by Fr. Mark Brians
Yesterday I preached on Ephesians 6.10-20, a portion of which is the famous “armor of God” section. And it struck me during the preaching and in conversations afterwards, how helpful and how under-stated is the phrase “the whole armor of God”. The Greek underscores what we might miss in a causal reading: panoplian (“whole armor”) contains the prefix “pan-” from which we get terms such as “pan-slavic” or “pan-African”. it is a prefiix whose presence means that the term it modifies contains the entire breadth of the modified root. Thus, the idea behind having a “pan-slavic congress” in 1848 was to incorporate all Slavic peoples. Likewise, the panoplian to which Paul refers has its origins in Mycenaean armory that sought to totally cover the body with protection (how effective the early panoply was is a matter for historians to debate).
I find it often the case that, when donning gear for cultural combat, many in the church arm only in part: just grabbing, for example, the sword of the spirit, or only the belt of truth, just the shield of faith. We forget, or we were never instructed that, these things work in harmony; that is armor latches of a piece, buckling together; with each piece sustaining the proper incorporation of the other.
I see a lot of my fellow Christians in North America "girt with the belt of truth” and waving the sword of the Spirit madly, but to little avail. Why? Perhaps it is because they and their ministries have not clothed themselves with the breastplate of righteousness. So that, while the words they have spoken may have been born of the spirit and of timely witness, they fall at the hands of the enemy due to issues of righteousness (e.g. having your ministry shut-down because of fraudulent fiscal practices or moral failures is NOT persecution… your sword’s not dull, your whole torso is exposed).
Others perhaps, for another example, are ready-shod with the gospels of peace. And yet, for all their peacefulness, they suffer under the “fiery darts of the enemy” because they have left-off carrying the shield of the apostolic faith, “once for all delivered to the saints”. For all their peace, they cannot offer a salvation to the world they themselves do not take-up and wear.
Let me say, I do not come to throw stones at this or that ministry. I am a part of this western branch of Christendom that’s struggling in the weapons closet. I am a part of the problem —chief among the sinful. But, the call from Ephesians 6 remains: let us not pick and choose from the armor of God as if from a discount rack at an outlet mall. Let us be fully clothed, panoplian-ized, with the strength of the Lord. This begets a self-examination, which is maybe best asked of our friends and comrades-in-arms in the Faith: “Where is my armor lacking? What piece do I most regularly forget to put-on? Where are the missing pieces of the panoply I am called to wear?”