JEAN'S BIBLE STUDY COM

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1-4 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER (which is the first commandment with a promise ), 3 SO THAT IT MAY BE WELL WITH YOU, AND THAT YOU MAY LIVE LONG ON THE EARTH. 4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Eph 6,1-9 

(87k) Thy kingdom come >> Obedience >> Obey authorities

(95j) Thy kingdom come >> Attitude >> Obedient attitude >> Positive attitude about authority

(3l) Parenting (Key verse)

(73i) Authority >> Respect authority in the family >> Respect your mother and Father – The phrase “in the Lord” means that Paul is not commanding children to intrinsically obey their parents, but as they guide their children in the ways of the Lord. Conversely, in the ways their parents do not guide them appropriately, their children are not required to obey them, though they are still required to respect them. What if someone’s parents use their children to rob stores, should their children obey them? No, of course not, though one of the commandments say to honor their father and mother, which carries a promise, that life may go well for them and that they may live long on the earth. That phrase still applies, “Honor your father and mother [in the Lord].” If parents are wicked, children should respect them as the people who gave birth to them and changed their diapers, but to honor them only to the degree that they advocate the biblical principles of Scripture. Paul assumes that parents want what is best for their children, which is true in most cases, but not in all. To honor that which is good is obviously how things will go well with us and live long, but if we honor that which is evil, things will not go well with us, and it is the recipe for dying young. So in the process of honoring that which is good, we should honor also our parents, who are assumed good people and want the best for us.

Eph 6,1-3

(3o) Responsibility >> Children are accountable to their parents – The assumption of parents is that they are respectable, and that they love their children and know what is best for them, which in the days of the old covenant were understood through the Law of Moses. For children to respect unrespectable parents would only lead them to become like them. According to the Law of Moses the promise of the Ten Commandments is that if we obey them we will be blessed, and we could summarize that blessing in one promise to children, that we should be prosperous and live long on the earth. This carries with it a set of prerequisites, such as respect and trust, and that we should live righteous lives and become like our parents. By these things we will have the skills to develop a network of relationships all around us within the community and within the Church, who can assist us in need, where we can also learn of others in need of assistance as we interweave our lives together. This is the basis of learning throughout our lives.

(206d) Salvation >> God makes promises on His terms >> Conditions to promises >> Conditions to receiving in the natural >> Conditions to participating in the natural realm

Eph 6-1

(89a) Thy kingdom come >> Fear of God is the beginning of wisdom >> Being sensible is always appropriate – One of the perks of being a child is relying on their parents for almost everything. Before they are teenagers, younger children must endure many commands, yet they don’t mind so much since they don’t know what to do and they want to be led. The upside of being younger is they can just sit back and let their parents wrangle out the details of life for them and their family. At the age of two they are just developing mindsets for obedience, and when they become teenagers, they want to abandon those mindsets and put into question their parents’ sensibility and wisdom and begin to explore the world on their own. This is normal though scary for both parent and child. Parenting teenagers is like walking a tightrope. If we lean one way, and become too authoritarian, they will ignore us, but if we lean the other way and become too permissive, they might make wrong choices and find trouble that we could have spared them. Parenting must start with the child when they are very young, “Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22-6). When they become teenagers, they will have a solid platform on which they can stand and draw from their lessons and experiences to discern right from wrong, and what is sensible and appropriate, drawing from a base we previously established in their younger years. Being a good parent, then, is having wisdom to know when to give teenagers room to make their own decisions and when to step in and officiate. Barking orders about everything is a losing proposition that entices teenagers to turn off their parents and do what they want. If we instead show trust in our teenagers and step in only when needed, they will be more inclined to listen to us and respect our opinions.

Eph 6-2,3

(90h) Thy kingdom come >> Keeping the law >> Righteousness of the law >> We must keep the law because it is righteous

(151f) Witness >> Validity of the Father >> New Testament bears witness of the Old >> The law

Eph 6-4

(3n) Responsibility >> Parenting >> How to discipline your children – Teenagers especially have a rebellious side. To provoke them to rebellion is not a good parenting strategy, but that doesn’t mean you can’t discipline them or instruct them in the ways of the Lord. Discipline children without provoking them to anger by starting from the very beginning of their lives, showing that everything you tell them has a good reason and is always meant for their benefit. Your consistency in this will never give them reason to doubt your motives and good judgment. Never discipline your child or instruct them for selfish purposes or to make your life easier, but always to make their lives better.

(4m) Responsibility >> Advocate God’s cause >> Disciples are chastened by the Lord

(24l) Sin >> Poverty (Forms of fear) >> Unrighteous anger

(80j) Thy kingdom come >> Know the word to minister to people >> To edify one another

(176j) Works of the devil >> The religion of witchcraft >> False doctrine >> Extremes >> Truth is never found in your conduct on either extreme of any circumstance

(239g) Kingdom of God >> Pursuing the kingdom >> Pursuing the knowledge of the kingdom >> Teachers are construction workers >> God raises up teachers to raise up the body

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5&6 Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart, as to Christ; 6 not by way of eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. 

Eph 6,5-8

(13i) Servant >> Support the body >> Servant in the work force – We are to work at our jobs for our employers as though we were working for Christ Himself, as though He were our boss, because indirectly He is our boss. It says that whatever good thing we do at work, we will receive our reward from the Lord even if we paid in this life too, but don’t depend on your boss to be as generous as your heavenly employer.

