Behind the Scenes: Spiritual Armor : Ephesians 6

Almost a year ago, a customer of mine requested that I create Ephesians 6, the chapter about spiritual warfare, for him in my Life Verse style. I wrote it on my "to do" list, thinking that would be a very unique piece to create. The problem remained, where on earth would I get authentic looking armor to create such a cool piece?

Fast forward to this past summer when I put out the call on Facebook ... I got lots of advice as to where to pick up some local armor and my best lead came from my Tyndale coworker's wife {whose hubby creates some awesome covers btw} ... I cannot believe I did not think of that. For, you see when we are creating fiction covers at Tyndale we sometimes need to rent costumes for those covers {I just did a photo shoot last Tuesday for a fiction book I am working on!}

So, my art director's advice was to go to a little shop in the burbs called Kult of Athena, where the owners of the shop were experts at armor {and any type of weapons you may be looking for in fact}. The shop rents out to both Disney and Hollywood! He also told me to be sure to take Sam & my favorite little mister, as they would LOVE the store {boy, was he right!}.

{art available here}

So, I packed up the camera gear and we took a family field trip back to medieval and roman times at Kult of Athena. To date this has been one of the most interesting photo shoots I have done {maybe besides my eagle shots which were just truly awe inspiring}.

After I briefly explained to the store owner how I wanted to visually illustrate the Ephesians 6 passage, he immediately knew exactly what I was looking for. He said for that New Testament era the high Roman guard armor would be authentic to what I need and what Paul would have been referring to in his passage.

My knight in shining armor {aka my hubbalicious} was more than willing to pose for this shoot. He graciously suited up in all the layers (a wool tunic & all) in about 90 degree heat to pose for me. As we previewed the images, he would state how it "needed to look tougher"... oh so fun to get a man's perspective!


I was really awestruck when viewing the pieces of armor in light of thinking about Paul's instructions on how we ought to daily suit up to fight the spiritual battle.

put on the full armor of God
{every piece to be fully covered}

the belt of truth
{which holds everything together in its proper place}

the breastplate of righteousness
{Jesus' righteousness covering our hearts}

your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.
{walk your talk, go & share, be active}

take up the shield of faith
{which extinguishes the fiery arrows of attack}

the helmet of salvation
{protects our mind and thoughts}

the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God
{the only offensive piece with which to attack with:
the powerful word of God}

The piece that shocked me most was the shield. I guess I always just pictured a shield that you would carry around that covers your chest area, but they were saying at the shop that the shields were HUGE {as you can see from the proportions of my images} and were placed on the ground & then you were almost completely covered. So interesting to think of faith in light of that shield.

I hope I utilize my spiritual armor in a more powerful way in light of this passage.

Grace & Peace,
Julie