A Second Book Proposal
The Armor of God and the Victory of Jesus
Most Christians have heard a sermon on the armor of God, and many walked away either afraid of the devil or embarrassed to mention him.
Stand Your Ground walks through Ephesians 6:10-20 in nine chapters and traces each piece of the armor back to Isaiah, where God himself puts on righteousness as a breastplate and salvation as a helmet and comes to rescue his people. The Divine Warrior wore the armor first, and the church puts it on from his victory. Written for small groups and theologically curious lay readers in plain language with stories and humor, it offers a third way: a church that takes spiritual warfare seriously and holds its ground with confidence, because Christ has already taken the high ground.
The Divine Warrior wore the armor first.The claim the whole book rests on, from Isaiah 59 to Ephesians 6.
The primary reader is the Christian who has sat through a few spiritual warfare sermons and come away with more anxiety than confidence. Some were told the enemy was behind every bad week; others quietly decided the devil was a metaphor. They want to take Ephesians 6 seriously, and no one has shown them how it fits the rest of the letter or the rest of the Bible.
Eight main chapters of 2,500 to 5,000 words, each closing with a discussion guide. The book runs eight weeks, a fall or spring semester of group life.
Many in Pentecostal and charismatic churches. The book affirms what that teaching got right about the reality of evil, then tests spiritual mapping, territorial spirits, and the logos/rhema split against the text.
A readable, well-sourced treatment of Ephesians 6 to teach from, with Chicago-style footnotes carrying the Greek and the historical sources.
The book began as a sermon series at The Chapel, and its illustrations (the fog over Austerlitz, Scaeva's shield at Dyrrachium, the centurion Marcellus, Dale Earnhardt's last lap) were tested on a congregation before they were written down. It reads Ephesians 6 with the whole church: Chrysostom, Calvin and the Puritans, Spurgeon and Lloyd-Jones, and recent scholarship on Paul's use of Isaiah.
Nine chapters. Every main chapter closes with a small-group discussion guide.
Why another book on the armor of God? Some Christians are exhausted from hearing that the enemy is behind every bad week, and others treat the devil as an embarrassing leftover from an ancient worldview. The book offers a third way, rooted in a detail most sermons skip: centuries before Paul described the armor, Isaiah watched God put it on. The commands in Ephesians 6 are plural and the victory is already won, so the call is to stand together.
Opens in the fog at Austerlitz in 1805, where the Allied armies held the Pratzen Heights and lost them by coming down to attack a weakness Napoleon wanted them to see. Ephesians 6:10-13 is about high ground and how it gets lost. The magic of Ephesus and the seven sons of Sceva show why Paul locates the church's strength “in the Lord,” and the territorial-spirit teaching of the 1970s to 1990s is weighed against Acts 19. Paul uses four standing words in four verses and never tells the church to advance. It closes at Golgotha, where Jesus was urged to come down, and stayed.
In AD 298, at a legion's banquet for the emperor's birthday, a centurion named Marcellus threw down his military belt and was beheaded for it. The fastened belt runs from the first Passover to Elijah outrunning Ahab's chariot, and Paul reaches back to Isaiah 11:5, where the King from Jesse's stump is belted with righteousness and truth. The illusory truth effect explains why the enemy repeats himself, and why the belt goes on every morning. It ends at a supper where the King fastens his own belt and serves his people.
Gives away its ending on the first page, then rewinds to Isaiah 59: the exiles are home, their sin came home with them, and God acts with his own arm. Babylon's Marduk went to war armed by the assembly of the gods; Israel's God wears his own righteousness. The chapter follows Paul's “put on” language from 4:24 to 6:14 and shows how the righteousness God gives becomes the life his children live.
Starts with a pair of Reebok Answer IVs and why shoes carry identity. Paul's footwear comes from Isaiah 52:7, the beautiful feet of the messenger who tells Zion, “Your God reigns.” Drawing on Daniel Pink's To Sell Is Human, the chapter takes the sales pressure out of evangelism: a herald announces news he did not write and cannot improve. Jesus is the herald who also accomplished what he announced, and he hands the boots to us.