(73g) Authority >> Respect Positions Of Authority >> Respect your boss at work – Serve your boss as though you were working for Christ. Don’t just nod at him and say you will do what he asks and then don’t do it. If your boss asks you to do something that is not unreasonable, you should try to please him to the best of your ability. Do everything in your power to make his business succeed, giving him the best of yourself, especially to those who are also brothers in the faith. For him to mention this suggests that it was common back then for fellow Christians to pool their resources and work with each other. He was saying that their fellow Christian employer lives by the principles of love, hence he will be merciful, kind and generous to his employees, who are not to take advantage of them but serve them all the more. God has called us to be loving and gracious, and the world immediately recognizes this as a vulnerability and instinctively exploits that weakness. Therefore, we should not be like the world but serve our employers and fellow Christian brothers with all the more sincerity and vigilance in attempt to make up for some of the abuse they receive from those in the world. We are to be an example of faith to our employers and diligently serve them. Any so-called Christian employee who would take advantage of his fellow Christian employer displays a lack of faith, and a discerning employer who is abused by a so-called Christian brother in the work place ought to know that this person may not be a brother after all. If he is a Christian, he certainly has a lot of growing-up to do. People can talk big about their faith, but in reality it is only as big as we can prove it. Faith can be observed through our character.

(78d) Thy kingdom come >> Sincerity >> Taking God to heart >> Having a genuine heart

(100d) Thy kingdom come >> Diligence >> Diligence in your service to others

(227a) Kingdom of God >> Illustrating the kingdom >> Rewards of heaven >> God rewards us for obeying Him >> God rewards what we do for Him in secret

Eph 6,5-7

(233i) Kingdom of God >> Pursuing the kingdom >> Seeking the glory of God >> Seek His glory without wavering >> Seek His glory through obedience

Eph 6-5,6

(74a) Thy kingdom come >> The heart >> God wants you to bless your brother from the heart

(169i) Works of the devil >> Manifestations of the devil >> Seeking the glory of man >> Loving the approval of men rather than the approval of God >> Coveting the favor of men

(247k) Priorities >> God’s priorities >> The will of God >> We play our part in the will of God >> Doing the will of God

Eph 6-6

(184g) Works of the devil >> The origin of lawlessness >> Abusing the grace of God >> Spending His grace on your pleasures >> Abusing your position – “Eye service” refers to those who look their employer in the eye and nod with the appearance of every intension to dutifully serve, and then places his business in jeopardy the minute the employer turns his back, not having his best interest at heart. Our performance on the job is a depiction of our relationship with the Lord in that we should be serving our employer as though we were serving Christ. Therefore, taking advantage of our employer is like abusing the grace of God, like taking advantage of His kindness and mercy and developing the attitude that we have a license to sin (licentiousness), because God has promised to forgive us. To the degree that we have this attitude at the workplace and elsewhere is the degree that we abuse the grace of God.

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7-9 With good will render service, as to the Lord, and not to men, 8 knowing that whatever good thing each one does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether slave or free. 9 And masters, do the same things to them, and give up threatening, knowing that both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no partiality with Him.

Eph 6,7-9

(131g) Thy kingdom come >> Manifestations of faith >> Unity >> Interdependence >> Serving one another

Eph 6-7,8

(127e) Thy kingdom come >> Manifestations of faith >> Goodness >> Rewards for doing good >> Sow the seeds of goodness >> goodness yields a harvest of righteousness -- These verses go with verse 14

(218d) Sovereignty >> God overrides the will of man >> God’s will over man >> Reaping the harvest >> We choose our actions, not their consequences >> God controls the consequences of our actions – Most Christians these days live for this life only; few bank on the rewards of heaven and the rest berate them, seeing no value in them, but if there were no value in heavenly rewards, the Bible wouldn’t have called us to pursue them even as Paul is saying in this verse. God will reward us for our labor, for our positive attitude toward our employers and also for the dedication that we showed them in doing everything we can to enhance his business and make a profit for him. Attitudes like these are what make companies strong. There are rewards in this life for being a conscientious worker, through the cause and effect system that is at play, for whatever a man sows, this he shall also reap (Gal 6-7,8), and this also goes for the judgment of God in the afterlife, and God is in control of both of these. Positive circumstances come to reward us for the good we have done, and He will also repay us at the resurrection of the righteous. There are many times when we do the right thing to no benefit in this life, but in the life to come we will see that God has been keeping tabs on us the whole time. If we are Christians, He forgives the bad, considering them mistakes, and rewards us for the good we did intentionally for His namesake. When we are willing to wait and are patient to accept God’s blessing in the next life, it will be infinitely multiplied as an eternal reward for patterning our lives after Him, far greater than any reward we could receive in this life. The longer we must wait, the greater the reward. He rewards us more for waiting than the good we have done in His name. Waiting is a matter of pure faith, whereas our works could have any motive behind it.

(235i) Kingdom of God >> Pursuing the kingdom >> Invest in the kingdom >> Giving (your inner self) >> Give for goodness sake

Eph 6-7 

(75c) Thy kingdom come >> Motives of the heart >> Being motivated to do the will of God

Eph 6-9

(51h) Judgment >> Judging the Church with the world >> No partiality among us with God – Paul started this conversation saying that we should serve “with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of our hearts, as to Christ” (v5). Employees should treat their employers with fear and trembling, and employers should do the same, knowing the Master of them both is in heaven. He shows no partiality with anyone, because to Him we are all nobodies to His grandeur, though He has made us to be His children and beloved. It is only by Him that we are somebody. If we consider ourselves special, we are alone in it; and if we think God should consider us special too, He doesn’t think anyone is more special than another. In the life to come, when everybody finds their place, when the righteous are reward with eternal life and the wicked are cast into outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth, then He will consider His people special in relation to unbelievers who refused to serve Him, but among His people, He does not consider one more special than the other, simply because the greatest are least and the least are greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. If someone is greater, it is only because He is least of all. It is impossible for God to show partiality to anybody under those terms. We are both great and small at the same time in the eyes of God.

