For a Helmet the Hope of Salvation

For a Helmet the Hope of Salvation

This summer I’ve been involved in the early morning women’s Bible study on 1 & 2 Thessalonians over Zoom.  It’s been so great to connect with women I wouldn’t have otherwise had the opportunity to see during this Covid-19 period of time.

One section that the study highlighted was 1 Thessalonians 5:8: “But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.”

When I think about the phrase “for a helmet the hope of salvation,” my brain can fog over because “salvation” is kind of a church-y word.  It made me think about a section of Isaiah that I’ve been meditating on lately where Isaiah is talking about the salvation that God has planned for his people.  It helps me to get a better feel for everything that is encompassed in the phrase “hope of salvation”:

“You will say in that day: 

“I will give thanks to you, O Lord, 

for though you were angry with me, 

your anger turned away, 

that you might comfort me. 

“Behold, God is my salvation; 

I will trust, and will not be afraid; 

for the Lord God is my strength and my song, 

and he has become my salvation.””

‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭12:1-2‬ ‭ESV‬‬

The helmet of the hope of salvation is protecting the mind of the Christian with the reality of the good God has planned for us.  Do I believe that God has come to save me, not only in the future sense of the word on the day of judgement, but for today: saving me from fear, and giving me strength and joy (“my song”), and comforting me?  We get to see a different perspective that Isaiah didn’t; we can call to mind how God has come to save us in the humble form of a baby.  

I was also thinking about how the opposite of salvation is condemnation.  We could say that the helmet of salvation protects us from the whispers of condemnation from our Enemy by reminding us of God’s sacrificial plan to rescue us.

Thinking about God’s plan for salvation guards my mind by focusing it on God’s active pursuit of us and plan to reconcile us to him.  How does thinking about God’s pursuit of you affect your thinking today?