Weird Stuff in the Bible

Ephesians: A Spiritual Warfare Field Guide
The Book of Ephesians

Introduction
Ephesians is famous for a line in chapter 6 about who we wrestle with in spiritual warfare. We’ve even quoted it several times on this podcast.
Verse 12 says
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
And man, there’s a lot to unpack in that single verse alone. It talks about the various hierarchies of fallen angels and demons and all those spiritual entities who fight against us for dominion of planet earth.
But wait- this kinda just comes out of nowhere. I mean, Ephesians starts by talking about the purpose of the church. Then it gives some good moral guidelines and application. Then it starts talking about wives submitting to their husbands and husbands submitting to Christ and children obeying their parents and employees obeying their bosses- and then out of the blue, it starts talking about spiritual beings and the armor of God-
And where did that come from? What ties all this together?
I find this to be weird, and I’d like to explore why it’s in the Bible.
Turn to the book of Ephesians, and let’s get weird.
[theme music]

Ephesians Explained
Welcome to Weird Stuff in the Bible, where we explore scripture passages that are bizarre, perplexing or just plain weird. This is Luke Taylor, and today we’re going to be talking about the book of Ephesians.
And I want to explain my perspective on this book because it’s an extremely popular book of the Bible, yet I don’t think most Christians actually understand what it’s about.
It’s got a lot of great pieces, and we’re good at mining out some of those sections and applying them. There’s a great piece about marriage in chapter 5. There’s a great piece about salvation by grace through faith not of works in chapter 2. And as I mentioned, there’s this fantastic basis for spiritual warfare and the armor of God in chapter 6, and we’ve all probably heard sermons on that.
But what is the context of these pieces? What is the overall message of the Book of Ephesians, and how do all these pieces fit together? That’s what I’d like to unpack today.
If I gave Ephesians a subtitle, I’d call it “Going to War.” And specifically, going to war in the spirit-realm. When you become a Christian, you are joining a spiritual battle that’s been going on for thousands of years between the forces of God and the forces of Satan.
You are not a bystander. You are not a civilian. You are in the fight. You are a soldier. And that’s what Ephesians teaches us: our identity. Ephesians is 6 chapters, and that’s what the first three chapters are about.
And if you don’t pick up your weapon and join the battle, then your side is going to take some losses and that will be your fault. So you also need to know how to fight. And that’s what the last three chapters are about.
You have to know who you are and what you should do. And what you should do with putting on the armor and entering this spiritual battle is not a brand new topic introduced at the end of chapter 6. No, the whole book has been building up to that. That’s the climax. Everything in Ephesians is buildup to fighting in the Spirit.
DL Moody was asked why he constantly preached for Christians to be filled with the Spirit. He said it’s simple: “We leak.”
Just because you are a Christian who is saved and going to heaven does not mean you are always filled to 100% capacity with the Holy Spirit. There are going to be days where your spirit is weak and days where your spirit is strong. There are going to be days where you are closer to God than others. There are going to be days where you are more spiritually powerful and days where you quench the Spirit.
It’s kinda like we talked about last week with the story of Uzzah. We want to be people of the presence of God. And we also want to be people who don’t offend God’s presence and cause Him to depart.
And the book of Ephesians demonstrate for us many ways in which we can do that.

Chapter 1
So we’ll start with chapter 1. Chapters 1-3 teach us about who we are. Chapter 1 is what team we’re on. It emphasizes God’s sovereignty and supremacy. When we join the church, we are on God’s side- and God’s side will be the winning side.
When we join the church, we are given the Holy Spirit. Key verse:
Ephesians 1:13
In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,
God is in control of all things, and He has enlisted us as soldiers in His fight, and He has given us all the Holy Spirit.
Doesn’t mean all Christians are full of the Holy Spirit to max, But the Holy Spirit sealed us. Our spirit was made like His spirit. We are spirit, soul and body; God changed our spirit to be like the Holy Spirit. And now we have this spiritual connection to God no matter where we are.
If you think of it like soldiers on a battlefield, and perhaps all the soldiers have walkie-talkies so they can stay in communication with their commander, that’s what we have. A spiritual connection to God at all times, no matter where we are. And our commander is Christ.
Ephesians 1:22-23
And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
The church is God’s special task force that He has commissioned for this moment in history. This is a distinction from the Old Testament believers. The Holy Spirit might come upon some of them for particular purposes, but New Testament believers have unique privileges, such as the indwelling Holy Spirit.

