so we should be ready to go with the gospel. 1 Peter 3:15 says we should “be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you.”

The other view is given in Weymouth's New Testament: “As well as the shoes of the Good News of peace--a firm foundation for your feet.” The Amplified Bible puts it: “And having shod your feet in preparation [to face the enemy with the firm-footed stability, the promptness, and the readiness produced by the good news] of the Gospel of peace.” The idea is that the gospel, the good news which God has imparted to us, as we believe it and live by it, gives a preparation, a stability. Just as a soldier with good shoes can stand his ground without worrying about slipping and falling, so through the gospel we receive a preparation, a foundation which will hold us firm in battle.

The fourth weapon is faith. "Above all, [or over all] taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked [one]." The kind of shield Paul is referring to here was a large, oblong shield which was large enough that the soldier could be completely sheltered by it, thus Paul speaks of it as being above or over the rest of the armor. It was the first defense of the soldier. In order to reach him, an attack had to pass through the shield. Barclay says these shields were specially designed so that burning arrows would be extinguished when they struck--which is why Paul speaks of it turning back the burning arrows of the Devil. The shield protected everything else. And it seems that Paul is saying that faith occupies a similar position tot he Christian, as the first defense, the thing that protects the rest.

What is faith? Hebrews 11:1 defines it this way: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Robertson says that the word used here for substance means that which stands under something, the underpinning of something, like a foundation or a contract. It is also used to mean "assurance... steadiness of mind... the basis or guarantee of a transaction". Moulton and Milligan suggest it could be translated here 'title-deed.'  Adam Clarke says that the word used for evidence means an argument or evidence that is so conclusive that one cannot doubt the conclusion. He sets these two definitions of faith in contradistinction to things hoped for and things unseen. A similar thought is found in 2 Corinthians 5:7: "For we walk by faith, not by sight."

When you buy something like a car, you get a title-deed which testifies legally that you own that car. You may never have driven the car; you may never have even seen it, but if you have that title in your name then that car belongs to you. And that is what faith is. It is the promise and assurance of things that we cannot yet directly see, things which have not yet come to be. We were not there to see the world begin and we have not yet come to see it end, but we know how it began and we know how it will end through faith in the Word of God, for faith is the title-deed of things hoped for and the conclusive proof of things not seen.

That is what faith is--but how is it like a shield? In Genesis 3:4-5 we read of the serpent's temptation of Eve: “And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” Do you notice what is happening here? The Devil led Eve to sin by making her doubt God. First, he made her doubt the truth of God's word. God had said they would die if they ate the forbidden fruit, but the Devil made her think that wasn't true. Second, he made her doubt the goodness of God--by suggesting that God was keeping something good from her, that God was deliberately denying her some pleasure and glory for no good reason. Once he had made her doubt God, the next step was obviously to neglect His command. And I think still this is the main way the Devil works--he makes us doubt the power of God or His goodness or His authority. The only defense against such attacks is faith; faith that God is able, that God is good, and that God is in charge. For this reason, Paul says that faith can quench the burning arrows of the Devil.

It is worth noting a few other things about the shield. One was that the Roman soldiers would sometimes make a formation where they stood together with their shields touching, forming a sort of wall with their shields. And just so, as Christians when we stand together our faith can bolster the faith of one another. And if a Roman soldier was wounded in battle, they would use the shield for a stretcher to carry him to safety--and when we are wounded and fall in battle, if we hold on to our faith, that will be our way back to the safety of God.

The fifth weapon is Salvation. "And take the helmet of salvation." What a helmet is is very straightforward--it's something you wear on your head to protect it. The head is an obviously important part of the body and a relatively vulnerable part and so it naturally needs to be protected. What is less clear is what Paul means by salvation. Obviously, all these things are part of salvation. It is only through salvation that we can have faith and righteousness. But I think salvation here does not mean just what we call getting saved but rather the whole scope of what God is doing in and for and through us, the whole scope of God's secret plan. This may be more clear if we look at a parallel passage in 1 Thessalonians 5:7-9. "For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation. For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.” Even as Christians, we have not yet seen the full scope of our salvation--that is in the future, in the resurrection. Now, we have the hope of salvation. This is what we are living for; what we are fighting for. It is the hope of ultimate victory the gives the Christian courage to face incredible odds without despair. There is a certain kind of courage which is born from despair, but the highest kind of courage can feed only hope. Adam Clarke writes: "So the hope of conquering every adversary and surmounting every difficulty, through the blood of the Lamb, is as a helmet that protects the head; an impenetrable one, that the blow of the battle-axe cannot cleave. The hope of continual safety and protection, built on the promises of God, to which the upright follower of Christ feels he has a Divine right, protects the understanding from being darkened, and the judgment from being confused by any temptations of Satan..."

The Hope of Salvation reminds us why we are fighting and that victory is possible. Hope is often treated as something superfluous or extra. But hope is essential. When we lose hope in the battle we will give up, or, worse, become desperate. We have Hope in God. If we lose this, then we will be driven to look elsewhere for hope--to a person or a thing--and whatever we put our hope in will control us. Too often, Christians have lost sight of their hope, and without this helmet, Satan can mess with their minds, driving them to do things which they would never have done except out of hopelessness. That seems to be what happened to Abraham. It was when he had lost all hope of having a son, of seeing God's promise fulfilled, that he listened to Sarah's suggestion and took Hagar as a concubine. Perhaps that was why God commanded Abraham to offer up Isaac--to remind Abraham that his hope was not in Isaac but in God. As Christians in this battle, our hope is not in some new plan or some person or some organization--as good and important as those things may be. The hope we have is the hope of salvation which comes only from God.

