How would Jesus wield the sword of the Spirit?

Ephesians 6:17 tell us to engage in spiritual combat with the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. What I think is assumed in this passage from Paul though, is that the sword of the Spirit is a weapon, and that weapons don't fight the enemy themselves. It is the soldier who has to learn how to wield the weapon in order to make use of it to attack the enemy. A gun won't fire by itself unless someone pulls the trigger. A cannon won't shoot unless someone lights it up. And contrary to Kim Jon Il, bombs on the North Korean/South Korea don't just "go off" themselves.

The same can be said of the sword of the Spirit. Merely possessing it will not defeat the enemy. Merely holding it in front of you between you and the enemy will not defeat the enemy. One has to learn, experientially grasping first hand, how to wield it like Zorro (or Cloud from FF7).



Then it will be of significant supernatural help in supernatural warfare.

I would like to share 2 principles of "wielding the sword of the Spirit" based on my own experience and research.



Principle #1: The never-changing content of the Word of God must be continually contextualized in a manner that is relevant to some aspect of the Christian's first-person experience, even if it is the Christian's vicarious first-person experience at best.



When we look at how Jesus wielded the sword of the Spirit, we see that he exercised principle #1 all the time. He never used culturally irrelevant analogies to his audience. He always adapted the content of the word of God with some aspect of his audience's first-person/everyday experience. In his Matthew 6:25-34 exhortation to not worry about the things of life, he used fitting farming analogies to an agrarian society (e.g. mention of birds feeding, barns, grass growing in the field and regularly being disposed of and thrown into a fire. Jesus used these culturally relevant examples to strike a dynamic chord with his audience, because he knew that making references to things of his audience's everyday/mundane environment would deeply resonate with their heart on a level that overflows to the intricate implications of their everyday life. Using mere emotion to passionately preach abstract doctrines were not the primary methods of wielding the word of God that Jesus used (although Jesus did believe objectively true abstract doctrines). Jesus was known for his culturally relevant parables that were custom-tailored to various ears of various audiences.

We should not only teach the same content of what Jesus taught. We should teach it in the same manner/style which he taught. That means avoiding culturally irrelevant analogies to recipients of the word, or just mere abstract doctrines without any references to people's first-person experience (as important as solid/sound doctrines are in themselves, they don't enable one to wield the sword of God in combat in any way that's of use [e.g. if one is being tempted to hate someone, be impatient, lust, be greedy, or covet, merely reminding oneself of abstractly true doctrines is pretty useless]). We should be able to adapt non-changing Kingdom of God principles to ever-changing environments/contexts in a way that is natural, smooth, non-forced, and fitting. It is my opinion that Jesus didn't rehearse his sermons in advance every time when he gave people spontaneous exhortations about the word of God. I think that he so deeply internalized the principles of the word of God and that he was so well versed in it that he could easily take any random object in his sight and say profound kingdom principles with them. That is, in his day, he easily took random everyday objects in his environment and expounded about profound spiritual realities by casually referring to them. Some of these include:


-fishing nets
-olive oil for virgins at a wedding
-mustard seeds, vines, branches
-wineskins
-bread/leavening


I am 99% sure that if Jesus were physically living in the 21st Century West, he would not use those culturally irrelevant analogies to us if he were on our modern day universities, urbanized shopping malls, downtown festivals etc. He might choose random cultural objects or symbols in our environment such as:


-ipods, iphones, ipads
-the subway
-facebook
-the current economic crises
-hollywood movies


He would use these to tell us profound spiritual truths about the nature of the Kingdom of God.

I think we should aim to do the same if we are to wield the sword of the Spirit just like our master swordsman Jesus did.

So to recap on principle#1 of divine sword wielding, we should aim to conceptually embody non-changing spiritual principles of the Kingdom of God in ever-changing culturally relevant symbols with constant relevant contextualization.

Here is where Shanghai noon illustrates this well.

The rope dart is a cool ancient Chinese weapon of warfare. Ideally, the warrior should personally master and internalize the principles of how to use it.



Jackie Chan's character in Shanghai noon has personally mastered and internalized the principles of how to use the rope dart (a piece of metal tied to a rope) in combat. He possesses the skill, or the skill possesses him to such an extent that he can look around in his foreign environment, find culturally similar tools (in this case a horseshoe and a cowboy rope) and use them for the same function of a rope dart in order to combat his enemies. In this sense, we can see that he is like Jesus.