Chapter 2
Chapter 2 will reveal our purpose as this task force. We are #1 reconciled to God, and #2 reconciled to each other.
Chapter 2 tells us what team we’re now on: God’s team. We used to be on the devil’s team, but now we’ve come to God’s team. And we came to God’s team by grace through faith. That’s what the first 10 verses are about.
Key verses:
Ephesians 2:1-2
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience
Notice all that spiritual language. The spiritual realm battle talk does not just start in chapter 6. He says we used to be with the prince of the power of the air. Now we are team Jesus.
Verse 6
and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
What does that mean? Heavenly places means in the spiritual realm. Our spiritual status.
Heavenly places doesn’t always mean “heaven where God’s will is always perfectly done.” Because Ephesians also tells us there are forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. So there are different things meant by the word “heaven,” and I’ll do an episode about that one of these days.
However, even though we are physical beings, spiritually speaking, we are seated with Christ. That means we have a spiritual authority over these forces of wickedness because of our relationship with Christ. He gave us the keys of the Kingdom. We have spiritual authority.
The second half of chapter 2 tells us we are also to be reconciled to each other. When the church is in unity, the spirit of God can be present. Jesus said where two or three are gathered, there He is in our midst. That does not mean every time you have a few Christians together, God’s presence fills the room. You need to have unity and agreement. We’ll talk about that one of these days, also.

Chapter 3
Chapter 3 is about the church as God’s task force. We have a mission from God. We are to bring Jew and Gentile into God’s family to oppose those forces of wickedness; those principalities and powers that we’re going to read about later. Key verse:
Ephesians 3:10
through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.
There it is again: the heavenly places. You see, that thing about rulers and principalities doesn’t just come out of the blue later. This whole book book is about our conflict with those spiritual forces.
In verse 16 he prays that we may be “strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being”
All Christians have equal value. All Christians have equal worth before the Lord. But not all Christians have equal power. So where does our spiritual power come from? The Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is pictured as a dove in the scriptures. That’s the animal that the Bible uses to describe the nature of the Holy Spirit. And doves are sensitive animals. Doves can be chased away. They only land where they sense peace.
RT Kendall, in his book Holy Fire, shares this story about the nature of the Holy Spirit’s presence on believers. It’s about a husband and wife named Sandy and Bernice. I can’t remember, I believe they were missionaries or some of his friends or something like that, and a dove that was often visiting their home while they were on a missionary trip:
“How do you feel about the dove?” Sandy asked Bernice.
“It is like a seal from the Lord on our being in Israel,” she replied.
“But have you noticed that every time we slam a door or start shouting at each other, the dove flies away?”
“Yes, and I am so afraid the dove will fly away and not come back,” she said.
“Either the dove adjusts to us, or we adjust to the dove,” Sandy concluded.
They both knew that the dove was not going to adjust to them…The dove is a shy, sensitive bird…the Holy Spirit [is] depicted as a dove in each of the four Gospels…

So I share that because if we’re going to battle spiritual forces, we need to do so in the power of the Holy Spirit. And the more powerful we are in our inner man, or what some call our spirit man, then the more effective we will be in these battles.

Chapters 4-6
So that brings us to chapters 4 through 6. Chapters 4, 5 and the first half of 6 are about how we prepare ourselves for battle. We can’t effectively do battle unless we’re filled with God’s Holy Spirit. We’re sealed with the Spirit at salvation and filled with the Spirit at the Baptism of the Holy Spirit experience, but we have to constantly be refilled and remain in the Spirit’s presence if we want to be victorious in our Christian battles.
So chapters 4, 5 and the first half of 6 can essentially provide us with a checklist of do’s and don’t’s when it comes to being filled with the Spirit. If we disobey God in these various areas, we can offend the Holy Spirit and cause the dove to fly away and lose some of our spiritual power.
Here’s a key verse from this section:
Ephesians 5:18
And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit.
That is a spiritual principle that really holds through for a lot of things, it’s just particularly instructive with wine here.

Many Christians will say that all of us are filled with the Spirit just by virtue of being Christians. But that’s simply not true. Ephesians 5:18 says right there you can be full of alcohol, or you can be full of the Spirit, but you can’t be full of both.
You can be under the influence of alcohol or under the influence of the Spirit.
You can give yourself to drunkenness with the wine or you can give yourself to the Spirit.