(75j) Thy kingdom come >> Motives >> Being manipulative >> Controlling people by abusing authority

(88g) Thy kingdom come >> Fear the judgment of God is the beginning of wisdom >> Fear the consequences of your disobedience – Bosses, supervisors and foremen, owners of businesses, give up threatening. If you are a Christian owner of a business and you have people working under you, praise them for their excellent service and reward them for being good employees. Paul by the word of the Lord commands you to treat your help utmost respect instead of breathing threats of consequences. Model your use of authority after Christ, who saw it as an opportunity to bless those in his care. 

(135n) Temple >> Your spirit is the temple of God >> The body of Christ >> Similarity in the body >> The things we have in common >> Common Lord

10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.

(8m) Responsibility >> Responsible to defend God’s cause >> Laying the foundation of freedom – God speaks to His people one person at a time, and each thing He says is the truth. God’s will is that each person hears a similar message in his spirit, so when we come together and share our ideas, we discover everyone thinking along the same lines. This builds confidence in each person’s ability to hear what the Spirit is saying so we don’t feel alone in what we believe. It also builds confidence in the direction of our lives being on track with God’s plan. This is how God leads His people, and it is how He discloses His truth. 

(28j) Gift of God >> God is our advocate >> God protects us from the devil – In the story of David and Goliath (1Samuel 17,38-53), he put on the king’s armor and it was so heavy that he couldn’t move let alone fight, so he took it all off and faced the giant his way, clothed in the protection of God. He fought the good fight in the way that he knew, and that was with a sling and a few carefully selected stones from the creek bed. He spent the day alone with God next to the flowing stream and talked to Him about defeating the Philistines, and this is how he prepared for battle. When he came to Goliath, fresh on his mind was his beautiful relationship with God. Half the mistake the giant made was underestimating a vulnerable young boy with a sling, and the other half was messing with the armies of Israel. David slung a stone and buried it in the giant’s forehead, and he fell down dead. David could have approached Goliath with all the armor in tow and the giant would have made sport of him. Satan has no power over us, but if we are unwilling to fight, no amount of armor will help us.

(45j) Spiritual Warfare (Key verse) – The Bible says that we are fighting a spiritual war. If there were nothing at stake, how could it be a war? What is the cause of this war? We are fighting for freedom from fleshly bondage to walk in the Spirit, and we are also fighting to keep the faith (1Tim 1-18,19), and we are fighting for human souls.

(45m) Judgment >> Spiritual warfare >> Subjecting your flesh >> Satan VS the saints >> Demons are subject to the Church through Christ – The battleground of the mind is where spiritual warfare takes place. This is why God commands us to renew our minds in the word of God and prayer, according to Rom 12-1,2. Without renewing our minds we will eventually regress to a secular worldview, though we may still believe the Scriptures. Without renewing our minds in the word of God the things we perceive in our flesh will take precedence over our unattended belief system. Getting ready for spiritual battle against sin involves putting on our headgear, footgear, thorax shield and pelvic guard. Wearing all this stuff doesn’t mean we won’t sin; it is just preparing for battle. After doing everything to stand firm, we must still stand firm in the faith. Many a Christian has sinned fully decked in battle array, like an arrow that finds its place between the armor. The devil can defeat us fully armed if we are not willing to fight these spiritual forces for our right to be Christians in a world of evil.

(46g) Judgment >> Spiritual warfare >> Fall of Satan >> Removing Satan’s obstructions – These are some of the most significant verses in the Bible pertaining to how we should walk with God. Sometimes we get tempted and want to throw in the towel. We all know what it is to backslide as Christians; it is very deflating, since Jesus has delivered us from such bondage. We don’t know why we surrendered so easily and why we so willingly gave up everything that was valuable to us. We humble ourselves before God and confess our sins and let Him forgive and cleanse us from all unrighteousness, and set us back on track, pointing us in the right direction and give us a little push, and off we go again. This is the process of repentance. So how do we rise above our bondage to sin? These verses actually tell us how! He said to take up the full armor of God, and the key to this after we have done everything to stand firm is to "stand firm therefore." This means that preparations before battle do not cause us to stand firm; they only aid us when we make a stand against sin.

(68c) Authority >> Jesus delegates authority to execute judgment >> Against Satan – Spiritual warfare is often construed to mean something other than what the Bible teaches. Our war is not against other people; it is against spiritual forces of wickedness in high places (v12), and the war is against the animal nature of our own willful, fleshly passions and desires. We are in a war against Satan, against the forces of his wickedness that wants to coral our flesh in its sinful passions and desires. Satanic forces attempt to warp our worldview, providing us with secular, humanistic interpretations of our five senses; in short he wants to control our perspective on reality. A good analogy of satanic forces at work in the world is an overcast sky, where the clouds go from horizon to horizon, setting the mood for the day. The sun is still up there, but it doesn’t seem like it. Satan’s objective is to train people’s minds to think like him, because when they do, it will become a deterrent to receiving the gospel of Christ and being saved. Talk to people about Jesus and the excuses that surface to justify their rejection of Christ are all the things they learned from Satan. All their complaints are the ideas they received from the spiritual darkness in this world, not handed to them personally by the devil, but by the world, which is under the Satan's control.