(watch from 7:50-end)



Let us look at an example of principle #1 for the modern western Christian in action when he is faced in spiritual warfare with a lie/illusion of the enemy (for the enemy always speaks in lies) and uses culturally relevant parables that adequately embody Kingdom principles in order to combat the enemy. Let's say he is engaged in ministry, and things go haywire, chaotic, and seem to go down the drain. People are walking away from the faith, there is church politics/disunity, loyal disciples are really struggling in their walks, and no new people are being added into God's Kingdom. It is easy for him to get discouraged with lies from the enemy such as "God's ways don't seem to work, God's laws aren't true, God's promises aren't reliable". He can then take the culturally relevant analogy of Western magicians performing magic to audiences to "meditate" on the word of God in his situation. He can take the parallel of a magician "seeming to defy the law of gravity, but only using illusions to fool the minds of the audience" and match that up with Satan being an evil magician that does tricks to make things "seem to defy God's laws/ways/promises and get away with it but only using spiritual illusions to fool the minds of the Christian". The Christian can then further meditate on this culturally relevant parable of the Kingdom of God and know that just as how scientific laws (such as the law of gravity) don't stop being true if a magician temporarily fools the audience through tricks and sleights of hand, Satan the master liar/spiritual trickster cannot annul/negate/defy the spiritual laws, ways, and promises of God and his Kingdom even if he temporarily fools Christians with his spiritual tricks and slights of hand that they "seem like they can be violated without consequence".


"He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies."
-John 8:44



I would find that the above example in combating the lies of the enemy in spiritual warfare is far more effective than merely reminding oneself abstract theological doctrines (e.g. "God is always right and good while Satan is always wrong and bad") as true as those abstract theological doctrines are.

Even if culturally relevant examples from one's first-person experience cannot be related to Kingdom principles to construct a contemporary parable, one can still accomplish a similar effect by drawing parallels with one's vicarious experience, that is, mainly through stories and movies that one has read or watched.

For example, there is a difference between merely reminding oneself of the abstract theological doctrine that "the spiritual armour of God in Ephesians 6 helps us to fight the forces of spiritual darkness" and meditating on G.I. Joe body suits that enable a soldier to jump higher, run faster, dodge weapons, and take/withstand hits better than the soldier can without it.



The same goes with spiritual armour, where we can accomplish so much more being equipped with it than what we can on our own without it.



Principle #2: The words of Scripture need to come alive, leap off of the pages of the Bible, and with fresh and invigorating dynamic become organically spoken to us through a live voice from lips of the living, breathing personhood of the Divine Author.



There is a world of a difference between reading the words of a letter that a person has written in the past to you, and that living/breathing person himself/herself speaking those exact same words to you in a live conversation that is currently taking place.

I can illustrate this with an example with my girlfriend.

(By the way, the cliche is true, I am learning so much about my relationship with God through my relationship with my girlfriend it is insane. My understanding of how I relate to God has broadened and expanded a lot due to drawing parallels between my relationship with my wonderful, beautiful, irreplaceable, sweet, and godly girlfriend =P)

Sometimes I get insecure about my relationship with my wonderful, beautiful, irreplaceable, sweet, and godly girlfriend, where I feel that there are so many other guys out there who can offer her stuff that I can't offer. I can't promise her an economically stable, financially comfortable lifestyle due to a secured and well-paid job that I don't have. I can't promise her spiritual, physical, emotional safety if she remains with me due to receiving future attacks from the enemy in labouring for city-wide revival in Toronto. She'll probably get attacked more because she's most important to me and the devil will try to take me down by taking her down. So I get insecure sometimes when I overthink things, all the "what ifs", like all the other guys out there who can (at least in human estimation) offer her an economically stable, financially comfortable lifestyle, with relative safety and comfort and minimal risk. When I think about this, as well as the added cultural pressure to "get a good job" (in asian standards), I sometimes get insecure, thinking that she'll leave me someday, or that even if she does stay with me, she'd rather be with someone else who can better offer her those materialistic benefits in our materialistic society.

