NOTES for Eph 6:10-24

At different times in Yahwist, as also in Jewish and Christian, history, the power of God was understood in different ways. The earliest idea was not very different from a pagan one: God possesses a power stronger than any power in our world, and therefore no one can resist Him.

Abraham, to whom God revealed Himself by the name El Shaddai, meaning literally "God of power" and usually translated "God Almighty," may have thought this way, and so may Jacob, who so wanted to receive at least some part of this power on the eve of meeting Esau, when he wrestled with his God all night.

And each time it turned out that the power of God is not simply an instrument that, once received from God, can be used at one's own discretion, but an instrument of God's action, inseparable from Him and changing from within the person who has dared to receive this power.

It is not accidental that both Abraham and Jacob receive new names after their momentous encounters: a new name means that a person, while outwardly remaining the same, has changed inwardly, changed so much that the former person is no more, and the new one who has come in place of the former deserves a new name. If we want to receive God's power, it will necessarily change us ourselves: for it is inseparable from God's presence, and in that case our own heart must become the place of this presence, a heart that must change so God can enter it.

Later, in the time of the Judges and the first kings, the power of God was seen somewhat differently: it was seen where God enters human affairs, for example when He intervenes in the course of a war to change it in favor of His people.

Here the power of God is already perceived more spiritually; it is personal and inseparable from God's will, it cannot be separated from God and used at one's own discretion. But the initiators in this case are still people, not God. They undertake affairs that they consider right and necessary not only for themselves but also for God, and then ask God to join these affairs as a helper.

Meanwhile, God's power is needed by Him for the fulfillment of His plans, not ours. This should have become especially clear to the people during the Babylonian captivity, when everything human collapsed and God's nearness was nevertheless experienced more vividly than ever.

God gave these lessons to His people for a reason: without assimilating them it would have been hard to expect the power of God revealed to the world in Christ, and the breath of the Kingdom that Christ brought into the world, to be understood and received.

Paul, of course, does not accidentally describe the Christian path as a path of spiritual warfare. He especially emphasizes that the issue is not war with people, 'against flesh and blood,' but precisely with those spiritual forces which from within this world oppose the Kingdom entering it. The Kingdom enters the world through Christians, and therefore war is inevitable.

The apostle lists what can help a Christian in this war, comparing his spiritual equipment with the weapons of a warrior taking part in earthly battles: helmet, sword, shield, and breastplate or armor. The foundation of everything is faithfulness to truth and righteousness: they are like a warrior's belt and breastplate, without which no battle is possible. Indeed, righteousness is the foundation of the Christian path; refusal of the path of righteousness makes Christian life impossible.

This path itself was known in the pre-Christian era; righteousness as the practice of building conscious relationships with God was known already before the exile, and with the coming of Christ it did not disappear at all. On the contrary, new possibilities were opened to those walking this path, possibilities of which they previously could not even dream. But naturally, if a person refuses the path, he also refuses the new possibilities opening to him. The shield that protects the Christian during spiritual confrontation is faith: faith not as conviction in the truth of certain propositions and principles, but as trust in Christ.

It is precisely this that will save in critical situations when nothing else can help. Paul calls the word of God the sword. And the issue is not only Sacred Scripture, as this verse is usually interpreted, but also, and above all, the living revelation that allows a person to live according to the inner Torah, striving to realize in Christ the ideal of the living Torah. This is how the apostle sees the path of the Christian opposing the dark forces that have seized this world.

It is not always easy to understand adequately Paul's words concerning the spiritual fight. For us today "the principalities, the powers and the rulers of the world” designate either the representatives of the earthly power, or a certain spiritual hierarchy, of course of the darkness.

However, neither the “yahvisme”, nor the Christian tradition has ever tended to an excessive spiritualism. Certainly, the existence of the spiritual world wasn’t a secret neither for the Judaism, nor for the Christianity, but this world (in exception maybe of the sects with gnostic orientation) has never thought as something, completely separated from our world.

Besides, neither the Jews, nor the Christians have ever exaggerated the influence of this world on the human affairs, although they did not deny it. And under "principalities", "powers" and "rulers of the world", if Paul probably hinted at certain spirits of the darkness, then it would be above all only about the sense of their influence on the spiritual state of concrete people. But indeed, the apostle says concretely that Christians will fight not with people!

It is not surprising: indeed, the battle of concrete people (even if it is about representatives of the power) can hardly change something radically: to the replacement of some come others, no society can be without power, and there is no reason for hope that the new ones will be better that the old.

The only battle, to which are called Christians is the battle against evil, in which lies the world. And there is only one way to resist this evil: do in such way that the Kingdom spreads the most fast and most widely possible in the world, transforming it. Because only a complete victory of the Kingdom can end this evil, in which the fallen world is laying.