Eph 6,10-17

(7g) Responsibility >> Protecting the gospel >> Defending your territory – Defending our territory goes back to the days of Joshua when they cleared the promise land of its inhabitants, on occasion not destroying the people completely. The people then made an effort to return to their land, requiring Israel to resist and defend their territory. This has become an allegory for the battles we fight in our own lives today against spiritual forces of darkness for the purpose of freedom. The whole point of spiritual warfare is becoming free from sin; Satan would have us enslaved and working for Him, but God has saved us, and now we have a new Master, but Satan does not recognize Jesus Christ as our Master, and neither does the evil desire and temptation that erupts in our flesh. They all want us to go back to the way it was, where we were comfortable living in our addictions. We gain spiritual ground over these evil forces in our lives, while they attempt to reclaim what we have won, and we must stand our ground and resist the temptation to return to our old ways. We remember the battles we fought to achieve the freedom we enjoy in Christ. We never knew we were slaves until we met Jesus. Go to a psychologist and he will try to help us, but he doesn’t address sin, and so how are we supposed to be free through human agency?

(113f) Thy kingdom come >> Faith >> The anointing >> Heaven’s clothes >> Garments of warfare – We put this armor on us and then remember the story of David and Goliath; they put all that armor on David too, but he couldn’t even walk, partly because he was just a boy and the armor was very heavy on him. He shed himself of all these things and fought the giant in the way that he was familiar, that is with a simple sling and a rock. He was very accurate with it and drove the river pebble into the giant’s forehead so that he died. In this word picture we see people heaping their ideas on us about how we ought to fight the devil, these pieces of armor representing sermons we have heard about spiritual warfare, and none of them work, because we need the truth, and the truth for us is the word that God has imparted in our heart, the very last thing mentioned in this list of spiritual weaponry. This is our fiercest weapon against spiritual darkness, the truth that God has personally planted in the garden of our hearts. Truth is our weapon of righteousness that we wield against satanic forces of wickedness and evil. Whatever armor we wear as a supplement to protect ourselves is specific in the way that God has instructed us. Each piece of armor represents God’s specific manner of revealing His truth to protect us from evil.

Eph 6,10-15

(168a) Works of the devil >> Manifestations of the devil >> Do not conform to the world >> Do not let the world’s approval form you to itself – When we come down to the real meaning of Paul’s discourse in Ephesians chapter six, he is not talking about human governments at all, but the hierarchy of satanic authority that is in the world. When we look at it this way, we see the social engineering of people groups and nations to think, believe and act a certain way. Satan would have us automatons, what a difference between he and God on this level. The more people conform to a certain belief system, the more power Satan has over that society, simply because Satan is leading the way into conformity, so that people will invariably agree with the devil and come to terms with his point of view if they don’t commit their lives to Christ. For this reason God has commanded His people to become separate from the world (2Cor 6-17), for we are all going to conform to one or the other, either to the mind of Christ or to the mind of the devil.

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Eph 6,10-13

(194f) Die to self (Process of substitution) >> Turn from sin to God >> Hate evil >> Condemning sin >> Judging evil

Eph 6,10-12

(184b) Works of the devil >> The origin of lawlessness >> Darkness >> Hiding behind your own imagination >> Hiding behind a false authority – What we perceive in our flesh is a lie, but what we see with the eyes of our spirit is the truth. Man’s world is arbitrary; it is a concoction of ideas that change like the seasons. The world may be a certain way now, but in a couple years it will be different. It is not developing or maturing – it is churning like cement in a mixer. Is it real now, or was it real then, or is it becoming real in the future? It is real at every point, but there is no truth in it, hence the difference between truth and reality. This ever shifting reality is man’s truth, but God’s truth never changes and those who believe in Jesus have adopted His reality in place of the world and all its deceptions of the flesh. The less truth changes the more real it is, and for this reason God’s truth is more true than anything man will ever believe in himself, because God never changes. Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the world forces of this darkness.

Eph 6-10

(9i) Responsibility >> Strengthen one another >> Be strong – We are called as saints to be strong in the Lord in the strength of His might, not in the strength of our flesh. We don’t serve God with our flesh, but with His Spirit. We put on the whole armor of God, which paints a picture of a military soldier in God’s army, only we aren’t out to kill anybody; rather, we are saving them. We put on the military garb before we go to battle, the breastplate of righteousness, the helmet of salvation, etc., because there is a spiritual war that has been raging ever since Adam and Eve fell into sin. We are in a war against our own flesh and the world itself, which collectively are in the likeness of Satan. Our flesh is one of our greatest enemies; Paul said it is one of the three: the world, the flesh and the devil (Eph 2-2,3). We have been given a body that actually understands Satan, and we can’t allow our bodies to speak to us, because it will instruct us to do things that are not only counter-productive but would destroy the work of God in us.

(102a) Thy kingdom come >> Ambitious to fulfill God’s calling >> To see God’s will in your life

(116d) Thy kingdom come >> Faith >> Working the grace of God >> Through worship >> Through His authority -- This verse goes with verses 13-20. If God gives us His strength, then why does Paul tell us we still need to be strong? If God has strengthened us, then shouldn’t we already be strong? No, everything God gives us is potential, and we are supposed to take His potential and manifest it in the natural realm; otherwise His grace is of no effect. We have a will to do, and if we choose not to walk in His grace, He will not make us. The only way to test our willingness is to provide an opportunity to opt out of walking in His grace. Our will is critical to God; He values it more than we do. It creates a point of failure, but it is a point of failure that God is willing to risk, because it is also a point of faith. God expects us to walk in faith in order to implement the grace that He gives us, because we are His children. That employs our will, and employing our will is an act of faith, which pleases God. This is how we behave like God, because God consists of faith. By operating in the realm of faith we prove our willingness to serve Him. God gives us His grace for the purpose of walking in it, hence working the grace of God. If we were to become strong just because God strengthened us, there would be no occasion for faith, and that simply is not how God operates. That is, we are supposed to take the potential to be strong that He gives us and become strong in it, like a fledgling bird that knows it is supposed to fly but hasn’t yet learned how. 

