Sunday School: Armor of God; The Sheild of Faith

Ephesians 6:16 tells us to take up the shield of faith.
What exactly is faith? Hebrews 11:1 It's NOT the same as just believing, even the demons do that and shudder James 2 :19
Where does it come from? Romans 10:17, so listen, by reading your Bible regularly, attending a church service, listening to Christian music, participating in a Bible study, doing personal devotions, reading a blog like this- do these things and God will feed your faith in Him.

Now, what good is faith. Well let's start by considering what St. Paul and his readers in ancient Ephesus considered shields. Not a dinky little round thing like Captain America's jiffy Frisbee- Roman shields were more like lugging around a door. Most of them were like 4 foot tall by 2 foot wide, made out of wood and covered by leather- that could be soaked in water to help extinguish the flaming arrows of the enemy. Roman soldiers could just kneel down behind it and be pretty well protected. If they lined up together, it made a pretty decent wall. (see the picture above)

• The Bible tells us that we are saved by Grace through Faith Ephesians 2:8-9
• Because we have faith, we are no longer at war with God- I for one would rather be His ally than His enemy- Romans 5:1-2 (by the way, it's faith in Him that can get us through the hard times Romans 5: 3-5)
• Faith makes us solid like a ROCK, like a MOUNTAIN! With faith, we cannot be moved! Psalm 125:1
• The shield of faith works together with the breastplate of righteousness. The righteous shall live by faith Habakkuk 2:4 & Romans 1:17

Faith is even more potent in numbers though. The ancient Roman legions had a maneuver that they called "the tortoise." The front 6 soldiers made a row with their shields, and the next three rows of 7 soldiers each could all put their shields up forming a giant tortoise shell of 27 shields which was great protection against almost anything the enemy could throw at them. Cool huh?
The point is, we need to come together with other Christians to share our faith with, share our troubles with, pray for each other and with each other, and support each other in our faith and in life's struggles. See Romans 12:6-8 and 1 Thessalonians 3:10 There's power in numbers, so if you aren't in some kind of fellowship yet, ask God to lead you to a church, a Bible study or prayer group or worship community of some kind. Even if it's just a few Christian friends, a mentor or a prayer partner, God will provide you with just what He knows you need. Maybe it's just a friend or two who all challenge each other to read the Bible on their own and talk about what you've learned while you go for a walk or play video games or something as simple as that.
Remember the tortoise and the hair. There's safety in numbers.

If you're looking for something, here's your open invitation- I teach the high school Bible Study at my Church in Charter Oak, St. John's. It's at 8:50 in the kitchen in the basement, if you ever want to come sit in, you're always welcome. 104 Birch Avenue. Charter Oak, IA 51439.

Keep the faith, baybuh!
Me ka pule,
Ted

Sunday School; Spiritual Warfare

So why do we even need this "Armor of God" that St. Paul talks about in Ephesians 6:10-19? What exactly is it that we have to "take our stand" against? Well, theologians have generally talked about three enemies of the soul- the World, the flesh, and the Devil.

What does that mean? Let's take them in reverse order: first the Devil. The Bible says that God created angels, His three archangels were Michael, in charge of guardians, Gabriel, in charge of messengers, and Lucifer, in charge of worshipers. Initially angels must have been granted free will, like humans. Lucifer became jealous both of God and of humans (the "crown" of God's creation). He and his angels waged war in Heaven and God kicked him out. He took his angels with him and this "fallen angel" became Satan and the demons. "Satan" or the devil are words that mean "the accuser." In the guise of the serpent, Satan tempted Adam and Eve to sin inn the garden of Eden, ever since he has constantly been trying to drive a wedge between God and man.

10Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. 12For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Some people thing that those "rulers, authorities, and powers" are various ranks or classifications of demons. I think of them a little like the "orks" in the Lord of the Rings movies, soldiers set up with responsibilities. Sound's scary, but it is important to remember that Satan is not God's equal. He is finite, he's not all-powerful, all-knowing, or all-present everywhere like God. Luther compared him to a dog on a chain, so long as you don't get closer than the length of that chain, you're safe.

Which brings us to the next enemy, our own flesh. A 1950's/60's comic strip character, Pogo the possum once said, "we have met the enemy, and he is us." Sometimes we are our own worst enemies. Because of our sinful nature (original sin), we are all selfish, short sighted, and immature- at least spiritually speaking. We don't love God with all our hearts and mind and strength, and we don't love our neighbors as ourselves. We're plagued with doubt, anger, jealousy, lust, gluttony, etc. etc. Most of the time Satan and demons don't have to do anything to us, but they may take advantage of our weaknesses. I like to think of them like mice, rats or roaches. If I have good hygiene habits and clean up, I probably won't have a problem with these scavengers, but if I let the trash pile up, guess who's coming to dinner? Likewise, it's not always so much like some demon tempts you into a given sin, so much as it is that you're inviting demons to trap you into a cycle once you open the door by indulging in something you know is wrong.

Finally there is the world. There are some Christians who are so hyper-legalistic, and a little bit paranoid, that they think that the whole world is always out to get us and steal us way from God. Well, here's the thing, the world isn't a conscious, sensate, maniacal, malevolent force, like Satan. The world is, not one thing, it's everything. The cosmos, the order of things, the holistic system of systems, and what is that system made up of? People. And what do we know about people? They all have a sinful nature, selfish and short sighted- everyone out for themselves. So yes, there is money, power, sex, drugs, material possessions, different religions, different philosophies, victories and defeats, all kinds of things that could separate us from God and from each other if we let them. But like TV or money, or the internet, there is a lot of bad out there, but there is a lot of good too. It's not "bad" exactly, in and of itself. A shark isn't evil when it eats you, it's just doing what sharks do- eat. But in this "dog-eat-dog" world, if I am the little fish, the big fish is my enemy.

So yeah, we could sure benefit from wearing God's armor. Keep visiting this blog, over the next 7 weeks I'll be talking about each piece of armor in Eph. 6

Sunday School

My first day back at High School Bible Study. We're going to be covering the Armor of God in Ephesians 6:10-19

Romans 13:12-14, Galatians 3:26-29 both talk about putting on the "armor of light" and "dressing yourself in Christ." So a couple of things we talked about were how all week long at school, the way people dress matches their social class or club or clique- nerds, preps, goths, punks, emos, jocks etc. Whereas on spirit day of homecoming, everybody wears school colors- you aren't geeks, dweebs, or motor-heads, you're all bulldogs (or bobcats in Charter Oak-Ute's case, or whatever your school is). When you're dressed in Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male or female as Galatians 3:26-29 says, we're all the same, all equal what's more, God doesn't see all our faults or sins, He sees His Son. So, wearing the armor of God means that He sees us as his children.

Is armor important? Listen, as an Iraq vet how important their Kevlar vest is to them. One of the biggest problems that we've faced over their are that the HumVees troops drive were improperly armored or even not lined with armor at all- so when it drives over an IED, they're screwed.

One of the greatest things about God's armor is that it's easy to bare. In the movie A Knight's Tale, Heath Ledger's character damages his armor in a joust. His blacksmith comes up with a new process for refining iron into steel (in real life this was part of the industrial revolution, centuries later. Heath and his seconds are skeptical because the new armor is so thin, light, and allows the knight so much flexibility, but needless to say, super-fired steel is far stronger than anything else in medieval times. Like that, wearing God's armor is not only better for us than trying to get by with our own defenses, but it winds up being much easier too.