The words of the apostle about the faith that allows "to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked", seem at first sight, too optimistic. In fact, there are few believers, to whom to quench these very fiery darts does not succeed too much, in spite of their faith! But maybe we do not understand adequately the words of the apostle? What does he want to say, by speaking about faith? For us today, faith is above all connected to the known convictions, the main part of which consists of the fact that God exists and can intervene in our life, if we ask Him for that. Besides, as Christians, we can also believe in other things, but which in our personal consciousness are above all connected with our views and convictions. And however in the biblical language, faith means above all faithfulness, and not conviction. Faithfulness to God, faithfulness to Christ, faithfulness to the Kingdom. That’s when everything falls in place. Of course, convictions and views in themselves can also exercise an influence on the life of man, if of course man is coherent in his convictions.

But not the same, as faithfulness to a concrete person or to God; if of course God is a reality for man, and not a theological abstraction. And it is not surprising: because views and convictions are rather often connected to the intellectual activity of man, who, before coming to a particular conviction, thinks about many and weighs, coming to the corresponding conclusions. And the intellect, in spite of all its importance, does not define in itself the spiritual life of man.

It is defined by will, intention, decisions taken by man and the choice made by him in a concrete situation. The will is not based on the intellect, although sometimes it may seem to us that way. It uses the intellect only for its purposes. And the will is based only on the relation, on the relation with another person or with God. That is why faith, as faithfulness, is surer than faith as conviction. Such a faith can really be a reliable protection against temptations, what we can’t say about the faith based solely on conviction in the correctness of certain views.

In today's reading the apostle Paul asks believers to pray for him. How often we forget to pray for those who, in our opinion, are already all right. Our prayers for priests and bishops, if such prayers exist at all, are two words pronounced mechanically because that is what one is supposed to do. But Paul says that this prayer is necessary even for those to whom much has already been given. Did Paul not proclaim the mystery of the gospel openly and with boldness? He did... and nevertheless he needs the prayer of the Church. Because this prayer is one of the means by which the unity of the Body of Christ is built up.

We have a rather strange custom of connecting certain life situations with certain prayers, of turning for help in prayer to particular saints depending on the difficulties we are experiencing. The word of God gives us no basis for this. On the contrary, in today's apostolic reading the apostle Paul says: pray at all times in the Spirit with every prayer and supplication. What is essentially important in prayer, according to the apostle's word, is faithfulness to God, expressed in the fact that we turn to Him at all times, and not only in a difficult moment.

It is also essential that the apostle calls us to pray in the spirit. The Greek original has no capital letters except at the beginning of periods, and therefore these words allow a double interpretation. First, prayer must come from the very depth of the human person; prayer in the spirit is far from limited to the prayer text we pronounce with our lips. Second, it is probable that the apostle means prayer inspired by the Holy Spirit, and not only the babbling of which a person is capable by himself. The matter is by no means special gifts of the Spirit, such as prayer in other tongues. Yet if we believe in the reality and effectiveness of the sacrament of chrismation, in which the Lord through the Church gives us not manifestations of the Spirit, but the Spirit Himself, then our capacity for meeting the Almighty in prayer is limited by our will and only by our will.

What is prayer? The simplest and clearest answer: the communion with God, the words that we tell him hoping to hear the answer. So; but it is when we are alone. For example, on a desert island. And there everything is not also simple: because people leave all the same inhabited places to arrive to the deserted islands. This definition would be completely exhaustive only in case if in all the universe there was only one person.

But such was never the case and will probably never be it. And the problem is not even there, but in the fact that a person, according to God's word, "is not complete" (" It is not good that man should be alone", as transmits it God's words the King James Version translation). And if man is not alone, then his communication with God will be not only his personal affair, no matter how much the communication itself is personal. Indeed, the relationship of man with God and his relationship with other people are interrelated things. And if we made another step and looked at the situation, how it develops in the people of God? Here already it is not any more simply a human community, here is a community connected with this God's presence, sanctifying each of his members, action which makes of the people of God what it is.

And with such an influence, when it is in particular God's presence which unites the people and makes it one whole spiritual, the prayer already does not just cease to be a private affair of the individual, but becomes directly a matter of divine-human. And in the church all these relationships and interdependencies still strengthen: because the Church brings to the world the Kingdom, and in the Kingdom sanctifies already not simply God's presence, it is directly quite penetrated by the breath of God, which transforms and sanctifies everything. And the prayer of every inhabitant of the Kingdom wove into this breath, by becoming its integral part.

So the prayer of a person becomes the prayer for all the people of God, becoming at the same time the prayer of these people. And, perhaps, God only knows, which place occupies such a prayer in the construction of the Kingdom, in the creation of this spiritual unity, which constitutes the fabric of the Kingdom. But, be that as it may, the prayer is already here not simply the communion with God, but also the edification with God. And every of such prayer of course brings near the day of the final triumph of the Kingdom, which the Savior brought into the world.