Protection on Paper

Someone once showed me a poster of "The Christian in Spiritual Armour" that left me feeling like I needed to take a few steroids to measure up to the soldier in that picture. I was a rake of a twenty-something year old, and felt like quite the wimp compared to that muscular dude wielding his powerful sword and shield.

Fortunately, the Apostle Paul's reference to our spiritual armour has nothing to do with our physical stature. The spiritual armour Paul wrote about fits Christians of every size and the sword that goes with it is something that even the most physically weakened Christian is fully capable of swinging.

In fact, I think it would be better to draw the picture of "The Christian in Spiritual Armour" as a young child carrying a paper-product sword and shield rather than some strongman carrying heavy weapons. That's because much of the armour we wear or carry in our spiritual fight is found on paper.

Yes, God calls us to arm ourselves with something found on paper pages. Think about it...

• The "sword of the Spirit" is clearly referred to as "the Word of God" (Ephesians 6:17).
• The "shield of faith" (Eph. 6:16) is produced by the Word of God, since we know that "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God" (Romans 10:17).
• And we know that the "belt of truth" (Eph. 6:14) is also the Word of God, because Jesus prayed that the Father would "sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth" (John 17:17)

This means that we are to arm ourselves from the pages of the Bible. When we do so, we can be certain that the words in that book are sharp enough to pierce through any of the enemy's trickery, and that the truth on those pages is fire-proof against the "fiery darts" that our enemy throws at us (Eph. 6:16). Imagine that! A fire-proof shield on combustible paper, and flimsy pages that are made immeasurably strong and sharp by the words of heavenly truth they contain.

What does any of this mean? It means that no matter how weak you may feel, you can wield and wear spiritual armour. It means that a picture of a child with a paper sword and shield is closer to Biblical reality than a poster of a muscular soldier with his hefty steel sword and shield. It's not brawn that beats the enemy back, but it's the person who reads and embraces God's Word who will overcome the enemy's constant lies and accusations.

That is why it's so worthwhile to saturate ourselves in the Bible's precious contents. And the fact that Jesus is the living Word means that all our spiritual armour is available in Him, and that as we spend time meditating on His Word in fellowship with Him, He will bring His Word to life in our hearts, enabling us to be victors against our enemy by His power rather than by any unreliable strength of our own.

© 2015 by Ken Peters