In this episode, we explore the powerful metaphor of the Armor of God within the book of Ephesians, emphasizing its communal significance. Katherine and Ken discuss the often-overlooked aspect of corporate identity, exploring how the Gospel of Peace is not merely an individual call but a collective charge for the church to remain unified against spiritual adversaries. As the body of Christ, unity between Jews and Gentiles creates a foundation of peace, strengthening us to withstand the challenges posed by spiritual warfare.
00:00:00 Introduction to the Podcast and Grace Evangelical Society
The following is a listener-supported ministry from the Grace Evangelical Society. What is the gospel of peace mentioned in Ephesians 6 where Paul is describing the armor of God? How do we put it on and who puts it on? A great discussion just ahead for you today on Grace in Focus. So glad that you have joined us, friend. Grace in Focus is the radio broadcast and podcast ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. We have a website, faithalone.org, and we also have a magazine with a free subscription. We’d love for you to sign up for it right there on our website. And here’s the best part. It’s free. You do have to pay postage if you live outside of the 48 Lower United States. Otherwise, it’s free. You’ll love the magazine. Subscribe, sign up for it today at faithalone.org. Now, with today’s question and answer discussion, here are Katherine Wright and Ken Yates.
SPEAKER 01 :
We have a question for Christina, right?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes. I am very, very excited about this question. She asked, what do you think it means when Paul, in talking about the armor of God in Ephesians 6, One of the pieces of the armor of God in 15, Paul says, having shod your feet with the preparation of the, this phrase here, gospel of peace. What does that mean? Most people understand that what Paul is describing is the armor that a Roman soldier would put on, his shoes that would protect him from danger. getting stabbed in the foot. He talks about the gospel of peace, which is kind of like shoes that are to be put on. What does that mean? And here’s why I’m excited about it. This is going to be Catherine’s workshop at the national conference towards the end of May. If you don’t get a chance to go to the national conference, You can look these things up online after they get posted. So if you’re interested more in a discussion of this, what’s your appetite? Man, I want to know more about the armor of God there in Ephesians chapter 6. Then that’s a thing you could do. And I’m also excited about it because… Now she’s the expert. I get to kick back and listen. So what do you think, Catherine? What do you think the gospel of peace here? I know you’re going to have to talk about the armor of God in general or as a group, but specifically, let’s talk about it more in general. What is the armor of God? And then let’s talk about this specific piece of armor.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah. A couple of things about just the book of Ephesians, I think that’s important because when we come to the armor of God, we’re coming really to the climax of the book, right as we’re going to come to the end and kind of his conclusion to it all. And that’s just my first observation that I think people maybe sometimes miss is that really to understand the armor of God, you need to understand what was said in the first five chapters. And what is it that he’s saying in the book of Ephesians? Well, the book of Ephesians is about the church and
SPEAKER 03 :
And that’s so critical.
SPEAKER 01 :
It is. You won’t understand it if you don’t get that point.
SPEAKER 03 :
I forgot how many years ago. That’s what the, was it two or three years ago? The conference was on the book of Ephesians.
SPEAKER 01 :
That’s right. And this, gosh, there’s so many parts to that, that tough text passages in Ephesians that I think are just opened up. It’s like a lock in the key to understanding it, that if you just see that this corporate emphasis, the body of Christ, which had not been revealed in the Old Testament, you know, Our conference this year is on dispensationalism, which sees the distinction between the nation of Israel and the church. Well, the church didn’t exist until the church age, until it was born in Acts. And so we’re dealing with this thing that had not been revealed in the Old Testament, but that the Lord had always predestined, chapter 1, verse 4. And now we’re seeing this new dispensation, this new time. And so the Jews and the Gentiles have come together to form this new entity, the body of Christ, the church. Right.
SPEAKER 03 :
As it’s called in Ephesians, the new man.
SPEAKER 01 :
The new man. That’s another one. Yeah. That’s not an individual thing. I’m not made into a new man when I became a believer, but that the Jews and the Gentiles have been formed into this new entity, the new man.
SPEAKER 03 :
The phrase, the specific phrase, the new man only occurs in Ephesians.
