Lesson 17: The Shield of Faith, part 1

Ephesians 6:16 - In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one;

The Shield of Faith is given to protect the whole body. We look at what this piece of armor was like for the Roman soldier so we can learn what it literally means for us today.

The shield was made of wood and had a central spine as well as a metal strip. It was carried using a central handgrip and it was then covered with leather to make it flame retardant. Before a battle, in which flaming arrows might be shot at them, the soldiers would wet the leather covering with water to extinguish the arrows. These "flaming darts" were sometimes set ablaze in order to set fire to the enemy's camp, or even their clothing preventing them from fighting. Historians tell us that these “fire-arrows" sometimes carried a bulb filled with burning matter; or sometimes the point was merely wrapped in burning material. It was against these flaming missiles that the Roman shield was "put up" to make its defense. This was not done passively, in fact, the Roman soldiers would close ranks with these shields. The first row held theirs edge to edge in front, with the rows behind them holding their shields above their heads. In this formation they were nearly invulnerable to arrows, rocks, and even spears. Everybody would be protected, the whole group, if each one put up their shield at the same time, working together. They could withstand most enemy attacks.


For us as believers, this shield is faith, a conviction of God’s truth, trusting in what He says about the situation we are in, about our salvation or needs or hopes or dreams – for us today it is about our daily attacks from spiritual warfare. Hebrews 11:1 says faith is the ASSURANCE of things hoped for, the CONVICTION of things not seen. Where there is faith, there is nothing to fear. You are simply trusting God's Word no matter what things look like. It is believing what God has said, for no other reason than that He has said it. It is taking God at His word. It is accepting His teaching, obeying His commands, heeding His warnings and laying hold of His promises. Where there is faith, defeat is unknown. Why? Because the Christian soldier who has it is never caught unaware by anything. Faith makes us invincible.

This is often our problem today. We are not prepared to face the enemy, so we are defeated all the time because the enemy has us focused on all the wrong kinds of protection! We talk about fire insurance, we have home insurance, car insurance, life insurance; in fact, there are people who spend as much as one fifth of their income just to protect the things they have.

But Paul says we must protect our walk with Jesus as our first priority. Without faith we are not prepared to handle anything in our daily life.