Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”
NL Daily Devotion for Saturday, May 29, 2021
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
I don’t believe in spiritual warfare. Not in the literal sense some people insist is happening around us all the time. But I do believe that our present struggle as Christians isn’t against individual people. And while I do not like militaristic language for a host of reasons, I like the word “struggle.”
We all struggle. Individually, we struggle with our own negative inclinations. As someone in recovery, I have looked honestly at all sorts of ways I want what I want when and how I want it even if it is damaging to myself or others, and commit daily working against these tendencies.
In relationships we struggle to find balance and interdependence, to get our needs met without selfishness and be of love and service without codependence.
In society we struggle. The “rulers” and “authorities” of our time are no less oppressive than in Paul’s. We are called to enter that struggle on behalf of the oppressed and marginalized. We are called to look honestly at how our current systems benefit us at the expense of others.
None of this work is easy. It requires a kind of spiritual armor, not necessarily in Paul’s militaristic language—breastplate, sword, shield, helmet—but perhaps a quiet, inner strength fortified by trust that God will not abandon us in our efforts to heed the call to struggle.
What does the “armor of God” look like to me?
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