Mention the word “armor” and most people conjure up images of medieval knights in shiny metal suits jousting in a tournament. Mention it to a soldier serving “downrange” in a modern battle space, however, and you’ll get a very different image.
For thousands of years military planners and engineers have tried to come up with a solution to protect soldiers from injury and death through the use of body armor. From those clunky knights to the steel vests designed for (and quickly abandoned by) soldiers in the American Civil War to the iconic “flak jacket” of the Vietnam era, soldiers have contended with the uncomfortable and, often, ineffective weight and bulk of armor that only adds to the misery of war.
Take the he current ballistic vest worn by soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, for example. It weighs about 20 pounds and consists of layers of tightly woven ballistic fibers like Kevlar, which dissipates the impact of many conventional bullets and bomb fragments but not all of them. Armor-piercing bullets, for example, will easily punch through standard issue body armor as will puncture weapons like knives because they are harder, thinner, and more able to separate the weave of the ballistic fibers than conventional ball ammunition. But perhaps the greatest limitation of the current issue body armor is that it only covers the torso, leaving vital arteries in the arms and legs exposed to potentially lethal wounds. While number of battlefield deaths has been somewhat mitigated by the use of body armor, the large number of soldiers coming home with debilitating and life-threatening wounds is still unacceptable to both military commanders and the public.
The search for a better solution for protecting soldiers and law enforcement officers led researchers at the University of Delaware and the Army Research Laboratory to begin work on a new kind of body armor that would be strong enough to blunt the impact of nearly all hostile projectiles and flexible enough to cover the whole body. They based their idea on fluid rather than fiber, developing something called “shear thickening fluid” — a mixture of polyethylene glycol imbued with bits of purified silica. When a projectile impacts a certain point on this “liquid armor,” that section stiffens within milliseconds to absorb the impact and then just as quickly returns to its liquid state after the impact dissipates. Here’s a short video demonstrating how it works:
Because there are no fibers to separate it is also highly effective against puncture wounds, making it a godsend to corrections officers who must deal with the daily threat of improvised stabbing weapons. The flexibility of a liquid rather than a heavy fiber-based material means that this armor can be worn like a wet suit over the whole body, including the arms and legs. For the first time in history, soldiers and police will be able to truly “put on the whole armor” in every sense of the word.
The Roman soldiers who patrolled the world in the first century could only have dreamed of such protection. They were heavily armored for their time, but their standard issue kit of metal and leather-based body armor was inflexible, heavy, and mostly covered their front, making retreat dangerous (about which Roman commanders no doubt reminded them often) and long marches torturous. Still, it was state-of-the-art technology at the time and the sight of a Roman infantryman in full battle dress was an indelible and imposing image in the ancient world.
But while a Roman soldier’s individual armor and weaponry of
sword and spear might protect him in a one-on-one fight, it was designed to be
most effective when employed in the context of the whole legion. The Celtic and
Germanic tribes who faced the Romans on the frontier would have been awed at
the sight of a nearly impenetrable phalanx or wall of shields bristling with
spears facing them across the battlefield. If the Romans maintained that
formation, they were nearly impossible to defeat, but if the ranks could be
broken and the legion separated the fight would be more even as the
vulnerability of individual soldiers would be exposed. For Roman soldiers,
“putting on the whole armor” meant more than just strapping on his own kit — it
meant being part of a unit and counting on the comrades on his right and left.
When Paul was searching for an apt metaphor to convey preparation and protection for a kind of spiritual warfare, it’s little wonder that he dialed to this image of “the whole armor.” The Greek word for this armor is “panoply” from “pan” (all) and “hopla” (referring to the Greek “hoplite” warriors, who perfected the use of armor in a phalanx). The Roman “panoply” consisted of all the items listed in this passage, most of which were worn only on campaign and not every day. When a Roman legionnaire buckled on his armor it meant the enemy was close at hand.
For Paul, the enemy was not one of “blood and flesh” like so many of Rome’s enemies, but rather the “cosmic powers” and “spiritual forces” of evil that the context suggests are somehow commanded or are at least minions of “the devil” (Ephesians 6:11-12). The omission of the Roman javelin, an offensive weapon, from Paul’s list of armaments and his repeated exhortation to “stand” suggests the image of phalanx deployed in defensive posture to receive an assault, rather than massing for an attack. Having given instructions to the Ephesians on some practical aspects of living, reminding them that they were “members of one another” in community (4:25), Paul now encouraged them to withstand the piercing attack of sin and temptation that threatened to separate and destroy them all individually.
