The Iron of God

by Becky Hartung
(Lima, Ohio)

The Church Ladies Talk Show

TOPIC:
Resisting the Devil, Armor of God

SYNOPSIS:
How often do we find ourselves discussing spiritual matters without applying it to our hearts? Join Pam & Paula in their weekly basic cable talk show when they talk about spiritual matters.

(Pam and Paula are best friends who run a basic cable talk show on the local Christian TV station. Today they are talking about the Armor of God. Pam & Paula are best portrayed with Bronx/Jersey accents. Mid-age with wacky hair-dos. Marie is their guest for the day.)

Paula:
Good morning, Good Morning. Welcome to “The Church Ladies.”

Pam:
As you know, my best friend Paula, and I started this show for the “less fortunate” out there in our basic cable viewing audience, as a place for people to find a “safe place” to come, while they are learning from the Word of God.

Paula:
This is our first episode back since I had my hip surgery 2 months ago.

Pam:
And Paula you are looking great! I know that when I had my last knee surgery, I was a mess, got a big ol’ scar right down the side of my leg!

(Pam begins to lift her leg to show the scar on her knee.)

Paula:
Uh, Pam no one in the greater Northwest Ohio district wants to see your knee scar.

Pam:
You're right, and I’m sorry for that.

Paula:
Our first guest on today's show is the writer of a very popular “web” blog online.

Pam:
Blog? Who comes up with names these days?

Paula:
I don’t know. It’s that internet generation, and their crazy “LOLs”, and “BRBs”, I don’t even know what they’re saying anymore!

Pam:
Please welcome our first guest, Maria Silverman!

(Maria enters and takes a seat.)

Paula:
Welcome Maria!

Pam:
Aren’t you the sweetest looking thing!

Maria:
Thank you…

Pam:
Where ya from?

Maria:
I’m originally from—

Paula:
Who does ya hair?

Maria:
My sister in—

Pam:
I see a ring on ya finger. You getting married?

Maria:
Actually, I –

Paula:
Tonight we’ll be studying the Armor of God!

Pam:
Oooo….

Paula:
Thank you Pam, I enjoy your enthusiasm. While I was preparing my lesson I thought to myself… Angelina….how can we make—

Pam:
Angelina? Who in the world is Angelina?

Paula:
That’s what I call myself in my head.

Pam:
Nothing wrong with that!

Paula:
Anyways, I was thinking to myself how could we make this lesson relevant to our culture? How can I bring this into “little people” terms? The Armor of God is an armor that we put on to protect us from the Devil’s attacks on us.

Marie:
I remember learning about that in Sunday school.

Pam:
(Interrupting Marie)
Oh, Paula’s not finished talking Marie. It’s not very nice to interrupt.

Paula:
Thank you, Pam.
I was flipping through the tube, which for those who don’t know is the modern day television, and I came across the movie Iron Man starring Pam’s favorite actor, Roberto Dowlohing Junior.

Paula:
Robert Downing, Jr.

Pam:
And I thought, geeze, this is much like what I need to speak about. I wrote out a list of the parallels between the Spiritual Armor of God, and the costume of Iron Man.

The first point is that Iron Man, and the Armor of God are both used against evil doers.

Paula:
What a good point of that indeed!

Pam:
What do you think of that, Marvin?

Maria:
Maria….Oh, pretty good I guess?

Paula:
These are great!

Pam:
Another one is that they are both made of metal!

Maria:
No they're not. I’m not really sure how this applies to the lesson…

Pam:
I’ll get there!

Paula:
She’s getting there! Watch her tie this all together!

Pam:
Here’s the contrast. Iron Man was a movie, and we are living in real life. So, we must follow God, and not Hollywood.

Paula:
Wham, bam, thank you Pam!

Pam:
Alright, I will now close in prayer.
Dear heavenly, gracious, merciful, wonderful Father—

Maria:
I’m sorry could we stop for a minute?

(Paula & Pam seem a bit offended when they peak up from their prayer.)

Paula:
Thankfully, God is a God of forgiveness and will forgive you for how clearly rude you just were.

Maria:
I just don’t think I learned anything from this study. Shouldn’t we use the Scriptures to help guide us?

Pam:
Look how “spiritual” you are getting! Maybe you’ll write about this experience on your “blog”.

Paula:
Of course we use the Scriptures!

Maria:
I just don’t understand how just talking about the Armor of God will do us any good if we don’t apply it!

Pam:
Another good one! We are to apply it!

Maria:
When?

Paula:
Everyday.

Marie:
How?

Pam:
With your hearts.

Maria:
By doing what?

Paula:
By prayer.

Marie:
And how do we know if it’s working?

Pam:
We trust in God by using the shield of Faith.

(Paula applauds Pam for her efforts to bring up the Armor. )

Maria:
What is it used for?

Pam:
Lots of things, Molly!

Maria:
Obviously, you guys clearly did not take anytime to prepare today’s lesson.

Paula:
Look just because we are “spiritual elders” and we, “care about the broken” and have, “kind hearts”, and “are the least watched basic cable show in television history”, and “go to church” doesn’t mean that “we know the whole Bible.”

Pam:
It’s not like anyone is going to come up on the street corner and give us a 10-question quiz on the armor of God!

Marie:
It’s not about KNOWING the material, but applying it to keep the devil out of your lives. The armor of God is to protect us from the attacks of the devil. How are we supposed to be safe from his attacks if we don’t understand and put on the armor of God?

Paula:
You know what that sounds like?

Pam:
What’s that?

Paula:
The entire plot of Iron Man.

Marie:
I think I’m going to leave.

(Maria leaves.)

Pam:
Well that was a great show today!

Paula:
Tune in next week when we talk about our vacation to Pittsburgh.

Pam:
And we’ll be studying the movie, “Love Story.” And we’ll dive in with the Scripture found in 2 Zacchaeus, “Love never means having to say you’re sorry.”

Pam:
That’s my life verse.

Paula:
We’ll see you back here tomorrow.

(Ad Lib off the stage as they both exit)