Armed for the Devil

¹⁰ Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. ¹¹ Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. ¹² For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 

Passage

Ephesians 6:10-24 - ‘Put on the Whole Armour of God.'

Conditions

No major problems but we did have some distractedness and perhaps tiredness from the day. I am not very good at noticing the mood in the group and adjusting on the fly if adjusting means scaling down. It would be good to acquire a little more latitude for these moments.

Time

Plenty of time today. Which doesn't mean do as much as you can, I have found. It means do what you should do unhurried.

Teaching

The passage was not strange to us, but I sought to have us recognise the similarity between the armour and the blessings (ch. 1). We recalled the first chapter, where we discussed sufficiency. "Do we have everything we need for salvation?" "Is there anything we still need to acquire?" God has comprehensively blessed us. He's given us everything. Predestination, adoption, redemption, forgiveness, inhertitance, the Spirit. It's all there, and all by grace.

This is ripe for illustrations, which would be excellent for the children, but my imagination has been a little dead lately. I still remember opening toys that didn't have any batteries in them. I think this has largely been rectified in the modern world. 'What if you arrived on the first day of school next year with everything you needed... except your lunch box!' 'What if our new house had everything we needed... except a front door!'

The comparison is that God has comprehensively blessed us in salvation and He has comprehensively armed us to stand against the Devil. He has not left us without anything needful in these things.

As we read each new piece of armour we recited the list, counting the pieces. We lingered on the shield of faith, because it occurred to me that this is a remarkable piece of armour that we don't utilise nearly enough. An area of growth for us as a family. The children were quick to guess that the flaming darts of the enemy would be temptations. "Shields up!" as Picard would say.

Reflection

Not the most riveting time in the Bible, which reminded me that the children are very helped by a help - especially in the epistles, which we are new to. For a couple of the passages in Ephesians I have printed or written out something on a piece of paper for them to do, or at least refer to as we go along. For chapter 1 it was a shopping list of the blessings they had to tick as they heard them read - very popular. "Bingo" at the end, naturally. For chapter 4 it was a Christmas list of gifts I wrote as we heard them. He gave the apostles, the prophets, evangelists, etc. This one with some more ideas and arrows for relationships. This means a little prep is needed, but the difference is significant.