Read Ephesians 5-6. As you read, note what this text tells you about the nature of God. What does it tell you of the character of God? How do you see God as love in this text?
Read and reflect on a portion of the preface to The Screwtape Letters and then answer the questions that follow:
“There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.”
Where do you find yourself on this continuum? What passage of Scripture or personal experience has had the greatest impact on your belief? How do you perceive the spiritual universe intersecting with material world?
Read Ephesians 6.10-17 and answer the following two questions: At first glance, what does the passage reveal about the nature of spiritual conflict?
What does the passage reveal about divine provision for believers to overcome in the midst of spiritual conflict?
Why is verse 10 considered the most important verse of this section of text?
Paul knows that Ephesus has been a place of demonic activity. Read Acts 19.13-20 and answer the questions below.
What does this passage say about demonic activity? What can we learn from the example of the Seven sons of Sceva?
Describe the primary difference of the knowledge of Jesus vs. the knowing of Jesus as displayed in this text.
How is your knowing of Jesus displayed in your everyday life?
Paul ties the need for spiritual armor to qualities related to the development of character—the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the gospel of peace, the shield of faith—why so?
Note the call to stand in verses 11-14. How do you see the text in terms of resistance vs. attack? How does this differ from some contemporary approaches to spiritual warfare?
Read the Lord’s prayer in Matthew 6. When you pray this prayer, what or who are you asking your Father to deliver you from? Be specific.
Read John 10.7-10. What is the primary purpose of the “thief”? How have you seen the thief, “steal and kill and destroy?”
Read some of Paul’s ongoing battle in Romans 7.21-23 and the answer the questions below:
What is the inner conflict?
What is truly at war?
How do you resonate with this struggle today?
Read and reflect on M. Scott Peck’s comments of evil. “Evil is the refusal to tolerate one’s sense of sinfulness. The central defect of evil is not the sin but the refusal to acknowledge it.”
