Ephesians 6:10-20 (The Armour Of God)

And yet the Lord does not leave us defenceless. On the contrary, He has given us an entire armoury with which we can defend ourselves. We just have to take it up!

“Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.

In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:13-17)

It is ironic, perhaps, that Paul uses the metaphor of the Roman soldier. Paul writes from prison, and quite possibly was chained to a Roman soldier even as he wrote!

Of course Roman soldiers had always been familiar, if not welcome, figures in his Paul’s life. His nation that had been conquered by Roman soldiers, and in his youth, prior to his conversion, Paul (then Saul) was a committed member of that group of nationalistic Jews who were sworn enemies of the occupying forces.

Paul indeed may have fought against Roman soldiers earlier in his life – if not directly, at least through being a part of a larger guerrilla organisation. Why would Paul then, here and elsewhere, hit upon the image of the Roman soldier as a fitting image of Christian discipleship?

It’s not because the Roman soldier was an endearing image for Paul. And it would not have been because he romanticised the life of the Roman legionary, in the way in which we might be tempted to do today. No. There could have been only one reason for choosing the figure of the Roman soldier, and that’s because the Roman legionary, like no one else Paul knew, knew how to fight!

My favourite quote, and a most revealing one, commenting on the style of the Roman soldier, comes from that famous early Jewish writer, Josephus.

"Anyone who will take a look at the organization of their army in general will recognize that they hold their wide-flung empire as the prize of valour, not the gift of fortune. They do not wait for war to begin before handling their arms, nor do they sit idle in peacetime and take action only when the emergency comes - but as if born ready armed they never have a truce from training or wait for war to be declared. Their battle-drills are no different from the real thing; every man works as hard at his daily training as if he was on active service. That is why they stand up so easily to the strain of battle: no indiscipline dislodges them from their regular formation, no panic incapacitates them, no toil wears them out; so victory over men not so trained follows as a matter of course. It would not be far from the truth to call their drills bloodless battles, their battles bloody drills." (Josephus’ Jewish Wars III, 60)

There they are: the Roman army – brutal in their efficiency, highly disciplined in their drills, always ready for action, hard and merciless in battle. And that terrible concluding thought of Josephus’ – that the only difference between the drills and the real thing was that there was a bit more blood in the real thing!