An ancient story tells of a wrestler from Ephesus who was said to be undefeated and undefeatable. In match after match he amazed spectators and overpowered opponents. When he competed in the Olympiad he appeared to be unbeatable as he repeatedly defeated his adversaries – until the officials discovered he was wearing the Ephesia Grammata around his ankle. The Ephesia Grammata were written magic spells, usually sewn in a bag and worn as an amulet. They were known to exist as early as the 4th Century BC and were supposed to ward off demons and evil spirits and give the bearer special powers and protection. The officials of the Olympiad removed the “letters” from the wrestler’s leg, robbing him of his magical powers and he was easily beaten in three successive events.

The city of Ephesus was no stranger to wrestling; nor were its citizens strangers to magic and sorcery. When Paul wrote his letter to the church in Ephesus, he drew upon two popular activities that permeated the culture. Wrestling was very popular in the region, and perhaps he even knew of the wrestler mentioned in the story. It was said that Ephesus was by far the most hospitable to magicians, sorcerers and charlatans of all sorts. The city swarmed with soothsayers and purveyors of charm. It was in this setting he wrote the book of Ephesians.

Ephesians 6:10-18: “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.”

When we intercede on behalf of others, they’re not meant to be the targets of our prayers. In spiritual warfare, we aim our prayers at what is against those we’re praying for: sickness, strife, trouble. We must pray prayers of intercession in the full confidence of the power promised to us through Scripture.

In 2 Corinthians 10:3, 4 we read, “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.”

Too often when we pray, we miss the heart of the matter at hand. The church has always been slow to understand the tactics needed for spiritual warfare. We wade into battle armed with beautiful sanctuaries and choreographed programs and high-powered publicity. These things are good, but alone they are useless in spiritual warfare. We’re given wonderful examples in Scripture of how Jesus and others look past the surface to speak to the power behind the symptoms.

Matthew 16:23: Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”

Acts 16:17-18: This girl followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so troubled that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her.

In this passage, a father brings his boy to Jesus after the disciples were unable to drive out the evil spirit…Mark 19:28-29: After Jesus had gone indoors, his disciples asked him privately, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?” He replied, “This kind can come out only by prayer.”

So, back to our passage in Ephesians; we acknowledge that we’re in this epic battle. We follow closely the instructions to gird up for battle. Let’s go! But then, we read, “…pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests” (Ephesians 6:18). I’d like to suggest that perhaps the instructions to “suit up” is maybe a reminder of what should be natural for the believer.

The main message that Paul is giving the believers in Ephesus and subsequently us is that to be strong in the power of Lord and stand strong against the evil that comes against us that we must be ready to stand strong. We must be prepared: “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand” (v.13). Then the reminder of just what everything entails: “Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (vv.14-17). So, if you read that without the reminder, it looks like this: “Stand firm then…and pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.”

Before we ever step onto the battlefield – whether it is preaching or evangelizing or even serving the Army’s social services – we need to secure the outcome on the battlefield of prayer. This is shown very clearly in Exodus 17:8-13:

The Amalekites came and attacked the Israelites at Rephidim. Moses said to Joshua, “Choose some of our men and go out to fight the Amalekites. Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands.” So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered, and Moses, Aaron and Hur went to the top of the hill. As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till sunset. So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword.

Like Moses, we need to raise our hands in prayer for those engaged in the battle in the valley. The battle may be raging in the valley, but victory is secured through prayer on the mountain.

And just like we ought not to battle alone in the valley, we aren’t meant to be in prayer alone either. We need to pray together much like Aaron and Hur did alongside Moses.

Together, we’ll hit the target with our prayers.

© 2009 Rob Reardon, all rights reserved.

An older colleague and I have been discussing an article that he found recently. The article, entitled, Five Kinds of Christians appeared online just over a year ago online at ChristianityToday.com. The article presented the findings of a survey conducted by Leadership Magazine. After some banter back and forth about the general topics found within the piece, my friend and I entered into an interesting discussion about the following statement:

Another necessary shift is recognizing that the old metrics of success may no longer apply. Wilkerson says, “We need to spend the next ten years investing in the life of our surrounding community and finding ways to regain a hearing for the gospel. Instead of going to the nursing home and holding a church service, we’re just going to go and love and serve people for years and years, until the staff and residents ask, ‘Why do they care so much?’ This won’t result in 150 decisions for Christ in a year. You might not see results for five or ten years.”

I resonated deeply with what he said. I became convinced long ago that the “build it and they will come” mentality no longer works, nor is it applicable to the way actual ministry works. That is if we really want to follow the mandate of Matthew 6:9-13, where we are taught to pray for the fulfillment of God’s Kingdom so that it manifests on earth as it is in heaven.

Jesus spent an extraordinary amount of time building personal relationships. Most of the salvation accounts in the Gospels took place after a personal encounter between Jesus and someone lost. Jesus reiterated this when describing the concern the shepherd has for the one sheep that had been lost (Matthew 18 and Luke 15). Make no mistake, I still think that preaching to a mass of people remains an important way to spread the Gospel, but when the time is ripe for the real life change - personal and intimate interaction is needed.

This is where my colleague and I differed in perspectives. His response to this shift in strategy was much more pessimistic: “Can you see the Army, or any church doing this?” He figured (correctly) that to make this shift we would need to “view forward beyond the end of the next fiscal or program cycle” and that this would be where such a shift would stall.

At the beginning of this discussion I noted that the conversation was between myself and an older colleague, and this was intentional because I don’t think most leaders of the older generations are able to look beyond the end of our cyclical calendars. We are unfortunately tied securely to such calendars and our operational systems are largely dependent on them for every facet and function of our existence.

We do not have the luxury of the time that is needed for such relationship building. And if we did manage to carve out the necessary time in our own schedules, certain other things would suffer to the detriment of not only our statistical tributes, but also our status (value, sense of worth) in the eyes of administration.

A large portion of our (outside) funding requires us to push for the ramped-up statistics because more people equal more dollars and more dollars equal more people. It is a never-ending cycle, it seems. My concern is that continuing in this type of activity pulls us further away from the mission Christ set us to reach the lost.

Can you see the Army making and promoting the necessary change?

Rob Reardon

© 2009 Rob Reardon, all rights reserved.