Why Jesus said the so-called “righteous” people are wrong – Breastplate of Righteousness, Part 2

In the previous post, we observed Jesus preaching the beginning of his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew chapters 5-7). At the outset, it seems like Jesus is taking his culture’s precious Mosaic Law and ripping it up. 

How so? 

First, in his Beatitudes teaching he says that the Kingdom of God is available to all!  The Kingdom of Heaven wasn’t just for those spiritual and wealthy elites, Jesus said, it was for everyone.  Never mind that the spiritual and wealthy elite tried very hard to make it seem like heaven was just for them, Jesus says, “All you poor, hungry, meek, lowly, persecuted people…heaven is for you too!”  No one in the crowd that day would have heard that teaching before.  It was shocking.

Second, Jesus taught that people should become the salt of the earth, the light of the world, meaning they should be the very ones to proclaim in word and deed that the Kingdom is available to all, so even more people would praise God in heaven.  To give the peasants in the crowd that day the affirmation that God wants to use them for his Kingdom was an unbelievable affirmation of their worth in God’s eyes.  It was shocking.

So shocking in fact that most of them would have said, “Sounds good, Jesus.  Very good…but too good to be true.  Stop messing around with the Mosaic Law like that.  You can’t just come here and change God’s word!  You can’t just overturn it.”

The people didn’t realize that he wasn’t overturning the Law.  He was overturning a false version of the Law that the religious and wealthy elite had created to keep themselves in power!

But the peasants didn’t know that.  They accepted the old system, faults and all, as the word of God.  So they would be thinking at that moment too: “Woah, Jesus, are you totally disagreeing with our system?”

Notice that in Matthew 5, verse 17, he anticipates their reaction.  He says, “No! Do not think I have come to abolish the Law.  I have come to fulfill the law.”  How will he fulfill the Law?  He is talking about his perfect life, and looking forward to his death and resurrection. 

Jewish society was stagnant, rotting with a false understanding of God’s heart.  In these few verses Jesus is stirring the waters with cyclone force, trying to bring new life, looking for a change.  How?

He calls the people to follow the real law, even to teach it. 

Then he says what would have sounded like lunacy to the people in verse 20: “For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Hear that?  Jesus is saying, “You need to have a life that is more righteous than the people who are considered to be the most righteous people, or you will not enter his Kingdom.”  But how?  The people in the crowd that day would have thought Jesus was out of his mind.  The religious leaders were supposed to be the epitome of righteousness.  At least that’s what they declared about themselves, and it seemed to be true because they followed all the religious laws and rituals.

What this resulted in was a general feeling among the peasantry that not only were they themselves, the peasants, not righteous like the elite, but also that they had little hope of becoming righteous.  Maybe you’ve felt like that too. That you are just who you are, that you’ll always struggle in this area or that, probably won’t make much progress.  Becoming more righteous sounds like an impossibility to you.  Or it just feels exhausting.

But hear what Jesus has said.  You can have a righteousness that surpasses those who seem to be righteous.  There is hope for all of us.  We can access the righteousness of God, which is a true righteousness, and it is neither impossible or exhausting. 

This is not how the people have been taught to follow the law from the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law. 

So we need to ask ourselves, “What kind of righteousness do I have?” How can I tell which righteousness I have?  That of religious elites?  Or the surpassing kind of righteousness?  The true righteousness?

We’ll learn more in the next post.

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.

[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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How “righteous” is a slang word – Breastplate of Righteousness, Preview

This past week I started something new, teaching English as a Second Language with students in Conestoga Valley SEEDS’ classes held at my church.  It was so much fun talking about our sometimes crazy English language. This past week, for example, we learned the nuances between “although,” “even though,” “though,” and “because.” English can be confusing!

What also makes language-learning sometimes confusing is that language changes.  Some words and phrases go out of use and into the dustbin of history. New words and phrases are created daily.  Do you know, for example, these top slang words (see full list here) of 2023?

Boujee.  “Bourgeois” is a noun, and “boujee” is its slang adjectival form meaning, “rich, luxurious, special, fancy.”  Example: “She’s so boujee with that Louis Vuitton bag.”

Bussin’.  This is an adjective meaning, “Amazing, really good.”  Example: “Those potato chips are bussin’.”

Extra.  This common word is now being used as an adjective meaning, “Dramatic, attention-grabbing, too much.”  Example: “You don’t have to be so extra about it!”

