Shining Armor with Boggling Questions....

I do apologize for my lax in posting on this study..

What amazing timing with this passage. Two friday nights ago, at the Graham's house we spent some extensive time praying though each one of these verses, sometimes stopping after 2-3 words. How I realized that my spiritual muscles were not exercised, and were soon proved weak in perserverance in prayer! During our prayertime though the Lord brought to mind some verses that corresponded and opened my eyes to these passages, provoking questions for me to dive deeper into Scripture.

I will jump ahead a few verses-

Verse 15 says "and , as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts from the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation.." What are the flaming darts of the evil one? Does scripture specifically lay this out for us, or do they take discretion to see them?
Now Look at Isaiah 59:15-17 in amazement. Scripture says: " The Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice. He saw that there was no man and wondered that there was no one to intercede; then his own arm brought him salvation, and his righteousness upheld him. He put on righteousness as a breastplate and a helmet of salvation on his head..." Ephesians talks about US having a breastplate of righteousness but Isaiah talks about the Lord having a breastplate of righteousness. His own arm brought him salvation? How can the Lord be saved? Or rather is it that the Lord brought about the Salvation he had planned?

The breastplate protects our heart..so then how does a breastplate of salvation in a sense protect our heart, our life?

In 1 Thessalonians 5 Paul describes believers as children of the light..he says in verse 8 after he has just warned Christians not to walk in darkness he says something very similar "But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet of the hope of salvation." The hope of salvation? Now this is interesting...I thought I had salvation? Scripture cannot lie so then what does it mean to have the HOPE OF SALVATION? Does this sound like a future tense...or a hope is it a hope in something we already have?

Why shoes to represent peace?