WOULD YOU CARRY SOMEONES ARMOR

ARMOR BEARER WANNABES

 

I have heard recently of people who name themselves as armor bearers for others.

They may not know what it is they are committing to.

An armor bearer is one who is bound to a warrior, who is being trained up by the warrior to do battle in the same fashion as the warrior himself has been trained in.

The armor bearer has the responsibility of studying the use of, and carrying about a portion of the weapons of war.

An armor bearer will learn the trade of war just by being around the weapons and by seeing them used.

An armor bearer gets none of the glory when battles are won, he must wait his turn.

Armor in the sense of a shield, a helmet, a sword, or a word, can be used for either defense or most surely for offense.

The greatest warrior will use the shield as a fortress and as an object of brute force.

The helmet can be used to deflect misdirected blows, it can be decorated in a way to draw attention to it and away from the one who wears it, and it can be used as an object of weight on the end of the arm of the warrior to crush and bruise the opponent.

The javelin or spear can be used to strike from a distance or it can be used as a prod to keep an opponent beyond arms length.

The sword is the weapon that separates and divides, if used with skill.

It opens a path, it causes a flow.

The armor bearer will set the armaments before the warrior in the field of battle and then take whatever weapon he has learned to use and will position himself as rear guard for the warrior, watching out for foul attacks from the back.

This battle, this apprenticeship, has become a matter of life and death.

The armor bearer understands that if the warrior falls, then he too will suffer whatever the enemy desires.

In the book of 1 Samuel 14:12-13 we see the relationship of a warrior and an armor bearer.

You can be certain that Jonathan chose his armor bearer carefully.

And so should we.