The sixth weapon is the Word of God: "And take... the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." (c.p., Hebrews 4:12) The Word of God here seems to mean specifically the Bible, the revealed word of God. It is called the Sword of the Spirit because it is the Spirit that carries the word and makes it affect. The word Spirit also means Breath, and just as Breath carries our words, so God's Spirit bears His Word to the world.  It was the Spirit that first moved on men of old to write the scriptures. It is still the Spirit that empowers the words of the Scriptures and makes them effective.

Matthew 4:5-7 tells of how the Devil tempted Jesus. “Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, and saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.”

The important point to note here is that when Jesus was facing temptation, He responded using the Scripture. The Word of God was the weapon which God Himself used to repel the Devil. This is a concept we should already be familiar with. But I picked this temptation out of the three for a particular reason. It would be easy to fall into the idea that there is some kind of mysterious, mystical power in the words of Scripture. Certainly, this idea is prevalent in our modern Christianified culture in which Bible verses and the Bible itself is often treated as some kind of good luck charm. In Walmart the other day I saw a magazine headline: “Five Bible prayers that will heal the sick.” That is the sort of attitude many people in the world have. And what is important is that Jesus not only used scripture but understood it--understood what it meant--so much so that when the Devil misused Scripture, Jesus was able to counter by the proper use of Scripture. It is not enough to know the word of God in a superficial sense; we must know what it means. It is one thing to have a sword; it is another thing to be able to use it. One of Rudyard Kipling's stories tells of a man living in China whose father was an Irish soldier. Though he lived in China and spoke Chinese, he would sing every night a song he learned from his father--an old Irish folk song. He didn't know what it said, he didn't know what it meant--but he knew the words and faithfully sang it, almost as a religious exercise. And that is all the more knowledge some people have of the Bible. But if we are to use it as a weapon, our knowledge must go deeper. Just a soldier would want to be as well-versed as he could be in the art of swordplay, so Christians should be well-versed in the Scripture.

After listing these six weapons, Paul mentions a seventh thing which seems to be part of this passage but isn't actually a weapon--at least, Paul doesn't compare it to a weapon. That is, of course, prayer. Verses 18-20: “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints; and for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.”

When I've discussed the armor of God before, I followed Adam Clarke's suggestion that this an allusion to the custom of the Greeks (and other people) to offer prayers to God or the gods on the eve of battle. (Commentary, Ephesians 6:18) Certainly, if we were going to be forced into war tomorrow, we would probably be doing some serious praying. Many people have realized that success in battle does not lie solely on the strength of soldiers or in their armor but in supernatural intervention. And the same is even truer in this spiritual battle. As we saw earlier, we can stand in this battle only if we are “strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.” Cinderella was given a magic coach and a magic dress--but after midnight they all disappeared. We have been given great armor, but if we cease to depend on God, it will all disappear and we will be helpless.

All that is true. However, that doesn't seem to be Paul's thought here. The prayer and supplication and persevering watchfulness in prayer which he speaks of here are not for ourselves but “for all saints; and for me.” He is not talking specifically about prayer for ourselves but prayer for one another.

In this passage about the Christian soldier, Paul is not picturing someone like the Lone Ranger, a single individual in a one-man war against the forces of evil. As Christians, we are in an army, a group of people fighting together for a common Captain against a common foe. No one man ever wins a war on his own. We are fighting together and so must enter into prayer for one another.

But there is an especially interesting part of this prayer and that is Paul's request that they pray for him. Paul was in prison in Rome when he wrote this--he was “an ambassador in bonds.” He was under arrest and while he seems to have received decent treatment during this imprisonment, he knew very well just what it could mean to him if the Roman officials turned against him. In the midst of his trouble and the threat of more trouble, he was determined to proclaim the Gospel, “to make known the mystery of the gospel.” This mystery of the Gospel, the secret plan of God, was what Paul had written this whole epistle about, it was what Paul lived to preach, it was why Paul was in prison in the first place, and it was what he wanted to be able to preach to the world around him. And so he wanted the Ephesians to pray for him, that he would have the opportunity to preach and that he would have the boldness to be able to speak “as I ought to speak.” It is worth noting in passing that even Paul had struggles and needed prayer.

However, this is the interesting part. Paul and the Christians in Ephesus were fellow soldiers, fighting the same war but on different fronts. And by asking for their prayers, Paul was saying that they could help him in his fight, though they were far away. And that was why he didn't compare prayer to a weapon. In the first century, there was no weapon by which a soldier in Turkey could affect the outcome of a battle in Rome. Today, in which war is being more and more fought over long distances, we can see this idea more clearly. Prayer is a weapon in the Christian's arsenal--the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Launcher--the weapon by which a Christian may play a part in battles all over the world. We are not alone in this fight. Everyone remembers the creed of the Three Musketeers: All for one and one for all. This kind of solidarity is at the heart of the Christian army which is why we must pray always for all saints.

Paul ends a personal note. Ephesians 6:21-22: “But that ye also may know my affairs, and how I do, Tychicus, a beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, shall make known to you all things: whom I have sent unto you for the same purpose, that ye might know our affairs, and that he might comfort your hearts.” This is followed by a benediction: “Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Amen.” (Ephesians 6:23-24)