SPEAKER 01 :
That’s right.
SPEAKER 03 :
And it occurs twice.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes. And it’s very clearly dealing with the Jews and Gentiles coming together to form this body. Yeah. Right. So that’s chapter one. It’s chapter two. It’s chapter three. Then it’s talking about the spiritual gifts within the body of Christ for the edification of the body.
SPEAKER 03 :
And how we’re to act within the body.
SPEAKER 01 :
And submission within the body. Yeah. So it’s all, you know, the first three chapters are dealing with the doctrine, but then the last three chapters are dealing with the application. And so how do we now function as a team?
SPEAKER 03 :
And so… How important is that?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
Now, obviously, this is really, really hard, especially for people in the West, because we think so individualized.
SPEAKER 01 :
That’s right.
SPEAKER 03 :
You know, the Protestant work ethic. Yep. Even when we talk about our Christian living, we think, okay, how am I doing? Yes. And even lordship salvation, which we speak out against all the time. Examine yourself. How am I doing? Am I saved? Do I have the fruit? Yes.
SPEAKER 01 :
And to be fair, there are passages that are dealing with individuals and the application of the doctrine there is dealing with me as the individual. But in the book of Ephesians, we are talking about the corporate church.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right. The emphasis is on the body.
SPEAKER 01 :
That’s exactly right. And then we are a team.
SPEAKER 03 :
And the individual then would only be like an application, right?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes. And so when we come to the armor of God, again, to the mindset of it, it’s not about me. It’s about we.
SPEAKER 02 :
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SPEAKER 01 :
It’s not that I, the individual, am putting on the armor of God, that I’m fighting all of this spiritual warfare by myself, which, by the way, I don’t want to do that. That sounds very scary, you know, but that it’s the church that needs to put on this armor of God. Going back to what you were saying about the new man, I think that’s kind of interesting that we are one new man. We are one. And so as that new man, we should put we the church should put on the armor of God.
SPEAKER 03 :
I’ve heard people say that as Paul was talking about the armor of God and he’s in prison, that maybe he had a Roman soldier next to him and he’s describing his equipment. And I was in the military for a long time and I know what people are talking about. You have your boots and you have your armor and you got your helmet and you got all these other things. And so Paul looks over at this Roman soldier and he’s describing all these things. And what we do as individuals is say, okay, that’s me. That’s right. I’m the soldier there. But what you’re suggesting and what was suggested in the conference two or three years ago was, no, this is talking about the church.
SPEAKER 01 :
That’s right.
SPEAKER 03 :
The church is to put on the armor of God.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
And that’s just a completely different paradigm.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, I think of my husband loves Marvel, loves like superhero stuff. And so for the millennials listening to this, you know, or if you’ve just been alive for the last 20 years, all of the movies that have come out, you know, you’ve got Iron Man and Captain America and, you know, all these individual films. But then the Avenger film came out and then there’s been other Avenger films. And Kind of similar thought to that, that yes, as individuals, we have our spiritual gifts and gifting, but that really it’s not until we all come together as the Avengers assemble, right? And we’re this team that we then fight these forces. I don’t know if that analogy helped anybody, but that kind of helps me that it’s more about We are the Avengers. We’re supposed to come together as a team. Because when you look at the spiritual warfare, man, oh, man, if it’s just, again, me by myself or you by yourself and we’re fighting these things, yeah, you’re going to fall pretty quickly.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, I would also say that that’s the purpose of the gifts.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes, that’s yes.
SPEAKER 03 :
I don’t have all the gifts. I need other believers.
SPEAKER 01 :
That’s exactly right.
SPEAKER 03 :
So if I’m fighting this battle, you know, in the military, we had a phrase, there’s no such thing as a Rambo. You know, the Rambo movie is he’s out there just killing everybody by himself. He doesn’t need anybody. You know, he’s a one man army. And there was a stupid army slogan years ago, an army of one. That’s right. And us old timers look at that and go, what a stupid slogan.
SPEAKER 01 :
That’s literally the opposite of what the army should be saying. We’re a team. We are a team.
SPEAKER 03 :
We’re a unit.
