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Ephesians 6:10-20 10Finally, be strengthened by the Lord and by his vast strength. 11Put on the full armor of

God so that you can stand against the schemes of the devil. 12For our struggle is not

against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the

cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil, spiritual forces in the heavens. 13For this

reason take up the full armor of God, so that you may be able to resist in the evil day,

and having prepared everything, to take your stand. 14Stand, therefore, with truth like a

belt around your waist, righteousness like armor on your chest, 15and your feet sandaled

with readiness for the gospel of peace. 16In every situation take up the shield of

faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17Take the

helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit—which is the word of God. 18Pray at all

times in the Spirit with every prayer and request, and stay alert with all perseverance and

intercession for all the saints. 19Pray also for me, that the message may be given to me

when I open my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel. 20For

this I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I might be bold enough to speak about it as

I should.

EXPLAIN

Leaders: Feel free to use any of the “Explain” materials to guide discussion as it is needed or to expound on a certain area of the text as it comes up during your Life Group time, but the purpose of this section is to deepen your own personal understanding of the Word. Your members have access to all of this material as well.

From within the walls of a prison, Paul implores the church to take up the armor of God so that they can withstand the attacks of the enemy and make the Gospel known with boldness.

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v. 10 When Paul writes, “finally," he uses it to speak in light of everything he has said so far. So when his audience got to this section, they’d already been refreshed on:

The magnitude of things God has done for us, Our standing as children of God, God’s plan throughout the ages that we’ve been made a part of, The kind of maturity and growth God gives us, The conduct God calls every believer to emulate, Our filling and walk with the Spirit.

Only after this did Paul introduce the section at hand: We have a battle to fight. He introduces it by drawing on 1 Samuel 30:6, where David “found strength in the Lord his God” before defeating the Amalekites in battle. Our strength cannot come from within ourselves or from something that we inherently have. It must come from the Lord.

v.11 We do not get to pick and choose the articles of the Armor of God that we wear. Instead, Paul instructs us to “put on the full armor,” which he is about to expound on. Regarding the enemy we face, Paul calls him one who “schemes." A.B. Simpson wrote of this, “The tactics of intimidation and insinuation alternate in Satan’s plan of campaign. He plays both the bully and the beguiler. Force and fraud form his chief offensive against the camp of the saints.”

v.12 A believer does not have to enter a spiritual battlefield; the battle already exists, and every believer is plunged into it already. What’s interesting about this fight is that it doesn’t look the way we think it does. Paul points out that our fight is “not against flesh and blood.” Still, many Christians behave as though it is. Some have tried to say the nature of “principalities" and "powers" are, like Markus Barth wrote, “the world of axioms and principles of politics and religion, of economics and society, of morals and biology, of history and culture,” but this contradicts what Paul says about the battle not being one of flesh and blood. David Guzik clarifies: “At the end of the day it is completely irrelevant if the particular opponent we face is a principality, a power, or a ruler of the darkness of this age. Collectively, they are all members of spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. They are all part of a spiritual army that is organized and established into ranks and is under the headship of Satan who comes against us.”

vv.14-19 The armor listed here has been talked about for centuries, as it is one of the most apt analogies for how spiritual disciplines apply directly to our lives. Note that this section is divided up into two parts: the armor to have (vv.14-15), and the armor to actively take up (vv.16-18). The whole of the Armor of God is necessary—we don't just get to pick and choose the articles that we put on; rather, Paul gives specific instructions to “pray at all times" and "stay alert with all perseverance and intercession for all the saints.”

APPLY Your Leader Guide will have material that the participant guides do not have. The bolded material is what the people in your group will have, the other material is only for you to help guide discussion.

This guide can be as strict a script or as general a resource as the leader needs it to be.

Read Ephesians 6:10-20 out loud as a group and answer some questions about it:

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1. As you read through this passage, what is something that stuck out to you that you might not have noticed before?

How does the setting Paul is writing from (3:1; 4:1; 6:20) make what he is saying easier to receive?

