Shield of Faith

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

The shield that Paul talked about might have been something like this one.
It was made of wood, covered with linen & leather and there was a rim covered with brass or bronze metal.  The leather was to be dipped in water before battle so it would not catch fire and it would extinguish the flaming arrows.  The metal rim was to protect against a sword attack on the shield.  The shield was curved to better protect around the soldier.  It could be used individually or in a group.

They could protect or advance toward the enemy with this shield.  The protection was very important when the enemy would shoot hundreds of arrows all at once.  Kind of like in some of the Lord of the Rings scenes when sky was like a rain of arrows.  Without it we are defenseless! 
 
Some of the questions that came up last week were ones like:
"Why is there evil in the world?"  Some answers that were discussed were:

1. People were given free will.  We can choose to accept or reject Jesus.  If we reject Jesus then people open ourselves up to what they think is right. 
2. God's original plan was to live with humans and have relationship with them.  Humans chose to reject God therefore the world changed from the God's original plan. 
3. One youth said that without evil there's no comparison to what is good.  I thought that was an insightful comment. 
4. God can use bad happenings to teach us or so that we would rely on Him instead of ourselves.

 
Another question that we discussed for a while was:
"How do we know that Christianity (following Jesus) is right and other religions wrong?"

1. There's no absolute way to absolutely prove to people that Christianity is true & right, but I believe that there is much more evidence that true Christianity has than any other religion or philosophy of life.  (See the books by Josh McDowell Evidence that demands a verdict 1, 2 & 3 and the list at the end of this blog entry)
2. In most other religions people are trying to be good enough to make it to heaven.  In true Christianity it is God that reaches down to us instead of us reaching up to Him.  Mike Thomas quoted Bill Hybels when he talked about Do vs. Done.  Most people try to "do" enough or do the right things to make it to heaven.  On the other hand, Jesus Christ has "done" the work that we could never do.  Jesus paid for our penalty of sin by dieing as a perfect person without sin and he died on the cross in our place.  Therefore God raised Him from the dead.  So we must truly put our belief and trust in Jesus.  If we truly trust Jesus then our life will focused on living our lives for Him and His purposes and not our own.  Our lives change and in a sense our lives no longer belong to ourselves, but our lives belong to Jesus.

 
Helpful books in the church library (check a book out and learn more about what we studied):
New Evidence that Demands a Verdict, Josh McDowell



More Than A Carpenter, Josh McDowell
Answers, Josh McDowell
Reasons, Josh McDowell
Case for Christ, Lee Strobel
Case for Faith, Lee Strobel
Case for Easter, Lee Strobel
Can Man Live Without God?, Ravi Zacharias
Jesus Among Other Gods, Ravi Zacharias
Know Why You Believe, Paul Little
Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis
Who Moved the Stone?, Frank Morison
Letters From A Skeptic

For all those at FBC, Deacon Mike Thomas has 10 copies of The Reason for God by Timothy Keller (will be in the library soon). Let me know if you want another book suggestion.
Pastor Chris