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If you are asked to think of the best known passage in Ephesians, I'm guessing that high on the list would be the 'armour of God' section in Ephesians 6. It's very graphic, isn't it? Paul is telling us that Christians are engaged in a spiritual battle, for which we need God's spiritual equipping. We can imagine the Apostle Paul in prison, guarded by one or two Roman soldiers, using the picture of what is before his eyes to give a symbolic sketch of what we are given by way of protection from our heavenly commander. Paul, of course, is speaking to a world, to churches, who would be extremely familiar with the sight of the occupying military uniform. This was something they would readily relate to - less so for us. So, in our minds, we have to reconstruct that image in order to grasp what the passage is teaching us.
But, increasingly, I am seeing that this was not just a good way for the Apostle to wind up his letter. I think ALL of the letter was intended - is intended - to be a call to arms. ALL of it addresses and informs our spiritual warfare in what Michael Heiser calls 'the unseen realm'.
Not just Ephesus!
Five times in Ephesians, Paul uses the term which gets translated as 'the heavenly places' or the heavenly realms' - literally 'the heavenlies'. No other letter he wrote uses that word. So why would he single out the church at Ephesus to address in this manner? The lesser-known answer is - he probably didn't. Many of the early manuscripts don't have 'to the saints in Ephesus' in ch1 v1. It's left blank. So most scholars think that the letter was an 'encyclical' - a kind of circular that was intended to be sent to not one but many churches. The destination name was left blank to be filled in as appropriate. This conclusion is supported by the observation that many of the specifically personal greetings and mentions of individuals' names, which was Paul's usual style, aren't there in Ephesians. Neither are there any of the terms of familiarity or endearment that he usually included. And the closing benediction is written in the third person, instead of the usual second person.
So we took can read it as written to us - 'my church' in my world. Opening our eyes to the cosmic war in which the church of Christ plays a crucial part. And all the more so as we get ever nearer to the Lord's return.
... But definitely Ephesus !
It helps to know something of the world in which these early believers were living. Paul had spent three years in that city. Ephesus was the leading city of Asia, situated on a major trade route, a flourishing coastal town at the mouth of the Caster river. It's religious fame included the worship of fifteen pagan gods, and a commitment to the Roman imperial cult, involving two deified Roman Emperor's. Large temples abounded. And the largest of them all was the temple of the goddess Artemis which drew thousands of pilgrims each year to the annual festival in her honour. The temple of Artemis ranked as one of the seven wonders of the world, measuring a staggering 130 by 70 metres and sporting 127 20m high pillars. (If you visit the ruins of Ephesus today, you will see that only one of those proud pillars remains standing).
Paul spent three years in Ephesus' - recorded in Acts 19/20. It was here that he made the critical move to base his ministry in the public arena rather than in synagogues, due to the vehement and stubborn resistance of the Jews.
Magic!
Many of the new converts were formerly deeply involved in the worship of idols and the occult. The change that Christ brought to them resulted in public renunciation of those practices. Acts 19 Vs 17-20 records a massive, expensive bonfire as those who had found faith in Christ rid themselves of the trappings of their former life. This is important for our appreciation of what Paul is addressing. Occult practices were everywhere throughout the Roman Empire. Paul tells us in 1Corinthians that, far from being the ignorant worship of passive inanimate objects, idolatry was in reality commitment and allegiance to powerful demonic beings who oppose the true God.
In our Western world, it is easy to dismiss these ideas as supernatural nonsense. Yet, not more than two centuries ago, spiritualism was rife in Victorian Britain. Table-rapping seances, and attempts to converse with the dead abounded. Occult phenomena were sought after and explored with vigorous interest. The Bible, of course, forbids such things, teaching that they are dangerous and nothing short of rebellion against God. But we should not think, in our arrogance, that we have come far from pagan Ephesus. There are supernatural entities at play in our world today, however much it is in vogue to dismiss such ideas as rubbish. They just wear different masks to be more acceptable.
This Means War!
What Paul is not doing is setting up a scenario where there is a dualistic war going on between God and Satan, or angels and demons, where humans are just pawns being caught in the middle. Or where we sort of lend our weight in special kinds of ministry to the side of the angels, detecting and dealing with 'the demonic' by detecting where they are and what they are doing.
Ephesians is all about how the believer is following Christ. The 'quality' of our spiritual life. It's why the majority, the 'middle' bits are all about how we behave. In effect, Paul is saying that we - and this means you! - are the battleground. What the enemies of God, the 'spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenlies' chiefly want is for the image of God in us to be spoiled. They want to disrupt our walk with Christ.
So Ephesians 6 is not merely a 'nice' way of ending the letter. It is the climax of all that has been written before. The armour of God is how we protect against the devil's devices; how we frame our walk with Jesus. Oh, and you might notice that we are told to 'put on' the whole armour. But we are NOT told to take it off! There is no spiritual 'night stand' where you stow it ready for the next day. The analogy is intended to make us mindful of the various components in order to make us conscious of them. The armour is not an optional extra. Do you ever stop wearing your 'helmet of salvation' for example?
I intend to explore this further. Watch this space!