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11&12 Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Eph 6-11,12

(158a) Works of the devil >> Excerpts of the greatest verses of this chapter – The King James uses the phrase “high places” instead of the NASBs “heavenly places,” which sounds like the place where God lives. We are not talking about heaven; we are talking about the earth, high places referring to the “prince of the power of the air” (Eph 2-2), high places as in principalities, as in governing positions, meaning our politicians who campaign for our vote, who put on their pretty smiles and comb their hair just right and have their suits and ties pressed and adjusted have learned how to put on a façade to get elected. These are the principalities and powers in high places according to the flesh, and these same positions have a more spiritual office to which the fleshly caricature is subject. This is not to say that our politicians are satanic, though I wouldn’t put it past some of them, or that they even avail themselves to satanic powers; rather, Satan uses them albeit inadvertently. Follow this train of logic: There have been many wars, politicians start wars, Satan loves war, politicians do the will of Satan. The most powerful tool in the hand of Satan is man’s willingness to desecrate his own conscience. It doesn’t matter if our government has ever tried to do the right thing and governed with the people’s best interest in mind, eventually and ultimately it erodes to people serving the government. The cause of this stems from a corroboration of both man’s willingness to do evil and Satan’s ability to govern that evil. In this way he can gain control of society and the governing powers and laws of nations to slowly turn them to a level of evil that is self-destructive that eventually collapses under its own weight of sin. This describes the lifecycle of nations.

(164f) Works of the devil >> Manifestations of the devil >> The world system >> Satan’s system of authority >> He is the prince of the power of the air – Our struggle against Satan and his minions is in high places. These high places refer to governmental authorities, but that is not the most accurate depiction of our enemy. Metaphorically, Satan and the demons inhabit the first heaven, which surrounds the earth, our atmosphere. (The second heaven is the physical universe and the third heaven is God’s holy habitation that exists outside the physical universe.) Paul calls him the prince of the power of the air (Eph 2-2). The earth’s atmosphere works well as a metaphor for Satan’s realm especially in these last days with the radio and television blaring at us with a constant barrage of messages passing through the atmosphere. Satan is ultimately at the helm of these messages. Although mankind claims to be in control, Jesus said that Satan is the ruler of this world. He is the one with the ultimate say-so about world-truth, which itself is an oxymoron. The world doesn’t believe in any one message, but in the conglomeration of all messages that all converge to ultimately take one form as a single perspective of its reality. Seizing on the summation of what it says is the basic gist of how the world changes from day to day, never corresponding with God’s truth, because the devil and his world are opposite of God and His truth. World-truth is elusive like the wind that blows; you can hear the sound of it Jesus said, but you do not know where it is coming from or where it is going. Jesus spoke this about the Holy Spirit, indicating that Satan’s deceptions and God’s truth have one thing in common – they are both spiritual, hence they both use the atmosphere surrounding the earth as a metaphor to describe their truth.

Eph 6-11

(44f) Judgment >> Satan destroyed >> Transformed >> Completing the will of God

(183g) Works of the devil >> The origin of lawlessness >> Spirit of Error (Anti-Christ / Anti-Semitism) >> Spirit of the broad road >> Spirit of the world

Eph 6-12

(19a) Sin >> Twisted thinking >> Evil is good >> Loving darkness – the Church over the last few decades has attempted to reach the world by conforming to it, but the more the Church integrates into the world, the less influence the Holy Spirit has on His people. There is no amalgamation of ideas between the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of God, for then it is no longer God’s point of view. The result of this deadly concoction is just another version of Satan’s delusions. Conversely, the more the Church separates from the world, the more influence God has on His people, and ironically the more influence the Church has on the world with the gospel of Christ. Since the people of God have attempted to doctrinally and theologically integrate into the world these past few decades, structural problems have plagued the Church along with spiritual problems from sin. People must venture into the world to their jobs to make a living; they can’t really be like the Amish, or could they? That is how the early church lived! They constructed their own society and were patrons of one another’s goods and services; they were committed to each other, and established an economy among themselves, though they held jobs among the unbelievers just like the Amish today. In contrast, the Church nowadays is completely dependent on the world for its sustenance, because it is not united, and it is not united because Christians have shut their ears to the voice of the Holy Spirit; they are not conforming to His truth, but instead have embraced the deceptions of the world.