Shook.  Another common word, but now used as an adjective for “Stunned, shocked.”  Example: “The war in Israel has me shook.”

Have you heard any of those?  Yes?  No?  Maybe?  How about this blast from the past?

Righteous.  This spiritual word became slang for “excellent.”  I always thought it was a 1960s hippie term that got new life as a 1980s surfer dude term.  But I did some research suggesting that it was used as slang for “excellent” or “smooth” or “cool” even earlier than that, in 1930s jazz culture and by swingers in the 1940s.

Interestingly, that slang use of “righteous” isn’t far off from its original meaning.  And that is what we are going to study this coming week on the blog.  Our current blog series is about the Armor of God in Ephesians 6:10-20, and this coming week we’re going to learn about the Breastplate of Righteousness. 

What does it mean to be righteous?  We certainly don’t want to be self-righteous, do we? How do we become righteous? Is it even possible? No one can really be righteous, can they? We’ll begin talking about it in the next post.

How to hear the truth and speak it – Belt of Truth, Part 5

I recently saw a church sign message that asked the question, “How can you be a jerk during the week, then worship on Sunday?”  Most church sign messages I see are ridiculous and counterproductive, but that one spoke truth.  That was some truth in love that all Christians need to hear. 

Are we grumpy?  We need to hear that truth.

Are we bitter? We need to hear that truth.

Are we keeping secrets from our spouse or parents?  We need that truth to come out.

Are we being selfish?  We need to hear that truth.

Are we lazy?  We need to hear that truth.

If we want to gird our loins in/with the truth (“gird”??? See post here.), we need to know the truth about ourselves.  We need people to speak the truth in love to us. 

And we need to be truth-speakers.  That definitely includes refusing to lie about anything. 

Do you find that you struggle with truth?  It could be that you struggle receiving truth.  It could be that you struggle telling the truth.  It could be that you struggle living truthfully.  If so, then go back to work on this, strengthen the core, the center, which is the truth of a relationship with Jesus who is the truth.

Being a truth-speaker, also includes speaking the truth in love to people. 

Recently in a class I’m teaching at Lancaster Bible College we were talking about apocalyptic literature in Scripture, like the book of Revelation and that led to a conversation about how differently people interpret that apocalyptic literature.  I mentioned that I often hear people say things like, “We are definitely living in the end times, and Jesus is coming soon,” as if they really know that, but they actually don’t. 

We talked about how people can be absolutely convinced that their opinions are the truth.  And yet they can be blinded by their own ability to ascertain the truth.  They might think they have figured out the truth, but they are actually believing something false.  Like thinking they know Jesus is coming in our lifetime.  They don’t know.

One student raised her hand and asked about this, because she has some family members who are very authoritative about their viewpoints, totally unwilling to receive any other points of view.  How can she speak the truth in love to them?

My point in saying this is that we need to be two things, people who receive the truth about ourselves and people who speak truth to others.  In both of them be grounded in the truth of Jesus, humble about the reality that we don’t have it all figured out and we won’t ever have it all figured out. 

Regularly seek to grow in your relationship with Jesus, the Truth! So get to know Jesus.  Spend time with him every day.  Quiet, listening time.  Read about Jesus in the Gospels.  He is God in the flesh.  Read what the early church wrote about him in the rest of the New Testament. 

Ask people to tell you the truth about yourself.  Yes, it is risky and scary.  Make sure you ask people who will actually tell you the truth.  You’re not perfect, and neither am I.  We need courageous loving people who will tell us the truth, and we need to be courageous loving people who tell the truth in love. 

Fight the urge to lie, to shade the truth, to mislead, to deceive.   Satan is the great deceiver.  So if we want to take our stand against him, we cannot use his methods.  We the people of Jesus are people of truth, because Jesus is the truth.   

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Two important ways to embrace truth – Belt of Truth, Part 4

In 1 John 4, the apostle John writes Christians about grounding themselves in truth.  He writes in 1 John 4:1-6,

“Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world. You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.”

John gives us a test for what is false and what is true.  His truth test has two questions.

Question #1 – What about the deity and incarnation of Jesus?  John writes in verses 2-3 that the truth is that Jesus is God, and he took on human flesh.

Question #2 – What about listening to apostolic teaching?  John writes in verse 6 that the truth is that the apostles’ teaching is from God.

