Read: Ephesians 6:10-18
Memory Verse: Ephesians 6:14
Stand therefore, having your loins girded about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness,
Girding the loins… How do we do this? I often think of Roman soldiers when this idea is mentioned in scripture. Soldiers wore loose fitting lower garments and when it came time to fight, the garment would get in the way. So, the soldier wrapped up the garments around his hips and cinched them with a belt to allow him better movement. But soldiers were not the only ones to do this. Any man of ancient times that went to do manual labor would do the same thing, wrapping up his garments so that he could move around better. So common was this practice that it became a metaphor for getting ready to do hard work. It was a phrase very similar to how we say, “let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work”. Girding the loins is a command to prepare yourself for real work in the kingdom. And we are to do this with truth.
The Greek word for truth here is “alētheia” and one of the interesting things about this word is that the ancient Greeks used it synonymously for the word “reality”. Truth for the Greeks meant what was real. For believers, we have truth that is a reality but the world around us is committed to untruths and lies. So, for us to prepare we must evaluate everything through the truth that comes from God. For me, I often think of God’s truth as a filter. All the world’s ideas must be put through that filter so that I can pick out the junk of the world. To do that we must know and be constantly reminding ourselves about God’s truth, either by reading God’s word, meditating on God’s word, or listening to solid biblical preaching.
So how do we gird up the loins? We make a serious commitment to God’s truth and evaluate all things through God’s truth so that we can be effective in our kingdom work.
Meditation for the Day: Read Ephesians 6:12. How does knowing God’s truth allow you to understand the real battle taking place?
Assignment: Commit with a partner to be consistent in daily Bible study during the Armor series. Write out a truth that you learn each day and how you are going to live that truth.
For Fun: Look up on the internet how to gird your loins. It’s not something we do but seeing how it was done helps to see how effective it would have been.