Faith

             In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.  (Ephesians 6:16)

The belt, the breastplate, and the boots are all pieces of armor that need only be put on. After that, they’re there, doing their job. How’s that for using homophones? You might say that they’re passive armor. Granted, you have to turn your body toward your enemy for your breastplate to be useful, but with the shield, you can protect your front, your side, your back, or the top of your head if you build the skill and strength to do so. If you let down your guard, your breastplate may still protect you, but chances are that your shield won’t. For your shield to protect you, you must turn it toward your enemy even if your body is facing a different way. It is dynamic.

As I read this verse this morning, I noticed that the use of the shield of faith is to extinguish the flaming arrows of the evil one. If a flaming arrow is extinguished, it’s still an arrow. And because a shield is a shield, the arrow isn’t likely to pierce it and kill you, but it will still hit. Faith doesn’t mean you’ll never be hurt, but it does mean that the kind of wound is restricted and the depth of the injury generally less. The point of the text seems to be that shields of faith protect us from a specific sort of harm.

The story gets a little more complex because it doesn’t say that the shield extinguishes the fiery arrows. It says that with the shield, we can extinguish the fiery arrows. That takes us back to having to use our faith. If someone were going to strengthen your faith, and, therefore your ability to extinguish the fiery arrows you face in life, what might they do? Several possibilities come to mind: singing worship/praise songs, praying with and for you, and telling you stories. Could that be an example of faith coming by hearing?