John is saying that there will be all sorts of people claiming that they have truth, that they speak truth.  But do they hold to the deity and incarnation of Jesus, and do they hold to apostolic teaching, which is found in the documents of the New Testament? We gird ourselves with the truth by holding to those two sources of truth.

We also gird ourselves with truth by learning the truth about ourselves.  Since my church started recording our sermons for YouTube and Instagram, I see myself talking a lot.  I sometimes don’t like what I see.  Weird expressions. Strange voice inflections.  I raise my eyebrows a lot, open my eyes wide a lot.  My mouth makes funny shapes. 

I know why.  I’m emotional about I’m saying.  I’m excited about it.  I want to connect the word of the God with my church family.  Body language speaks louder than words.  I know that.  But what I see on video can be very embarrassing. 

I sometimes turn off the video, thinking, “I can’t watch anymore.”  It’s too rough.  I don’t want to know the truth about how I look when I speak.  That is human nature.  Unless we are being told that we are awesome and incredible, it can be very difficult for us to hear the truth about ourselves. There are some of us who don’t like hearing the compliments, because they make us feel awkward.  Or we don’t believe them.  We might rather hear the bad stuff about ourselves.

We can have a complicated relationship with the truth, right?  We need people to speak truth to us.  The good and the bad.  This is the heart behind Paul’s teaching in Ephesians 4:15 when he talks about speaking the truth in love. 

In the next post, we’ll conclude our six-part series on the Belt of Truth and what it means to gird our loins with truth.

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Knowing Jesus is to know the truth – Belt of Truth, Part 3

We gird our loins in the truth, or with the truth, by grounding our lives in Jesus.  This is a major reason why we recently studied the Gospel of John from start to finish, so that we could get to know Jesus.  What did you learn about Jesus in John?  How is that changing how you are living? 

This is why we spend time studying God’s word in sermons, in classes, in small groups, and on our own.  God reveals himself in truth in his word. 

I know that studying the Bible and applying it to our lives can be difficult.  Not to mention that people can read the same Bible and come to very different conclusions about how to interpret it.  Where’s the truth in that?  If God’s word is a source of truth, then shouldn’t it be so obvious that all people agree on it?  If only it were that simple.

This is why I blogged a few weeks ago on how to interact with people (six posts starting here), especially Christian people, with whom you disagree. In our church family, we have disagreements about how to interpret the Bible.  About what is the truth. 

But we don’t need to have total uniformity about what is truth.  We do need unity, however.  We need to major on the majors and minor on the minors. 

That might feel uncomfortable for some of us.   Some of us can feel unsettled about the reality that truth is sometimes murky or debated.  But we need to face that reality.  We have differences of opinions about truth, and that is okay.

That opens the door for us to dabble a bit in the philosophy of truth.  Have you heard that we live in a day and age when absolute truth is being eroded?  It is often said that we live in a postmodern era during which the concept of truth is under attack.

In the modern era and long before, it is said, there was a bedrock of absolute truth that nearly everyone agreed on.  Absolutes such as God exists.  God created male and female.  Humanity is sinful. 

Those who say that truth is under attack suggest that now in our increasingly secular age more and more people are believing whatever they want.  There are no absolutes.  Each person can decide what is true for them. But is that correct?

It seems likely that this erosion of truth is happening to some degree or another.   In life, it seems that there are some foundations.  I am totally okay with the concept of mystery.  I think we need a healthy dose of mystery to keep us humble.  But I also believe that the concept of truth means that there are foundational truths that we can and should live by. 

Paul is saying the same thing.  We ground ourselves in the truth of Jesus.  The truth about Jesus is the steel that girds our entire existence. 

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What it means to gird up your loins – Belt of Truth, Part 2

Have you ever heard the phrase, “gird up your loins”?  It’s not a phrase we say much anymore, but it relates to the first piece of the Armor of God, the Belt of Truth.

But when you hear “gird up your loins,” it doesn’t sound like it is referring to armor.  Obviously the translators of the New International Version of the Bible thought the phrase “gird up your loins” referred to a belt (as we learned in the previous post), but before we get to making that connection, what do you think “gird up your loins means”?

Think about steel girder beams.  There we have a connection: gird and girder beams.  In my 21 years at Faith Church, our church portico has been hit by vehicles at least six times.  Each time, a vehicle did not fit under the portico, crashed into it, doing various degrees of damage.  Three of the six were really bad, and of those three, two required major work. 