Under that framework, now I’m just basically going to read you that checklist and all the verse references from chapters 4 through 6. It’s a bit overwhelming; there are a lot of things we can do to offend the Spirit.
You’re probably not struggling with all of them, though. You probably have 5 to 10 that you do. So if you start feeling overwhelmed, my advice is, just tackle one at a time.
Be humble (4:2)
Be gentle (4:2)
Be patient (4:2)
Be peaceful (4:3)
Place yourself under the authority of God’s apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds (pastors) and teachers (Bible study teachers, Sunday School teachers…) (4:11-12)
Be mature in your faith (not jumping into every new doctrine or new idea you hear) (4:13-14)
Speak truth in love (4:15)
Be motivated by love in all your interactions with others (4:15)
Don’t be worldly (thinking like the world or imitating the world) (4:17)
Don’t be sensual, just acting on and being led around by your desires and emotions (4:19)
Don’t be greedy (4:19)
Don’t be impure (4:19)
Learn Christ (not just about Christ; have a relationship with Christ personally) (4:20)
Let God renew your mind (4:23)
Be holy (separated from evil) (4:24)
Be honest (4:25)
Don’t sin in your anger- don’t let the sun go down on your anger (4:26)
(Again with the spiritual reference: anger gives the devil a foothold. It means it gives unclean spirits a passageway into your mind. When you’re consumed with anger, the devil is given a megaphone in your mind and the still-small voice of the Holy Spirit gets harder and harder to discern. That’s why we don’t let the sun go down on it; deal with it quickly)
Don’t steal (4:28)
Work hard (4:28)
Don’t let corrupt speech come from your mouth (4:29)
Don’t be bitter (4:31)
Don’t be wrathful and angry (4:31)
Be kind and tenderhearted toward others (4:32)
Forgive others (4:32)
Don’t get overwhelmed if a lot of these things are problem areas for you. You can fix them. This is doable. God will help you. You might not fix them by next Tuesday. But you can work through them.
And God will also meet you right where you’re at. If you’re interested in spiritual growth, God will me you where you are. So don’t feel like, “I can’t have the Holy Spirit’s power until I’m perfect.” No, if you’re reaching for God, wherever you are, He’s going to reach for you.
Be willing to sacrifice for others, putting them first (5:2)
Don’t be sexually immoral (5:3)
Don’t be covetous, wanting what others have (5:3)
Don’t let filthy language come out of your mouth (5:4)
Don’t let crude jokes come out of your mouth (5:4)
Don’t say unwise things (5:4)
Be thankful (5:4)
Don’t be an idolater (someone who lets objects become more important to them than God) (5:5)
Don’t partner with people that you know are deceptive or disobedient (5:7)
Ask yourself if what you’re doing is pleasing to the Lord (5:10)
Expose evil rather than participating in it (5:11)
Don’t even talk about the evil things that people do in secret (unless you’re doing so for the purpose of exposing it for good reasons- see above) (5:12)
Don’t waste time (5:16)
Try to figure out what God’s will is (5:17)
Don’t get drunk or intoxicated with drugs/alcohol (5:18)
Read/sing Psalms (5:19)
Sing hymns and spiritual songs (5:19)
When you’re driving to work and singing that little worship song you have stuck in your head, you’re building up your spirit man. Go for it.
FOR WIVES: submit to your husband and respect him (5:22-24, 33)
FOR HUSBANDS: love your wives like you love yourself and put her before yourself (5:25-29)
FOR CHILDREN (which means anyone still living with their parents, even if they’re 18+): obey and honor your parents (6:1-3)
FOR PARENTS: don’t intentionally anger or exasperate your kids (6:4)
FOR PARENTS: raise your children with discipline and Godly instruction (6:4)
FOR EMPLOYEES: obey your boss as well as if you were working for God Himself personally (you are) (6:5-6)
FOR EMPLOYERS: don’t threaten your employees and don’t treat them unfairly (6:9)

So what we just read through is a checklist of things not to do. This stuff is easy to preach. It’s really easy for a pastor to preach through Ephesians and give you a bunch of guidelines for things not to do in your life. So this is probably a lot of familiar territory for you.
But I’m talking today about WHY this checklist is there. This is not just a randomly placed list of a bunch of random things that God doesn’t want you to do. This list is here for a purpose: to teach you how to tap into Holy Spirit power.
And so you don’t want to do things that offend the Holy Spirit and cause the dove to fly away.
Some of you are thinking: but I don’t want a checklist of things not to do to upset God. Christianity is supposed to be a relationship, not a religion. I’m not supposed to have a checklist type of faith.
But let me tell you: I’m in a relationship with my wife. There is a long list of things I could potentially do that would tick her off. Forgetting to pick her up at the airport. Accidentally selling her cat on Ebay. Doing Fortnite dances in public. I might benefit from making a checklist.
Here’s one I recently learned: if I refer to the mayonnaise as “Miracle Whip,” that will deeply wound her, as she has informed me that these are two completely different things. Completely different. I didn’t realize this; I thought Miracle Whip and mayonnaise were basically synonymous. But you are not allowed to say that in my house. In fact, I’m not even allowed to talk about mayonnaise OR Miracle Whip by themselves anymore. Now I can’t even reference one of them them without getting trouble because that’s just a hot button sensitive issue in our household now.
So if you think keeping the Holy Spirit happy is tough, you just need to meet my wife.
Now, God’s commands here in Ephesians sound strict, but they aren’t really nitpicky things. “Don’t get drunk.” “Don’t be an idolator.” It’s not like the 613 commandments of the Old Testament where it’s like, “Don’t wear fabric with mixed fibers.” These are about your heart.
It’s not about a checklist. It’s a spiritual health checkup.
Another quote from RT Kendall on the sensitivity of the Holy Spirit:
Where I was preaching once, just before the service the minister asked me, “What does a veteran like you have to say to a young whippersnapper like me?”
I replied to him: “Find out what grieves the Holy Spirit and don’t do that.”