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13&14 Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. 14 Stand firm therefore, HAVING GIRDED YOUR LOINS WITH TRUTH, and HAVING PUT ON THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, 

Eph 6,13-20

(5b) Responsibility >> Advocate God’s cause >> Disciples are soldiers in God’s army

(116d) Thy kingdom come >> Faith >> Working the grace of God >> Through worship >> Through His authority -- These verses go with verse 10

Eph 6-13,14

(86g) Thy kingdom come >> Obedience >> Be doers of the word >> Clothe yourself with the word of God >> Practice the truth – Jesus said, "You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free" (Jn 8-32). It is interesting that we gird our loins with truth; the average person would have guessed that truth belongs with the helmet, but that is where salvation goes. The genitals are the location of Satan’s deceptions, yet Paul also says that money is the root of all evil, so sex and money go hand-in-hand to deceive the world into rejecting Christ and getting lost in the darkness of sin. Some within the Church persecute the knowledge of salvation, complaining that knowledge narrows the road that leads to life and this restricts unbelievers from heaven. Yet, salvation actually comes through knowledge, as Rom 10-9 says, “If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” How do we know what to confess or believe without the knowledge of the Bible? We apply this knowledge of the truth to the body parts that are deception prone, such as our groin area; for this reason truth belongs wrapped around our pelvis, since it contains the body parts that are most proficient at deceiving us, for nothing else lies to us like our sex organs. When we launch a campaign of dying to self, our sexual desires are quite possibly the most difficult to subject to the authority of Christ. When our loins tell us, ‘You should seek a sexual encounter with that young woman over there,’ we should reply, ‘On the contrary it is written, “Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge”’ (Heb 13-4).

(139k) Temple >> Temple made without hands >> Hiding place >> Abiding in Jesus

(192j) Die to self (Process of substitution) >> Turn from sin to God >> Repent >> Stop practicing sin >> Stop sinning – Paul is saying that there are many available tools and weapons that we can use to counteract sin, but in the end we just have to grit our teeth and endure our temptations through God’s help. We must forcibly push ourselves from the table of sin and evil desire. We take precautions to develop an anointing and renew our minds in the word of God and prayer, and we put on the armor of God and walk in the Spirit, yet in the end we still must force our flesh under subjection to the will of God.

Eph 6,14-17

(80c) Thy kingdom come >> Know the word in spiritual warfare >> To fight in the Spirit

Eph 6-14,15

(93c) Thy kingdom come >> The narrow way >> You will find your ministry along the narrow way

Eph 6-14

(74c) Thy kingdom come >> The heart >> God wants you to protect your heart – If God has given us the grace to stand firm, then why do we still need to stand firm? Ultimately, we must implement God’s grace for it to be complete. So the first thing, we need to complete the grace of God in our lives by girding our loins with truth, that is, renewing our minds in the word of God. In renewing our minds, we must apply the truth first and foremost to our loins, our pelvic area, our reproductive organs. Why them? Because they are the body parts most apt to lie to us, telling us we should have sex with whomever is available. This is the experience with men; women may be different, but the result is the same. We put the breastplate of righteousness over our hearts. We must train our hearts to love righteousness; otherwise we won’t.

(127e) Thy kingdom come >> Manifestations of faith >> Goodness >> Rewards for doing good >> Sow the seeds of goodness >> goodness yields a harvest of righteousness -- This verse goes with verses 7&8. We put righteousness over our hearts, for if we don’t love righteousness, then we will hate it and love lawlessness instead; these are the principles of the spiritual realm. God wants our hearts to beat for righteousness; He wants righteousness to become our passion. He wants our heartthrob to be about doing all that is good and right. This is a joke to the world, their passion obviously is to live like King Solomon and exploit their own bodies and extract as much pleasure from them as possible. This usually requires them to have as much money as possible to hang their pride and finance their pleasure seeking pursuits and lord themselves over those who have less. However, for we Christians, our passion is righteousness, which is opposite of the world, which scoffs at righteousness. Say the word “righteousness” in front of a worldly person and the hair on the back of his neck will stand on end. He will react to it like no other word, except perhaps the name of Jesus. Just before they vomit, they will suck it up and turn and want to tear you to pieces. This is how much they hate righteousness; it hits at the very core of their sinful nature, and this is why God wants His children to love it, because He is opposite the sinful nature of this world.

KJV    NAS  /  Navigation Bar

15-17 and having shod YOUR FEET WITH THE PREPARATION OF THE GOSPEL OF PEACE; 16 in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 And take THE HELMET OF SALVATION, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Eph 6-15

(126h) Thy kingdom come >> Manifestations of faith >> Peace >> Anointing of peace – We put peace on our feet and tell them to shuffle us to the next person who is open to the gospel.

Eph 6-16,17

(114g) Thy kingdom come >> Faith >> Working the grace of God >> Obeying the Holy Spirit >> Implementing the revelation of the Holy Spirit

(40i) Judgment >> Judgment of Christ >> God’s word executes judgment by the Spirit

(78m) Thy kingdom come >> Renewing your mind >> God renews your mind by His Spirit

(109g) Spirit And The Word (Key verse) – The Holy Spirit is often found with the word of God throughout the New Testament, revealing that they have a dynamic relationship with each other. This topic puts over 100 verses together, having one thing in common, they all refer to the combination of God's Spirit with His Word in one way or another. The significance of observing so many instances of the Spirit and the Word together in the New Testament is that in each case it refers to the manner in which God communicates with His people. Thus the context surrounding each of these verses endeavors to instruct us about walking in the knowledge and wisdom of God. You would be blessed to ponder this topic and look for the instances of the Spirit and the Word in each verse.

(111k) Thy kingdom come >> Faith >> Spirit and the word >> Living and active word of God – “…And the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,” is the primary verse in the Bible that speaks of the Spirit and the word together in single verse and context. It comes in the form of a sword, which is an offensive weapon! This concept of the Holy Spirit and the word of God mentioned together is repeated dozens of times throughout the New Testament, because they belong together. The Spirit and the word complement each other in that Jesus called Him the Spirit of truth. The word of God obviously is the written account of God’s truth that never changes over the eons. That’s why God can have His people write a book about Him and it still be relevant 2000 years later. Whenever we place together the Spirit and the word, we create a weapon similar to a sword that has the power to destroy the forces of wickedness in our lives. The way we combine these two elements, the Spirit and the word, is through prayer. It is the most spiritual thing we can do, so prayer unites the word of God with the Holy Spirit. The things that God reveals to us as we pray, builds upon our knowledge of the truth as we grow in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. The things we learn in this fashion become revelation knowledge, which is life-changing. This revelation knowledge takes the form of a sword that slashes through the evil of this present darkness, and opens the way for us to walk in the will of God.