The most recent one was about six years ago, and the vehicle hit the portico so hard, it bent the metal girder on the north side of the portico.  The construction company had to remove the girder, and you could see the bent steel.  But we didn’t need to see the girder to know that the damage was bad.  The portico was leaning over on its side.  Steel girders provide stability and strength.  They hold up the weight and form of the whole building. 

That’s what girding refers to.

But what about girding up your loins?  What are loins?  Our loins refers to our torso area.  Our core.  The center of our strength.  So when you gird up your loins for ancient warfare, you put on your belt.  In so doing you strengthen and support your core, providing an anchor for other pieces of armor. 

So the phrase “gird up your loins,” while very much a picture, is a figurative concept of what is central.  It’s a way of saying, “Get ready.  Prepare!”  If you want to stand against the enemy, it is of utmost importance that you get ready.

Put your belt on.  If you are a belt wearer, perhaps you know the feeling.  You may be so used to wearing belts, that you feel unprepared without one.  Your pants could fall down, your shirt could easily come untucked, your phone might not have a place to clip into.

What is Paul is saying, then, is this: when it comes to the very real spiritual warfare in the world, it is absolutely central to prepare yourselves by girding yourselves with truth. 

This is possibly a throwback to the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, who wrote in Isaiah 11:5 describing the Messiah.  “Righteousness will be his belt.”

That word “righteousness” in the Hebrew has many sides to it.  What is right, what is correct, what is honest.  What is true.  The Messiah will be gird his loins in/with truth. 

Which is precisely what we read in the New Testament about the Messiah.  In John 1:14, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Then consider John 14:6, “Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life.”

Jesus is truth.  He is the embodiment of truth.  When we gird ourselves in/with truth, we center our lives on Jesus, on his heart, his teachings, his way. 

Jesus once taught in John 8:32, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Jesus is saying that he is the truth, and Jesus is the only one that can set people free. 

We need Jesus.  He is the truth. We gird our loins in the truth, or with the truth, by grounding our lives in Jesus.

Photo by Alora Griffiths on Unsplash

Our culture’s messy relationship with the truth – The Belt of Truth, Part 1

We live in a society and culture that has increasingly struggled with truth. 

We ourselves can sometimes struggle with the truth.  Do you remember the last time you lied?  Hid a truth?  What about the last time you were lied to or felt deceived?

I remember one of the first times I told a lie.  I was elementary-age and very much into baseball cards.  Right around 1981, the Phillies, Mike Schmidt and Steve Carlton.  I wanted their cards so bad.  On Sundays my parents gave me 50 cents to put in the offering.  One Sunday, I didn’t put the money in the offering, and back home, I lied, saying I found it outside on the sidewalk.  I then had enough to buy a pack of Topps baseball cards, the kind with a stick of chalky gum inside. 

We expect kids to lie, but as adults we know better, right? Maybe not.

Think about the reputation of advertising.  Can you believe that what the advertisers say about their product is true?  Advertising is meant to convince us that a product will make our lives better if we just plunk down the money to get the product.  Is all advertising true?

Then there is the reputation of phone calls and texts from numbers you don’t know, from emailers you don’t know.  So many scams. 

I’ve gotten emails from the bishop of my denomination, except the emails were actually NOT from the bishop of my denomination.  Someone created a fake email account using the name of the bishop, and they wrote emails to pastors asking for financial help.  It’s very easy to do.  Very easy to lie.

It happened here in Faith Church too.  Someone impersonated me, creating a fake email address. They wrote emails to our staff saying that I needed them to get gift cards immediately.

Lying is very easy to do.  We can lie on our income tax forms.  We can lie on resumes.  We can lie to our loved ones.  Cheat on tests.  We lie because someone told us to at work, or asked us to help them, or to help ourselves get out of trouble. 

In recent years, we can lie on social media, curating a social media account to make our lives seem more glorious than they truly are. 

It is quite interesting, then, in my opinion, that the first piece of the armor of God is about truth.

In Ephesians 6, verse 14a, Paul writes, “Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist.”

There’s the first piece of the armor of God.  The Belt of Truth.  Except that in the original language, there’s no belt mentioned.  This verse uses an idiom that is literally “gird up your loins with truth.” 

