On Guard Cristiano

http://inourele ments.com/1-daily -passages/on-guar d On Guard Friday, March 25th, 2011 Fellow Passengers: This week’s Pastoral Passage* ( Ephesians 6:11-17) transports me to the local spiritual guard armory where we get suited up and armed for battle, with our theme song ringing in our ears, onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war . In our war-torn world, it can be more than a bit dangerous to employ such fighting words and militaristic imagery in our quest to cooperate with God in bringing about the peaceable kingdom. “Peace through [violent] strength” has been used to justify all sorts of atrocities and arms build-ups, with noble ends justifying all manner of ignoble means. Too many times we forget a central point of Paul’s message here:our struggle is not against flesh and blood . Our war is not against other people, no matter how much world leaders try to demonize their country’s enemies. Our war is against spiritual forces. It follows that all of us flesh and blood types, across all dividing lines of nation and ideology and creed and color, share a common enemy. The uncomfortable reality that any of us are prone at any given time to collaborate with the principalities and rulers of the air does not make us enemies of each other. We are all threatened and victimized by the same powers of the dark underworld. To be human is to be on the same side. So why use flesh and blood imagery from the Pentagons of this world to describe our battle? Why talk about breastplates and boots and body armor, shields and swords and salvation helmets? I believe Paul found this imagery useful for a simple reason: we can learn a lot and translate a lot of learning from the flesh and blood soldiers who do suit up for real life battle against other humans. When life is on the line, soldiers take their gear seriously. Weapons are cleaned

On Guard Cristiano

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