EPHESIANS 6
So finally, after telling us who we are in Christ, how powerful God is, how we have authority from God over the evil spirits in the heavenly places, and how to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit, FINALLY we are at the climax of the book. We’ve done all the prep-work; finally we can go into battle.
Verses 11-13
11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.
If you just jump into Ephesians 6:11 without going through all the stuff that came before, it would be like sending a soldier into combat without putting him through basic training.
You wouldn’t want a soldier who hadn’t been trained in combat and hadn’t had their skills and muscles developed. No, you want a soldier who has been thoroughly trained. One who has learned to take orders, to listen to his commanding officer, to apply his defensive armaments, to correctly handle and use his weapons.
And that’s true in the spiritual realm as well. God wants soldiers who are well-trained, well-learned, and have their spiritual instincts trained for combat.
And Ephesians is great for that; that’s why I call it a Spiritual Warfare Field Guide.
A Greek soldier from thousands of years ago named Archilochus is known for this quote about troops who find themselves on the battlefield: “You don’t rise to the level of your expectations; you fall to the level of your training.”
So we Christian soldiers need to be well trained for the fight. And Ephesians is a book that helps us do that.
[musical interlude]

NEXT TIME & MAILBAG
So this week we did an overview of spiritual warfare. Next week, I want to share some thoughts about WHY we do spiritual warfare.
Also next week: I will be on vacation. So for next week’s episode, I’m going to share a segment of a sermon that I recently preached at the church where I’ve been filling in the past few months, and I speak about WHY we do spiritual warfare.
Make sure you’re subscribed so you can get it!
Don’t forget to check out the new website for this ministry: WeirdStuffInTheBible.com. You can get more answers to questions you have about Weird Stuff in the Bible. I just launched it in May, so there’s not a whole lot of content there yet, but it’s going to grow every week.
Thank you to Jay who had a comment about the episode on Jephthah a couple of weeks back. I made my case in that episode for why Jephthah didn’t really need to sacrifice his daughter, if that’s what he did, and one of the reasons I said that is because there was a sacrifice for foolish vows in Leviticus 5. Jay had a note on that, that Leviticus 27 also includes a price Jephthah could have paid to remove the obligation he thought he had to sacrifice his daughter. So thank you for that additional info, Jay.
Also, shoutout to Stuart who wrote in and said he’s enjoying the podcast. And thanks again for your kind note, Stuart. If anyone wants to get in touch with me, my email is WeirdSTuffInTheBible@gmail.com (or just use the new website to contact me)

Closing Thoughts
I know I’ve used a lot of quotes today, but I want to share one more with you from CS Lewis in his book Mere Christianity. I think it just accurately summarizes the fight we’re in.
One of the things that surprised me when I first started reading the New Testament seriously was that it talked so much about a Dark Power in the universe—a mighty evil spirit who was held to be the Power behind death and disease, and sin. This Dark Power was created by God, and was good when he was created, but then rebelled and went wrong. Thus this universe is at war, a civil war, a rebellion, and we are living in a part of the universe occupied by the Dark Power that is rebelling against good. 
Enemy-occupied territory—that is what this world is. 
Christianity is the story of how the rightful King has landed—you might say landed in disguise as one of us—and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage. 
So when you go to church you are really listening-in to the secret communications from our friends: that is why the enemy is so anxious to prevent us from going to church or reading the Bible.
Spiritual power, friends .When you became a Christian, you were conscripted for the fight. You didn’t start the fight. You probably won’t end the fight. But you’re in the fight.
And probably what the church needs right now is not another sermon on how God wants to fulfill all your dreams and another worship song about how Jesus is your boyfriend. We need discipleship. We need spiritual training. We need to get armored up and join the fight. To take back the dominion that God gave man but that we have surrendered to the enemy.
Because the enemy has taken too much ground in this culture, and it’s time for us to take it back.
And Ephesians tells us how to do it. And next week we’ll talk about why.
So if you think spiritual warfare is weird, I hope you’re a little more weird today, too. Thanks for listening, God bless you for sticking around until the end, and we’ll see you next time on Weird Stuff in the Bible.