SPEAKER 01 :
That’s what boot camp is all about, right? Is establishing that team mentality, working together to achieve the goals. And unfortunately, like you said, I think Westerners really struggle with this. We’re the Lone Rangers. We’re going to come in and pioneer this in our own pulling ourselves up from the bootstraps kind of mentality. And we don’t think tribally.
SPEAKER 03 :
We don’t realize how much we need each other.
SPEAKER 01 :
That’s right.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay. So let’s talk about this specific piece of armor that Christina talked about.
SPEAKER 01 :
That’s right.
SPEAKER 03 :
What is the gospel of peace?
SPEAKER 01 :
That’s right. So we don’t have time for all of the individual elements, but the gospel of peace, there’s a couple of things we have to address there. First of all, as we’re thinking more corporately, what does it mean? Traditionally, and I’m just speaking broadly here, I think a lot of people see this as I as the individual. Again, we think individualistically need to go out and share the saving message with the unbelieving world.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, that if people believe in Jesus, they’ll be at peace with God.
SPEAKER 01 :
And so we’re supposed to put these boots on and go out into the world. Right. And hopefully, as we’re kind of unpacking just the book in general, that really should be set aside. I think that’s just the traditional view and it’s not rooted in the text. But then that begs the question, what does it mean? Well, a couple things. First, we have to define what gospel means.
SPEAKER 03 :
Sure. That’s the first thing.
SPEAKER 01 :
Because the gospel, is this the saving message gospel or is it just a different piece of good news?
SPEAKER 03 :
Because as probably many of our listeners understand, the word gospel simply means good news. So let’s say the good news of peace. Let’s call it.
SPEAKER 01 :
Right. The good news of peace. What is it? Well, just a few verses later. You’ll notice in verse 19, Paul speaks about making the mystery of the gospel known, basically proclaiming this gospel that is the mystery. Well, as we’ve already said, what is the mystery in Ephesians? Chapter 3 says what the mystery is. It’s that this thing that had not been revealed in the Old Testament has now been revealed. What is it? The church. So what is the good news of Ephesians? It’s the good news of the church that Jews and Gentiles have come together to form this body. And so what is the peace then? Well, I would say it’s the peace between the Gentiles and the Jews. They’ve now come together. So it’s not peace between man and God.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, the unbeliever in God.
SPEAKER 01 :
That’s right. And this is also rooted in chapter four. For example, he talks about being in the bond of peace between Jews and Gentiles. And so that we are to be unified in this message of this good news of the body of Christ coming together. Because if we don’t have that, then yeah, the spiritual warfare that’s attacking the church will crumble from within because we’re not unified in it. So we should… put on this gospel, this good news of peace between Jews and Gentiles in the body of Christ.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, let me pick up on that. In chapter 2, Paul says that God created in himself one new man from the two, Jews and Gentiles, making peace. Yep. Making peace. Yep. And he made them into one body. And so what Catherine and I are arguing is that peace is between the Jews and Gentiles now in one body.
SPEAKER 01 :
But then the church. In the church.
SPEAKER 03 :
Mm-hmm. And that the gospel in the book of Ephesians never means the gospel of eternal life, but the good news about the church.
SPEAKER 01 :
That’s right. Which, you know, when we talk about spiritual warfare again, if I could just end on this, how does Satan attack the church? Again, we’re not thinking individually. How does Satan attack the church? He doesn’t want us unified. He wants us fighting.
SPEAKER 03 :
So we need to proclaim peace between the members of the church. Christina, we hope that helps. And for everybody else, keep grace in focus.
SPEAKER 02 :
Be our guest and subscribe to our 48-page magazine, six issues per year, also called Grace in Focus, by emailing your name and snail mail address to ges at faithalone.org. That’s faithalone.org. On this program, we keep our requests for financial partners to a minimum. But if you are interested in becoming a financial partner with Grace in Focus, you can find out how to do that at faithalone.org. And on our next episode, can someone have assurance if they do not believe the Bible is literally true? Come back and join us. And until then, let’s keep Grace in Focus.
SPEAKER 03 :
The preceding has been a listener supported ministry from the Grace Evangelical Society.
