Ephesians Part 98

INTRO: In Ephesians 6:13 the first part of the verse we are told how to defeat the devil in general. Here it is:

13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day.

You will remember I recommended a period after the word "day." When I read verse 13 in its entirety and end the verse as it does, it just grates on grammar. It attaches a complete clause to a participial phrase with the conjunction and. The conjunction and always connects words or phrases or clauses of equal rank. A participial phrase has no subject, and a clause does. So the sentence in our text as it is normally translated, is incomplete. If I am missing something, and some grammarian listens to this message, please let me know. As the sentence reads ending at the end of the verse, to me, it is like playing 7 notes on a piano to a musician and then stopping. That grates on any musician's ears.

Now let me cut the sentence off after the word day, and then begin a new sentence:

13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, end of sentence.

New sentence:

13 And having done all, to stand,

14 Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness,

Structuring the sentence like that, the first thing Paul tells us to do is to stand. Like the soldier cannot expect to be able to stand without putting on all his armor, so the Christian cannot expect to stand without putting on the whole armor of God.