Giving functional names to each of the pieces of the panoply gives us a clue of the kind of assault Paul expected to come crashing into the ranks of these new Christian recruits. He begins with the “belt of truth” (6:14) that enables the community to “put away falsehood” and that leaves no “room for the devil” (4:25-26). Rumors and gossip can easily divide a church, thus Paul begins by promoting protection of the community’s soft underbelly. The “breastplate of righteousness” (v. 14) and the “helmet of salvation” (v. 17), which are echoes of similar images in Isaiah 59:17, remind the community that their eternal safety is bound up in God’s mighty act of grace in Christ, the knowledge of which protects the heart and enables the believer to think and do the right things. The Roman “caliga” or half boot, standard military footwear, enabled not only solid footing on the battlefield, but also enabled the legions to move quickly over Roman roads so that they could keep the peace. Paul’s image of feet made “ready to proclaim the gospel of peace” indicates that the community of faith, too, must be able to move quickly and broadly in order to deliver the good news of Christ. The more we are moving about and sharing Christ, the less that idleness and doubt can creep into the community. Sometimes the best defense is a good offense and vice versa!
The “shield of faith” is critical to the Christian individual and community, just as it was to the Roman legions. One of the standard battle tactics of the ancient world was to fire flaming arrows into the ranks of the enemy, a move designed to get individual soldiers to drop their shields long enough to put out the fire and thus exposing them to attack. Some sources suggest that Roman shields were made of heavy wood with a leather covering that could be soaked in water before battle to extinguish these flaming projectiles. Paul’s image of faith being such a shield conveys again the idea of cohesion between members of the community in the face of spiritual attack. Some scholars have also suggested that the “flaming arrows” have a more specific meaning here. The Greek god of love, Eros, and his Roman counterpart Cupid were believed to engage their human victims with the flaming arrows of passion, thus Paul might be suggesting here that the community guard especially against lust and adulterous behavior. Nearly every Christian community knows of people who dropped their guard when assaulted by passions and weakened the whole body.
And, lastly, the image of Scripture as a “sword” (v. 17) is a familiar New Testament metaphor (see also Hebrews 4:12). The Roman “gladius” was 20-24 inches long and used for close-in fighting once the javelin had been deployed. Once the battle was joined, a soldier had to know how to best use this weapon to good effect. The same is true when it comes to an assault by sin and temptation. Scripture and the revelation of God’s Spirit within its words and within our own spirits are vital weapons of defense.
The
martial metaphors here are very familiar and thus it is easy to trivialize them
or think of them as historically interesting but not necessarily relevant to
today’s Christian community. After all, we’re more individually focused than
our spiritual ancestors and we hold up the image of the individual warrior like
Rambo or Schwarzenegger as the ideal rather than focus on the unit. Even the
U.S. Army adopted the slogan “An Army of One” awhile back. These snake-eating,
machine gun-toting commandos don’t need no stinking body armor, thank you very
much, just the smell of napalm in the morning and superior firepower to fuel
their quest for victory.
But any real soldier will tell you that he or she is only as good as the rest of their unit. Whether the armor is liquid, Kevlar, or old-fashioned leather and iron, an individual is never more effective on the battlefield than a cohesive unit. Maybe that’s why “An Army of One” gave way to “Army Strong” as a better slogan!
Throughout this series we’ve been looking at the ways in which Paul describes the coming together of the church as the Body of Christ, whose mission is to go into the world and make disciples, sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. In the first sermon we looked at the amazing gift of grace God has lavished on us. In the second sermon, we saw how that grace brings together people of different communities and backgrounds to form them as one body. Then we looked at the call for those people who have been saved together to “grow up” toward the goal of the Christian life—to maturity, to the full measure and stature of Christ. Last week we saw how that maturity should permeate our relationships—that we practice together the disciplines and rudiments of reflecting Christ to one another in our families, our workplaces, and everywhere we go.
The armor of God, then, is what enables us to take that message of grace to the frontlines of the world, protected by the truth of God’s grace and yielding weapons of mass invitation for others to come and know Christ. Paul knew that if we engage in this mission, the forces of evil will always try to stop us by breaking us apart. The church, however, is to stand together strong, firm in the knowledge of who God has made us in Jesus Christ. Like soldiers, we submit to the discipline of training in maturity and effectiveness. The church is our training ground, but the world is where the battle takes place—a battle that can only be won with love.
So, onward Christian soldiers! May we put on the flexible armor of God and be more mobile in bringing the Gospel to the world!
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