The Vision (8.29.25): Put on the whole armour of God

Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Ephesians 6:10-17.

Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil (Ephesians 6:11).

In Ephesians 6:11-17 the apostle Paul offers one his most expressive, intriguing, and enduring metaphors for the equipment needed by believers for living the Christian life. It requires putting on the whole armour [panoplia] of God.

This is a martial or military image of the Christian life. The Christian life is like a military contest. It involves spiritual warfare. Later theologians will contrast the church on earth as “the church militant,” as over against the church in heaven as “the church at rest.”

There are other places where Paul uses this type of military imagery. He sometimes refers to his ministry colleagues as his “fellowsoldiers.” In Philippians 2:5 he refers to Epaphrodites as “my brother, and companion in labor, and fellowsoldier.” In Philemon 1:2 he refers to Archippus as “our fellowsoldier.” He speaks of Christian service as like that of serving as a soldier in battle. In 1 Timothy 6:12 Paul exhorts Timothy: “Fight the good fight of the faith….” In 2 Timothy 2:3 Paul further exhorted Timothy to “endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.”

In modern times, some Christians became uncomfortable with the martial imagery. Back in the 1980s some mainline Protestant churches even removed the hymn “Onward Christian Soldiers” for fear that its words might be misunderstood. BTW, it is still in our Trinity Hymnal (# 490) under the topic line, “The Christian Warfare.”

Paul, in using this martial imagery, was certainly not advocating violence. It is a metaphor. This is what the spiritual struggle of the Christian life is like. Paul exhorts, “Put on the whole armour of God…” (v. 11) and “Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God…” (v. 13).

The apostle was drawing an analogy from a reality that was familiar to his first readers. All the Ephesians would likely have seen a Roman soldier (the most lethal and feared and capable warrior of the first century) fully decked out with his military kit, allowing him not only to defend himself when attacked but also to go on the offensive.

The Christian is to arm himself spiritually with the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, having feet shod with the gospel of peace, taking the shield of faith, and taking the helmet of salvation (Ephesians 6:14-17a). Finally, he is to take up the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God (v. 17b).

May we thus arm ourselves so that we might stand “in the evil day” (v. 13).

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

Article: "To the saints which are at Ephesus": Retrieving the Classic Christian Consensus on the Intended Audience of Ephesians

 

Article: Jeffrey T. Riddle, "To the saints which are at Ephesus": Retrieving the Classic Christian Consensus on the Intended Audience of Ephesians," in Bible League Quarterly, No. 502 (July-September, 2025), 24-33. Read the article here on academia.edu.

JTR

The Vision (8.22.25): Duties of Servants and Masters

 

Image: Zinnias, North Garden, Virginia, August 2025.

Note: Devotion based on last Sunday's sermon on Ephesians 6:5-9.

Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh…. And, ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there any respect of persons with him (Ephesians 6:5a, 9).

Paul’s “household code” in Ephesians 5:21—6:9 addresses three key relationships: wives and husbands, children and fathers, and servant and masters. That third pair is the thorniest to understand and interpret in our contemporary context. Some, including R. C. Sproul, have suggested we consider Paul’s instructions as applying to employees and employers (see Ephesians, 146-147). We can also apply all of this teaching, in general, as principles in living the Christian life and especially how we relate to one another as “superior, inferiors, or equals.”

Here are three gleanings:

First, we should consider this passage if we are employees. Do we serve with fear and trembling, with singleness of heart, as to Christ? Or, do we serve only with eyeservice as menpleasers, rather than as slaves of Christ, doing his will? Do we serve with good will, to the Lord and not to men, knowing one day we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:10)?

Second, we should consider this passage if we are employers, managers, or supervisors. How do we treat those who work under our authority? Do we treat them as we would like to be treated (Matthew 7:12)? Do we rely on threatening? Do we understand that we have a Master in heaven?

Third, we are reminded that the church is composed of all kinds of people: women and men, young and old, and people with all kinds of societal standings. And the God we worship is not a respecter of persons.

