Ephesians 6:17-18

“Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.”

This passage from Paul comes at the end of a section on “spiritual armor.” He ends with our offensive weapon – the one part of our asset package that pushes back the enemy. With a little study, the nuances come to life and the words show special significance as to “how” Paul intended us to use the Word of God and what he expected of the Ephesian believers in their everyday handling of the “sword of the Spirit – the Word of God.” 

First, the Greek word translated in verse 17 for the English “word,” rhema, specifically means “spoken word” (very different from the word logos, from John 1:1,14, which means “a word (as embodying an idea), a statement, a speech.”) Secondly, there is no punctuation or “period” between verse 17 and 18 in the original text. The verse to the Ephesians would have sounded like “…take…the sword of the Spirit, which is the spoken word of God as you pray in the Spirit with all kinds of prayers and requests…” The famous Bible expositor W.E. Vine wrote of the passage that because of Paul’s use of the word rhema, he presupposed the regular committing of Scripture to memory for the use of prayer fuel to be handled under the direction of the Spirit. This belays an important question… How good can our prayer life be if the Spirit inside of us has no Scriptural contact to awaken in us as we attempt to pray down the promises of God for ourselves and others because we have not taken the time to commit the Word of God to memory?

Describe the difference in effectiveness of two soldiers–one who goes into battle with a 4’ two edged sharp sword verses another soldier who is carrying a pocket knife.

Describe what your prayer life might be like if you had, in your head & heart, 250 of God’s best promises from His Word committed to memory?