Rev Chris Roth

Ephesians 6:10-20 Our reading from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is about spiritual warfare. He says,  “put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil”.  We don’t spend much time talking about the devil, so our images of spiritual warfare might be more shaped by Hollywood, rather than theology or our Christian Tradition. So, when we hear the phrase “spiritual warfare” we might think about the movie “The Exorcist”, but the practice of exorcism is not the primary way that Christians do spiritual warfare. About 13 years ago I was in a Christian bookstore and I picked up a book called “The Tools of Spiritual Warfare”. With a title like that my curiosity was piqued, but the book wasn’t what I expected. I’m not sure what I was expecting to find. I think I was expecting information about demons, and ways to pray against them. That wasn’t at all what I found in reading the book. It started with the sacrament of Baptism as a declaration of war