ARMAIC WORD STUDY – ARMOR THAT SHINES – ZINA – זינא   Zayin, Yod, Nun Aleph

Ephesians 6:11: “Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.”

Oh, the precious memories this verse brings back to me.  I first heard about the armor of God in primary Vacation Bible School.  Our teacher had a big picture of a Roman Warrior with all his armor and she explained each piece of armor that was mentioned in Ephesians 6.  

I mean what child of the 50’s only ten years away from World War II and a couple years from the Korean war, didn’t watch all those war movies on TV.  We all had fathers who fought in World War II and we loved hearing the war stories. So naturally when Paul uses the warrior motif, he had our attention.  During our craft time in VBS we even made cardboard likeness of the armor which we all wore on stage on the last day of VBS, where the chosen ones, not me, got to recite a few lines before all the parents what each piece of armor represented. 

We all knew what armor was for, it was to protect you and each piece represented a spiritual asset to fight off the wiles of the devil.  The word armor in Hebrew is sharion which means to protect, make secure.  This follows the Greek word which is panoplian which means just that, armor, a complete set of armor.  We do this to stand against the wiles of the devil. What are wiles?  In the Greek it is methodeia where we get our English word method.  It means to strategize, to scheme, to be crafty or deceitful.  That bodes will with the Aramaic word tseneth which means a plot, scheme, a trick or deceit. 

Why does the enemy resort to trickery or deceit?  We all know the answer to that.  That is all he has is deceit, trickery or lies.  He was defeated at the cross when Jesus shed His blood, died and rose again.  The only way to get to us is to lie, to get us to sin and then throw that sin up in our face when we try to worship God or seek God.  “God will not listen to you after you sinned.” He will whisper.  

We will scratch or head and say: “You know he’s right.”  We will fall for his lie if we are not wearing the armor of God which is  truth, righteousness, Gospel of peace, faith, salvation and the Word of God.  We need each piece of armor not to protect us from personal attack but from lies.  We just need to use our sword and quote “The blood of Jesus has cleansed me from all my sin, you little liar you.”  

Note we need all the armor to stand.  This word stand is the same word in the Aramaic that is used in James 4:7 where we are told to stand against the devil.  This is a standing for or against something,  It is taking your stand.  When the enemy comes we do not retreat and hide, we are to stand against him and slash out with our sword, Word of God if he attacks. 

Well, I have not told you anything new, that you did not already know, I hope I reminded you, however.  I mean the enemy is wily.  He will try to scare you to death, maybe even give you a vision of an ugly creature called a demon to scare you, but it is just smoke and mirrors.  He can’t do a blasted thing against you. If he does, he can only do it with God’s permission and you have God’s covering. 

Oh, but I forgot to tell you the Aramaic word for armor, my bad, it is zina, which means protection and security, but also something else, it means shinny. A good knight takes care of his armor, he polishes it every day.  The very sight of a warrior approaching in shinny armor scares off the foe before he every reaches him.  Shinny armor shows the warrior is a proud warrior, brave, one who is ready for battle at all times.  He never lets that polished shine fade.  If we don’t take care of our armor, truth, righteousness, Gospel of peace, faith, salvation and the Word of God, if we don’t polish that armor every day and it loses its shine, the enemy will take advantage of it and he will sneak in and scare you to death with his lies.