While there is no belt mentioned in what Paul wrote, there is a good reason why some English translations refer to a belt.  The wider context of the passage is about putting on the armor of God.  We read that last week in verses 10-13 (read the six-post series starting here).  As we’re going to see throughout the next two months, Paul uses the various pieces of armor figuratively to talk about actions and habits, like truth.

So in this case, the action of girding up your loins does in fact relate to a piece of armor, or actually to all the pieces of armor, and to truth.  How so? 

We’ll learn more in the next post.

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When Batman was foiled by his mom – The Belt of Truth, Preview

When my son was just a little guy, he was convinced that he was Batman.  And he had a point.  You never saw Batman and my son in the same place, did you?  Nope.

At the time, we lived in the city of Lancaster, and our home had only street-side parking.  Some evenings when most neighbors were home, it could be very difficult to find parking nearby.  One evening, my wife had our four kids out by herself, and they had to park a couple blocks away.  As they were walking home in the dark, they came across some older kids in a fight.  Immediately she saw a look come across my 6 year old’s eyes. He was thinking this was a job for Batman.

My wife grabbed his arm, and nearly had to drag him away from the fight.  In her mind, it was most certainly not a job for “Batman.”  Once at home, he put on his Batman costume and walked to the front door, intending to go back out there.  Mom said, “No way.”

Our little Batman was very unhappy with his mom that night.  But he was ready.  He had his Batman armor, including Batman’s ever-present utility belt.  In that belt Batman has a gadget for seemingly every situation.  It could be said that Batman’s belt is the central feature of his suit.

Last week we started a blog series on the Armor of God, and this coming week, we learn about the first and central piece of armor.  The Belt of Truth.  This might surprise you, but Paul doesn’t mention a belt.  My Bible, the New International Version, however, tells us that Paul writes this: “Stand firm, then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist.”  What gives?  I promise you, Paul didn’t write that.  He wrote something else.

Starting Monday we’ll learn exactly what Paul wrote, we’ll learn why my Bible includes something (a belt!) that Paul didn’t include, and especially we’ll learn what Paul is actually talking about and how it matters to our lives.  It’s all about truth, and that is exceedingly important.  Truth is central. But the truth is hotly debated.

In our previous blog series through the Gospel of John, we studied Jesus’ trial before the Roman governor Pilate.  In John 18:37, Jesus says to Pilate, “I came into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”  But Pilate responds, ”What is truth?”

Pilate’s question sounds very contemporary, doesn’t it?  What is truth?  On the blog starting Monday we’ll talk about this central topic.

It is God’s armor, not ours – Ephesians 6:10-13, Part 5

I love Star Wars, and their recent show The Mandalorian is a favorite. The Mandalorian people in Star Wars are known for their impenetrable armor. They are able to defeat evil because of their armor.

But what about us? How should we interact with evil? 

In our study of Paul’s teaching in Ephesians 6:10-13, he repeats a very Mandalorian-sounding command in verses 11 & 13: “Put on the full armor of God.”  When we think of armor, we think of ancient Roman soldiers with their metal armor, or the old English Knights of the Round Table, or maybe a modern soldier’s bullet-proof body armor.  That armor is primarily defensive.  What Paul is referring to is not just defensive, but also offensive.  It is the full complement of God’s power.

The whole rest of the blog series, then, we will work step by step through each piece of the armor.  Rather I should say, armory.  Both defensive and offensive.  But know this, it is God’s armor, not ours.  When we put on the armor of God, it is not as if we become little Iron Men super soldiers.  When we put on the armor of God, we are entirely trusting in him and his power.

Then, and only then, will we be able to do what Paul says, “stand against the crafty scheming deceits of the devil.” The devil is far more intelligent, creative, genius, and powerful than us.  We can only stand against him by the power of God.

So therefore, Paul writes in verse 13, that when we put on the full armor of God, we “will be able to resist in the day of evil and having done everything, to stand.”

We need God’s power, God’s armor, not ours.  So let’s read Paul’s description of each piece of the armor in Ephesians 6:14-20. 

“Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.”

See the principles, the habits Paul describes as the Armor of God: Truth, Righteousness, Readiness, Peace, Faith, Salvation, the Word of God, and Prayer.  These are not just ideas, but practices that we will learn.  Practices that help us stand firm in the strength of God, so that we need not fear.  We stand in victory with God.  He is with us.  He is for us. We are deeply loved by Him. 

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