The Armor of God as Ethical Practice

An exegetical study on Ephesians 6:10-17

On Sunday mornings and during summer vacation Bible “schools,” I learned about the armor of God through song and hand motions. Other eager children and I “placed” the helmet of salvation upon our heads and held out our hands in a “stop” motion to signify our “shield” of faith. Right down to our jumping “gospel feet,” we decked ourselves out with invisible armor meant to protect us from an adversary we didn’t fully understand at the time.

Since then, and throughout my Christian life, the “armor of God” has been presented as an intriguing metaphor that seemed to speak to the steadfastness and preservation, albeit theoretical, of the individual believer. It was hard for me to concretize exactly how to put it on.

Not long ago, while studying Paul’s emphasis on unity in his letter to the Ephesians, I began to wonder if the full-body image of a Roman soldier in Ephesians 6 was meant to map itself onto Paul’s operating metaphor of the body of Christ, described in chapter 4. If the armored-soldier image was not meant to apply solely to the individual but to the church body, I wondered how the donning of this armor might be concretized in the context of Christian community.

My exploration of Ephesians 6:10-18 will, I believe, demonstrate how the armor of God “works” as a corporate metaphor and is more easily concretized in the context of Christian community, which must stand strong against the enemy’s schemes to divide it.

Socio-historical Background
Although there is some scholarly dispute, this paper will presume (according to church tradition) that Ephesians was authored by Paul around 60 AD while in Roman custody. ¹By the end of the second century, it was generally believed to have been written to the church in Ephesus and surrounding provinces.² 

Paul, founder and mentor to the church, was well known by them.³ Before receiving his letter, they would have heard of Paul’s arrest after bringing a Gentile into the temple in Jerusalem (Acts 21:28-29). As in the Jerusalem temple, the mixing of Gentile and Jewish persons was an intense point of conflict in the Ephesian church.⁴ 

Some scholars posit that there was no “specific problem” to compel the writing of the letter. ⁵However, Paul emphasizes to such a great extent the unity of believers that I believe he wrote to address divisions (between Jews/Gentiles and between members of the same household), helping them to conceive of their new life together in Christ.  

In the selected passage, Paul relies heavily upon the imagery of a Roman soldier’s armor as he encourages believers to “be strong in the Lord” (Eph 6:10).⁶ Scholars have likened Paul’s exhortation to the rousing speeches of Roman commanders readying their troops for battle.⁷ In this case, the believers are to “stand” their ground against the unseen enemy. Roman soldiers wore armor only on the front of their bodies, making it necessary that they fight and defend themselves while front-facing their opposition.⁸ The cohesion of the “fully professional, long-service” Roman army, sophisticated in flesh-and-blood warfare, is the metaphor Paul employs and subverts in order to depict the strength found in Christian unity as believers stand together against the attacks of the enemy. ⁹

Want to keep reading? Click here for the full paper.

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Thanks for reading. I’m a book-obsessed pastor, seminarian, podcaster, and author. For essays and podcasts that come straight to your inbox, subscribe to this Dear Exiles newsletter in the subscription box above. Fun fact: I’m also the author of Dear Boy:, An Epistolary Memoir and the host of the Your Pastor Reads Books podcast.

1. Craig S. Keener and John H. Walton, eds., NRSV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible: Bringing to Life the Ancient World of Scripture, (Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA: Zondervan, 2019), 2074.

2. Victor Paul Furnish, “Ephesians, Epistle to the,” ed. David Noel Freedman, The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 535.

3. Yusufu Turaki, “Ephesians,” in Africa Bible Commentary, ed. Tokunboh Adeyemo (Nairobi, Kenya: WordAlive, 2006), 1425.

4. Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), Ephesians, Logos Bible Software.

5. Francis Foulkes, Ephesians: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 10, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1989), 19–20.

6. Keener and Walton, NRSV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, 2085.

7. Keener and Walton, NRSV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, 2085.

8. Keener and Walton, NRSV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, 2086.

9. David Kennedy, “Roman Army,” ed. David Noel Freedman, The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 790.