4. With his body girt and fenced and his feet clad with the gospel shoes, the soldier reaches out his left hand to "take up withal the _shield_," while his right hand grasps first the helmet which he places on his head, and then the sword that is offered to him in the word of God.
The shield signified is not the small round buckler, or target, of the light-armed man; but the door-like shield,[173] measuring four feet by two-and-a-half and rounded to the shape of the body, that the Greek hoplite and the Roman legionary carried. Joined together, these large shields formed a wall, behind which a body of troops could hide themselves from the rain of the enemy's missiles. Such is the office of faith in the conflicts of life: it is the soldier's main defence, the common bulwark of the Church. Like the city's outer wall, faith bears the brunt and onset of all hostility. On this shield of faith the darts of Satan are caught, their point broken and their fire quenched. These military shields were made of wood, covered on the outside with thick leather, which not only deadened the shock of the missile, but protected the frame of the shield from the "fire-tipped darts" that were used in the artillery of the ancients. These flaming arrows, armed with some quickly burning and light combustible, if they failed to pierce the warrior's shield, fell in a moment extinguished at his feet.
St Paul can scarcely mean by his "fiery darts" incitements to passion in ourselves, inflammatory temptations that seek to rouse the inward fires of anger or lust. For these missiles are "fire-pointed darts _of the Evil One_." The fire belongs to the enemy who shoots the dart. It signifies the malignant hate with which Satan hurls slanders and threats against the people of God through his human instruments. A bold faith wards off and quenches this fire even at a distance, so that the soul never feels its heat. The heart's confidence is unmoved and the Church's songs of praise are undisturbed, while persecution rages and the enemies of Christ gnash their teeth against her. Such a shield to him was the faith of Stephen the proto-martyr.
"I heard the defaming of many; there was terror on every side. But I trusted in Thee, O Jehovah: I said, Thou art my God!"
To "take up the shield of faith," is it not, like the Psalmist, to meet injuries and threats, the boasts of unbelief and of worldly power, the poisoned arrows of the deceitful and the bitter words of unjust reproach, with faith's quiet counter-assertion? "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" says the apostle in the midst of tribulation. "God is my witness, whom I serve in the gospel of His Son," he answers when his fidelity is questioned. No shaft of malice, no arrow of fear can pierce the soul that holds such a shield.
5. At this point (ver. 17), when the sentence beginning at verse 14 has drawn itself out to such length, and the relative clause of verse 16_b_ makes a break and eddy in the current of thought, the writer pauses for a moment. He resumes the exhortation in a form slightly changed and with rising emphasis, passing from the participle to the finite verb: "And take _the helmet of salvation_."
The word _take_, in the original, differs from the _taking up_ of verses 13 and 16. It signifies the _accepting_ of something offered by the hand of another. So the Thessalonians "_accepted_ the word" brought them by St Paul (1 Thess. i. 6) and Titus "_accepted_ the consolation" given him by the Corinthians (2 Cor. viii. 17)--in each case a welcome gift. God's hand is stretched out to bestow on His chosen warrior the helmet of salvation and the sword of His word, to complete his equipment for the perilous field. We accept these gifts with devout gratitude, knowing from what source they come and where the heavenly arms were fashioned.