How armor, footwear, good news and peace go together – Boots of Peace, Part 3

What is peace?  It can be defined as “a set of favorable circumstances involving tranquility.”^[1] 

In our study of the Armor of God in Ephesians 6:10-20, Paul writes that we should have our feet with the readiness of the Gospel of Peace. How is Paul connecting all these concepts together? Armor, footwear, Gospel, and Peace. Remember that Paul was a Jew.  In the Jews’ ancient Hebrew Bible, which we Christians call the Old Testament, there is a Hebrew word for peace that is rich in meaning.  It is the Hebrew word “Shalom.” 

It is quite possible that Paul, when he writes that we should have our, “feet fitted with the readiness of the Gospel of Peace,” likely has one of those Old Testament references to peace on his mind. 

The prophet Isaiah in Isaiah, in Isaiah chapter 52, verse 7, says something that sounds an awful lot like what Paul says about this part of the Armor of God in Ephesians 6:15.  Who was Isaiah? 

Isaiah’s ministry took place during an era of upheaval in the ancient near east.  Powerful foreign nations attacked and exiled some Jews away to those foreign nations.  But Isaiah prophesied that God would eventually restore the people to the land.  In chapter 52, Isaiah is talking about that restoration. In verse 7, Isaiah writes,

“How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!’”

Isaiah is depicting a scene of incredible joy.  There are runners, perhaps military scouts whose job it is to run ahead and declare the good news that peace has come to the land because God is bringing the exiles back to Israel.  There is good news of peace.  No more war.  The good news of peace is that God reigns!  God has won the victory. 

Fast-forward to Paul writing about the armor of God in Ephesians, and it seems this passage from Isaiah was on Paul’s heart and mind.  Paul now knows that it is Jesus who is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy.  It is Jesus who has won the victory over sin, death and the devil.  Now you and I are like the scouts, fitted with our running shoes, so that we can swiftly, readily, declare the good news of peace.   War is over.  God reigns.  Shalom is possible.  Peace is available to all.

Interestingly, Paul would refer to this very passage from Isaiah in his letter to the Romans.  Turn to Romans 10.  In this section of Paul’s letter to the Romans, he is referring to the same situation that Isaiah was writing about.  Paul is answering a question: If God has a new covenant with the church in Christ, what about his old promises to Israel?  Is God not keeping his promises? 

Paul says, “Of course God will keep his promises,” because as he writes in Romans 10, verses 9 and 10, “If anyone confesses with their mouth that ‘Jesus is Lord’ and believes in their heart that God raised him from the dead, they will be saved.  And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”  Paul is saying this with great joy.  Yes, Israel can be saved if they place their faith in Jesus the Messiah.  All people can be saved who place their faith in Jesus. 

In verses 14 and 15, Paul urges all Christians to be people who joyfully and readily share this good news.  He writes,

“How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’”

There are plenty of people who have not heard this good news.  You and I are the people who put on our running shoes and run around proclaiming the good news story.  As Paul and Isaiah both said, what we proclaim is the good news story of peace.

In the next post we continue to look at how Scripture describes the kind of peace God wants all people to experience.

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^[1] Johannes P. Louw and Eugene Albert Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, 1996), 246.

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