So, what I do a lot of the time to "combat" this is that I try to remind myself of the times where she has genuinely affirmed to me that:


-she won't pin my identity down to whatever job I have
-that she doesn't care about materialistic comfort/luxury, "success" in worldly standards
-that she'll support me and believe in me, and respect me no matter what job God ends up giving to me
-it doesn't matter what other people think, she'll still care for me and look upon me with positive regard


Replaying these words in my mind that she has repeatedly told me in the past helps a little bit. But they are still words spoken in the past, that have lost their aroma of "freshly heard words in a live conversation".

But, when we meet up again, and she looks me in the eye and tells me the exact same words that reassure me, there is something different that happens within me compared to me just merely reminding myself of the same reassuring words that have been genuinely spoken to me in the past. There is a dynamic freshness to her words spoken currently that have this feel of aliveness to them that cuts off any lies that are "picnicking" in my mind. Those freshly words spoken live just slices all these lies in my mind like a sword splitting a kitchen cloth.

This first-person experience of this process helps me understand a bit more of the nature of Hebrews 4:12.


"For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart."


To be completely honest, I thought that a lot of this verse that was oftly quoted in Christian circles was mere rhetoric. I thought that the author of Hebrews probably meant what he said, but tried to "Obama-ly" size things up like a western politician. Now, with the deeper understanding gained from the aforementioned experience with my girlfriend, I have come more and more to realize that the writer of Hebrews was not just using flamboyant rhetoric to describe the awesomeness of the word of God. He was speaking for real, and probably from his first-hand experience of the word of God coming alive off of the pages of Scripture, and slicing the lies of the enemy with that aura of freshly spoken words from a living, breathing, and consciously personal Author "looking him in the eye" and powerfully speaking to him his words in a live conversation.

There is a "catch" to this principle #2 though. It is not something we can completely control (just like how we can't completely control the timing and content of words that our friends speak to us in a live conversation with them). We can only create the conditions/opportunities, and the rest is out of our hands and in the hands of the friends that we're talking to. So with respect to our relationship with God, it is up to him when he does this, and sometimes he remains temporarily silent for our growth. But when God does show up and speak those live words to us, the rest is history. Attacks of fear, doubt, discouragement, anxiety just get thoroughly and definitively sliced by the double-edged sword coming out of the mouth of Jesus (Revelation 1:16)

To be honest, the words of the Bible can seem "wooden" and non-dynamic at times. Although they are always true, they don't always seem to have that "alive vigour/aura" in and of themselves. However, the Holy Spirit can give living breath to those seemingly "wooden words" and bring them to life when he speaks them to us in a current/live conversation we have with him.



Since the Holy Spirit is a live, conscious person, he can take the seemingly "wooden" words that we meditate on in the "cupboard" of our minds, and turn them into dynamic, living, moving, and breathing words. Just like how the indian in the cupboard turned from a wooden/static figure into a live indian at the turn of the cupboard's key. The Holy Spirit is the key to turning the words of Scripture into supernaturally alive words.





In my own life recently, I have been experiencing some rough "spiritual deserts", where the lies of Satan were just harassing me and assaulting me like there was no tomorrow. However, a friend of mine, directly prompted by the Holy Spirit to share specific biblical passages with me, shared some passages with me and the effect was dynamically supernatural. Throughout different weeks, she gave me different verses of Scripture and each time, it had the effect of turning the loving words of God that were genuinely spoken yet seemingly "wooden" to me into "live words" in a "live conversation" with a living God.

The Holy Spirit prompted her to share to me on different weeks:
-Zechariah 4:6
-Joshua 1:7-9
-Psalm 37:23
-Isaiah 40:28-31

I know this friend of mine wasn't just sharing randomly picked passages and glibly saying that they were "from the Lord". I know that it had to be the Holy Spirit speaking through her to speak to me live because immedately, there was spiritual intuition that resonated with my spirit when these words were spoken to me (the effect was on a spiritual level as opposed to an "intellectual click" on the intellectual level or mere "emotional fuzziness" on the emotional level [hard to explain unless one has experienced the distinction first-hand]). I immediately knew, without any outside help, how these verses were so relevant to my life specifically. These verses also were consistent with other charismatic prophecies spoken into my life independently. To my knowledge, these people speaking specifically consistent things in my life don't know each other. That's confirmation. Unless they're all in some conspiracy of tapping into my phones/emails. But I trust in a supernatural God. And I believe in that charismatic stuff

Let us wield the sword of the Spirit well in this supernatural spiritual warfare. For our spiritual life and vitality depends on it.