(119b) Thy kingdom come >> Manifestations of faith >> Freedom >> Law of the spirit >> Law of the Spirit of truth

(122e) Thy kingdom come >> Manifestations of faith >> Confidence in yourself as you die to sin >> Confident in your salvation – “In addition to all…” faith, the most important thing to God, which Paul depicts as a defensive weapon in the form of a shield, our faith protects us from the devil’s flaming darts of unbelief, lies and deception. “The helmet of salvation,” renewing our minds, puts confidence in our salvation that we belong to God.

(255b) Trinity >> Holy Spirit’s relationship between Father and Son >> God’s word is Spirit >> Spirit of the word >> Words of His Spirit are truth

KJV    NAS  /  Navigation Bar

18-20 With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, 19 and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.

Eph 6,18-20

(7c) Responsibility >> Protecting the gospel >> Defending the word of God >> Protecting the men who carry the gospel

Eph 6-18,19 

(81m) Thy kingdom come >> Pray without ceasing >> For the Church >> Life of prayer – Paul commands us to pray in the spirit. That is a term that Pentecostals and Charismatics regularly use. They are not misunderstanding anything here. To pray in the Spirit is to use our prayer language that God has given us. Paul is talking about doing this alone, not in the congregation, not even with one other person. This is our personal, private prayer language with God. Rom 8-26,27 says we do this when we don’t know how to pray. When we feel God tugging on us but don’t know what He’s trying to tell us, we pray in the Spirit. Praying in the Spirit is what some people call gibberish, but to us they are a sequence of phonemes (word-sounds) that God leads us to say one at a time, just as we walk one step at a time along the narrow way. We often don’t know which way we should go, and this is why we pray in the Spirit for divine guidance.

(83k) Thy kingdom come >> We have the ministry of intercession >> Church intercedes for each other

(84b) Thy kingdom come >> Be on the alert >> Remain on duty >> Keep watch

(99l) Thy kingdom come >> Perseverance (Working to keep in motion) >> Persevere in prayer

(130g) Thy kingdom come >> Manifestations of faith >> Unity >> Committed to caring for the needs of the body >> Caring for spiritual needs – In the days of the apostles, when unity was strong, when one person was persecuted, they all felt persecuted, and when one person was encouraged, they were all encouraged. When one was blessed and comforted, they were all blessed and comforted, and so God’s solution to persecution was multiplied in the Church. When the body of Christ is in unity, we can put up with just about anything, because it is not happening to us alone, though some were arrested and thrown in dungeons to rot and die alone. Others were tortured to death apart from any help or encouragement from the body of Christ, but the grace of God was with them, and they knew the Church was sure to benefit from their suffering. From the blood of martyrs the Church grew both numerically and spiritually. The people of God had nothing to lose, but today’s Church is steeped in apostasy, where each person is separated from everyone else. They may all sit together, yet they are separate. We might defend our reputation or even suffer for Christ in heaven, but we can hardly suffer for the sake of our fellow brother and sister in the faith here on earth, because they are unable to receive the blessing of our sacrifice. We hope for heaven in the afterlife, but unity is the hope we have in this life, and the Church has been stripped of it.

Eph 6-18

(7k) Responsibility >> Use time wisely >> Get ready >> Make time to pray

(13j) Servant >> Support the body >> Bear one another’s burdens

Eph 6-19,20

(85e) Thy kingdom come >> Words that are spoken in faith >> Powerful when spoken by the Spirit >> by the anointing

(123a) Thy kingdom come >> Manifestations of faith >> Boldness to speak the word by the Spirit

(148i) Witness >> Validity of Jesus Christ >> Works of the Church bear witness to Jesus >> Evangelism >> Obligation to preach the gospel >> Ambassador in chains – Pray for the proclamation of the gospel, that it may penetrate the darkness of this world. Paul says that he is an ambassador in chains, but even if he isn’t in prison, he is a bondservant of Christ. He is in chains to the Lord; he is God’s slave. It is as though he were a robot doing only the master’s will. Whatever buttons God pushes on Paul is what the robot does, but does God make robots of people? Paul is still using his will to be a robot, so the answer is no. If He were to override our will, then we would be robots, but God has no interest in that. When you think about the devil, how he enslaves people in their own fleshly impulses, whether it be through sex, drugs and rock and roll, or something else, we are really no longer in control, but become addicted to our fleshly desires, which borders on robotic behavior, yet people complain that God makes robots of His people, and that simply isn’t true. He would never ask us to do something apart from our will. He always calls us to incorporate faith into everything we do, which by nature requires our will.

(152ia) Witness >> Validity of the Father >> Witnesses of the father >> Prophets >> The Church holds the position of a prophet >> Church operates under a prophetic anointing >> Delivering a prophetic message from God

Eph 6-19

(231a) Kingdom of God >> God’s kingdom is a living organism >> Mystery of godliness >> Solving the mystery of godliness >> The Church discloses the mystery of Christ

Eph 6-20

(61a) Paradox >> Two implied meanings >> Prisoner—In jail / Of God’s will

KJV    NAS  /  Navigation Bar

21-24 But that you also may know about my circumstances, how I am doing, Tychicus, the beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, will make everything known to you. 22 I have sent him to you for this very purpose, so that you may know about us, and that he may comfort your hearts. 23 Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 24 Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with incorruptible love.

