Jesus’ culture-bending teaching – Breastplate of Righteousness, Part 1

From an ancient military standpoint, the breastplate is piece of armor covering the chest, primarily to protect the heart and lungs from the possibility of being pierced by arrows or blows from blades and stones.  It is very similar to Kevlar bullet proof vests that contemporary soldiers wear. 

In Ephesians 6:14b, the apostle Paul continues, “[Stand firm]…with the breastplate of righteousness in place.”

Paul’s Armor of God passage (Ephesians 6:10-20) is not talking about physical metal armor.  He is talking about the habits and practices that Christians incorporate into their lives to take our stand against the enemy of God.  Last week (starting here), we studied verse 14a, that we need to gird up our loins with the truth, which is another way of saying, “Put on the belt of truth.”  Truth should be central to our lives, because Jesus is the embodiment of truth.  This week Paul describes the importance of righteousness.

What is righteousness?

Righteousness is defined as “the act of doing what God requires—doing what is right.”[1]

Jesus had a lot to say about righteousness.  Righteousness is one of the themes of his sermon on the Mount, which we read in Matthew chapters 5-7.

Jesus begins his sermon with the famous Beatitudes, otherwise known as “Blessed are you” teachings. In Matthew 5 verse 6 he says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”  Then in verse 10, “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Couple the Beatitudes with what Jesus says in verse 16, “In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”

What Jesus just said was crazy radical.

What was his crazy radical teaching?  Nothing but the Beatitudes and that talk about Salt of the Earth and Light of the World.  You might be thinking, “What’s so crazy about those teachings?”  Seems pretty tame to us, right? 

To the people in the crowd listening to Jesus, he was giving them a teaching that made it sound like he wanted to turn their culture inside-out.  They would almost certainly have been thinking that Jesus was wrong.  Because to them, the word of God in the Old Testament, the Mosaic Law, and their culture were one and the same. And it seemed like what Jesus just said was actually taking their precious law and ripping it up and thus opposing their culture.

We know the people were thinking this because of what he says next in verse 17:

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”

Jesus is basically saying “I know what you’re thinking people!  And you’re wrong!”  He is reading their minds, saying “Hold on!  Put on the brakes.  I don’t want you to misunderstand me.” He is afraid that what he has just said will be misconstrued.  Wrongly interpreted. 

What is going on here? And how does it relate to righteousness? In the next post we’ll learn how.

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[1] Johannes P. Louw and Eugene Albert Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, 1996), 743.

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