Paul wrote this letter from prison. If anyone had a right to be angry at the humans responsible for putting him in his situation, it was probably Paul. But instead, he urged his audience to recognize that the fight he was in wasn't against his jailers or the people persecuting him; it was a spiritual battle. Paul was not offering pithy armchair encouragement from the comfort of his home, he was doing it from the front lines of a battle. That would have surely gotten the church's attention.

2. Paul urged the church to rely on God's strength. What is the difference between relying on your own strength and relying on God’s strength? How have you done each before? What does God give you strength for?

God gives us strength to do the things He called us to do: be His witnesses, take His Gospel to the nations, and make disciples as we go. In this mission, we see others not as enemies, but as image-bearers of God who need to know about what He has done for them.

Seeing our oppressors in this light is not something we can do on our own strength. Our own strength wants to retaliate when we’re hurt. Our flesh wants to preserve and pleasure itself at all costs. But God strengthens us to press on toward what He commanded even when it doesn't make sense to our flesh.

3. Verse 12 tells us that our struggle is not against flesh and blood. Does the view that we are engaged in spiritual warfare ring true to you? Why or why not? How do you see the war Paul is talking about playing out in our lives today?

Think about what Paul was experiencing as he wrote those words. He was imprisoned on what is likely a trumped-up charge, mistreated at the hands of a system that hated him for what he believed, and was probably cold, hungry, and tired. Still, he had the perspective that what he was enduring was not an issue of flesh and blood, but of something bigger than that. Once you have been born into God’s Kingdom, your perspective is elevated, and you begin viewing what seems immediate and transitory with an eternal lens.

4. Why do you think Paul compares a warrior’s belt to Truth? How do we know what Truth is? Why do you think that Paul mentioned truth as the first piece of God’ Armor?

When Jesus was asked point-blank why He was here, He did not say, “to save humanity from their sins” or “to provide a way to get to heaven;” He said, “I was born for this, and I have come into the world for this: to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice” (John 18:37). Psalm 119:160 says, “The entirety (or sum) of your word is truth.” We know truth by knowing the one who calls Himself Truth.

The belt is the part of the wardrobe that holds up the rest of it. Without a firm foundation in Jesus as truth, the rest of the armor falls apart. We can know the Truth by dwelling in Him, by studying His Word, and by dying to ourselves daily to put Him on.

5. Read Ephesians 4:29-5:12. Why is it important for a believer to walk righteously, without impurity? How does walking righteously act as protection? Where have you seen what happens when believers do not practice righteousness?

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One of the first things anyone looks for in order to discredit someone’s message is proof of their own impurity. Look around us at the number of Christian leaders whose ministries are suffering because of personal failings and misconduct. By striving every day for uprightness, we don’t give the enemy a foothold to dig into in order to tear us down. Paul said that righteousness is a breastplate, because the breastplate protects the heart. Jesus had plenty to say about protecting the heart, saying that the "pure in heart….will see God” (Matthew 5:8).

6. In your own words, what is faith? How does Hebrews 11:1-3 (and further, if you want to keep reading) help us understand what

faith is? How does it “extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one?”

Hebrews 11:1 goes as far as to call faith, in itself, evidence of what you cannot see. In the rest of that chapter, the author pairs every mention of faith with an action. Having faith can maybe be more accurately stated “acting faithfully.” As you act on your faith, it will grow, and the obstacles the enemy throws at you will become increasingly useless. For this reason, Paul compares faith to a shield—because it renders the attacks of the enemy obsolete.

7. Paul’s final request was for prayer that he would remain bold to make known “the mystery of the gospel.”

Is this the same mission you as a believer have? Why or why not? Why do you think Paul called it the “mystery of the gospel”? How can you make the “mystery of the gospel” known to the people in your life?

RESPOND Consider the following and respond either publicly or privately, depending on the dynamic of your group.

Reflect on today’s passage, and take inventory of your own spiritual armor. Where are the chinks in your armor? What do you need to do to strengthen your armor?

Encourage one another through email, text messages, or coffee dates throughout the week to build up