Eph 6-21,22

(14l) Servant >> Ministry of helps >> Helpers fill in the gaps >> Messengers help in communications – They didn’t have telephones in the first century, or TVs or cell phones; most communications were by word of mouth. Although there was the written language it wasn’t as prolific as it is now, partly due to illiteracy but mostly due to the fact that paper wasn’t invented yet. A sheet of paper today is almost worthless from overabundance, though it is very useful as a medium of the written word; however, in ancient times they wrote on valuable parchment and other materials, being the utensil of the ancient scrolls, similar to processed birch bark. Consequently, just about everything was conveyed by word of mouth, unless it was very important, such as the letter Paul wrote to the Ephesians while in prison, where he mentioned his faithful messenger, Tychicus, who probably talked to Paul face to face, or else received messages indirectly that he relayed to the churches. There weren’t dozens of people lining up to be Paul’s messengers but a very finite number of handpicked men, all who had an abiding faith in Jesus, suggesting that Tychicus was close in heart to Paul. Anyone who was close to Paul had a blameless reputation; it was his requirement. He simply did not rub shoulders with people of ill-repute, simply because it wouldn’t look good to those who were watching. If onlookers saw Paul associating with people of questionable character, they would have questioned Paul's character too.

(32g) Gift of God >> Father will honor you if you die to self >> Your faithfulness – Anybody’s name found in the Bible in a positive context was as good as a signature in the Lamb’s Book of Life. They are both permanent records that will forever remain. What did Tychicus do to receive this honor? He was a servant! He wasn’t a great orator; he didn’t have many people working under him; he wasn’t important in the world's eyes; he was just a humble servant. God will honor us too if we will serve Him. Those who reject this purpose for themselves will someday meet God, and they will want Him to honor them too. It is too bad they can’t think about that now and live for the day they meet God face to face. God has given us this life for the express purpose of preparing to meet Him. Those with ultimate wisdom busy themselves day and night preparing for that day. The more service we render Him, the more faithfulness we show, the more obedience we prove, the better our experience in heaven. When we meet Him we will know then that all our weeks, months and years of preparation was worth it.

(228c) Kingdom of God >> God’s kingdom is a living organism >> God working in you >> Comforted >> We are comforted in the presence of God >> Holy Spirit is our comforter

(247e) Priorities >> God’s priorities >> God’s interests >> Concern >> Concerned about your well being

Eph 6-21

(102c) Thy kingdom come >> Faithfulness (Loyalty) >> Faithfulness is dependable >> God’s servants are dependable – One advantage of surrounding ourselves with loyal people is simply that we can trust them. Another advantage is their spiritual fellowship, because they have the same faith that we have in Jesus, and there is nothing like two or more people coming together and sharing their faith. It is the very definition of encouragement. Edification is the word that best describes encouragement, and the root word of “edification” is edifice, which means house or dwelling or more specifically rooftop. Encouragement is where we go to get out of the rain, sort-a-speak. Paul associated with likeminded people and basked under the umbrella of their loyalty that they showed not only him, but also the Lord. Spiritual fellowship is one of the main advantages of Christianity in this life, though it is extremely rare these days. Finding spiritual fellowship is almost as difficult as finding a faithful spouse.

Eph 6-23,24

(125b) Thy kingdom come >> Manifestations of faith >> Faith and love >> Faith toward God and love toward man

(138h) Temple >> Building the temple (with hands) >> Exhortation >> Exhorting the people to glorify God – “Faith and love” is a recurring theme throughout the New Testament, for where we find faith we find love, and where we find love we find faith, meaning there is a relationship between them. Faith is the basis of love and love is the manifestation of faith, and wherever these two coexist there is peace. The reason we can be patient with somebody is that we have the peace of God resting in our hearts. The best way to deal with a person who requires our patience is through the peace of God that dwells within us. Incorruptible love is divine love that does not originate from anywhere on the earth but from heaven, and heavenly love is better understood as faith. It originates from the Spirit of God and given to us to give to others. He entrusts His treasures to us, and nobody can take them from us. This faith that originates in heaven, kept by God and entrusted to us as we entrust it to Him, is manifested in our bodies through love as proof that we possess something from God. Love that we manifest through faith is the grace of God. People talk about grace and mercy together as though they were the same, but they’re not. Mercy is what we received from God on the basis of faith in Jesus’ blood sacrifice, while the works we produce through His faith is the grace of God.

Eph 6-23

(126a) Thy kingdom come >> Manifestations of faith >> Peace >> God is at peace >> The peace from God

Eph 6-24

(116i) Thy kingdom come >> Faith >> Working the grace of God >> Working God’s kindness

(208fa) Salvation >> The salvation of God >> Personal relationship >> Being the friend of God >> Relationship with God through obedience >> We resemble Him through faith

(243g) Kingdom of God >> The eternal kingdom >> The indestructible kingdom >> The body of Christ is indestructible >> The indestructible kingdom within us – We love the Lord Jesus with His own love, and we love one another with the love of God. In this we are incorruptible, and one day we will inherit a body that is incorruptible. God is asking us to remain homogenous in our hearts and in our bodies in order that all things may point in the same direction, that we may exhibit His character through the fruits of the Spirit, and lead an incorruptible life that others may be saved and God glorified.