I’ve been reading again recently through D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones’s classic book Preaching & Preachers. In a chapter on the congregation, he addresses the folly of ministers who are always trying to adjust their message to fit their audience. He noted once preaching the simple gospel at a church in Oxford attended by many university related people. Later a woman approached and thanked him for not trying to put on some kind of intellectual show, but just reminding them they were sinners who needed Christ.

Lloyd-Jones says the preacher does not need to know the particulars of his congregation, but to know there is a general, common need. He writes:

[The Christian preacher] knows the problem of the factory worker, he knows the problem of the professional man; because it is ultimately precisely the same. One may get drunk on beer and the other on wine, as it were, but the point is that they both get drunk; one may sin in rags and the other in an evening dress but they both sin. ‘All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.’ ‘There is righteous, no not one.’ ‘The whole world lieth guilty before God’…. The glory of the Church is that she consists of all these types and kinds and all the possibly varieties and variations of humanity; and yet because they all share this common life they are able to participate together and to enjoy the same preaching (Preaching & Preachers, 135).

We might say the gospel is a simple, one size fits all message, and we, as a church, need always to remember this.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

Five Reasons to Use a Full Manuscript in Preaching

 

Note: From ,my X post.

Five quick reasons to use a full manuscript in preaching:

1. It requires and motivates careful preparation and detailed structure.

2. It allows careful articulation of difficult or controversial points.

3. It provides guardrails to avoid unhelpful tangents.

4. It allows freedom, however, for in-the-moment alterations, as needed.

5. It provides a resource for future ministry uses, like teaching, books, booklets, articles, blog posts, podcast scripts, etc.

JTR

The Vision (8.15.25): The Duties of Fathers to Children

 

Image: Cardinal Lobelia, Moscow, Michigan, August 2025.

Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Ephesians 6:1-4:

And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4).

This teaching comes in the context of Paul’s “household code” in Ephesians. He addresses first here the duties of children to parents, based on the fifth commandment (Ephesians 6:1-3; cf. Exodus 20:12)

The corresponding admonition to parents in Ephesians 6:4 is directed specifically to the father. This tells us, as with the charges to wives and husbands (Ephesians 5:22-33), about the special responsibilities of men, according to the order of creation, within the family.

Notice again that these instructions to fathers is what would have surprised the first readers. They assumed the power and authority of the father as the Pater Familias, the head of the household. In the Roman context a father was an absolute power in the home. He literally had the authority of life and death when an infant was born. What the first hearers would have been struck by is the fact that he had duties to his children to treat them in a responsible and loving manner, seeking especially their spiritual good.

Paul begins with a negative command, “ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath” (v. 4a). Some modern versions read, “Do not exasperate your children.” The father does not exercise discipline and rule so as to crush the spirits of his children, or to make them angry due to his cruelty or indifference or unloving spirit towards them.

R. C. Sproul wrote on this passage:

This doesn’t mean that every time a child becomes angry with a parent, it is because the parents have been guilty of unjust provocation. But there is such a thing as a belligerent, insensitive, harsh, and stentorian type of discipline which so frustrates children that they are filled with hostility and resentment towards their parents which then spills over into the rest of their lives (Ephesians, 145).

Paul then offers two positive commands:

First, but bring them up in the nurture (paideia, a term referring to education and discipleship), and second, in the instruction (nouthesia, counsel or exhortation) of the Lord.

The Puritans described the family as like a “little church.” The father acts as a pastor and as a priest in his household. He is concerned for the spiritual well-being of his children above all, just as his duty to his wife was for her sanctification (cf. Ephesians 5:26-27).

How beautiful it is when these two things work together in harmony: When children honor parents in the Lord and when godly fathers, alongside their wives and the mother of their children, raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

Note: In the Practical Application at the close of last Sunday’s sermon on Ephesians 6:1-4, I offered a list of some of the duties of children and parents (fathers) drawn from some teaching from past years. You can review some of this sort of family material previously posted to my blog here:

Five Duties of Children to Parents.

Five Duties of Parents to Children.

The Puritan Thomas Vincent’s list of seven duties for children and parents (1674).

A Summary of D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ book Raising Children God’s Way.

Book Review: Keith Underhill, Planted by the Providence of God: The Story of Trinity Baptist Church, Nairobi

 

You can find a pdf of the written review here on my academia.edu page.

JTR