Opens at Dyrrachium in 48 BC, where the centurion Cassius Scaeva held a gate for Caesar until his shield was shot through. The chapter follows thyreos from the Odyssey to the Roman shield Polybius described, and clears away two popular ideas, including the water-soaked shield, a sermon illustration with no ancient source. God himself is the shield in Genesis 15 and the Psalms. The fiery darts are aimed at your grip. It ends in a locked room where Jesus holds out his scarred hands to Thomas.
Many sermons treat the helmet as a tool for managing your thought life; the chapter calls that the right answer to the wrong problem and returns the helmet to Isaiah 59. In 1945, Earl Harrison found survivors still behind the wire of liberated camps, asking what liberation meant. Then the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500 and the restraint Dale Earnhardt refused to wear. The helmet already belongs to us, and it still has to be taken up.
Opens on the Mount of Olives with Peter reaching for the wrong sword. The word machaira ties Peter's blade to the Roman short sword and to Isaiah 49, where the Servant's mouth is made like a sharp sword. The sword is received from the Spirit and spoken. The chapter holds together the gospel proclaimed and Scripture wielded, and corrects the logos/rhema two-tier teaching. At Pentecost Peter picks up the right sword, and it ends in the wilderness, where Jesus answers each temptation from Deuteronomy.
Follows Paul up the Appian Way to Rome and into custody, chained to a guard who was almost certainly not wearing armor. In Greek, Ephesians 6:14-20 is one long sentence with a single command: stand. Prayer runs through all of it as the way the armor is worn, which is why the “seventh piece” teaching misreads the sentence. Drawing on Ardant du Picq and interviews with soldiers in Iraq, it shows why soldiers hold the line for the person beside them. Put on the armor, take your place in the line, pray for the person beside you by name, and stand.
Iain M. Duguid
Crossway, 2019 · $14.99 · 128 pp.
The closest book on the shelf, tying each piece to its Old Testament background and resting the reader in Christ's finished victory. Stand Your Ground shares its conviction that Jesus wore the armor first, and builds on it with the Greek and Roman sources behind each piece and a discussion guide for every chapter.
Priscilla Shirer
Lifeway, 2015 (video edition 2022) · $24.99 · 192 pp.
The category's best-known study: a seven-session video workbook built around strategic prayer. Groups that loved it often want a book they can read cover to cover next. Stand Your Ground serves those same groups, grounded in Isaiah's Divine Warrior and the Greek text of Ephesians.
Clinton E. Arnold
IVP Academic, 1992 · $31.99 · 244 pp.
A study of the principalities and powers in Paul for students and pastors. Stand Your Ground brings the world Arnold mapped, the Ephesian letters and the Temple of Artemis included, to the small-group table.
Michael S. Heiser
Lexham Press, 2015 · $17.99 · 176 pp.
Introduced a generation of lay readers to the Bible's unseen realm. Readers who finish Heiser often ask what they are supposed to do about it. Stand Your Ground answers from Ephesians 6: stand on ground Christ has already taken, and stand there together.
David Jeremiah
Thomas Nelson, 2026 · $29.99 · 240 pp.
The newest big-platform entry, 31 readings on spiritual warfare with a broadcast campaign behind it. It confirms the appetite for the subject. Stand Your Ground stays inside one passage for eight weeks, for groups that want to study Ephesians 6 itself.
Potential endorsers include Kenneth Tanner, Joe Thorn, and Dan Kimball, along with Dr. Kent Ingle, President of Southeastern University.
The Chapel: the book began as a sermon series there and is dedicated to the congregation, with copies for the church and its small groups. Southeastern University: course adoption in the Pauline Literature and ministry classes, and promotion through the College of Christian Ministries and Religion.
Launch-season promotion across the podcast, YouTube (Shorts built on the myths the book corrects), Substack (excerpts and a paid deep dive on the Divine Warrior of Isaiah 59), Theology Made Worship, Theology Made Beats (a nine-track companion album, one track per chapter), Instagram, Facebook, Theology Made Kids, and the Theology Made shop.
Advance copies to endorsers and twenty pastors, a launch weekend at The Chapel with small groups starting the study together, and a free leader's guide through Substack.
The manuscript stands at about 27,900 words across nine drafted chapters, with eight small-group discussion guides adding about 4,700 more. The remaining work is revision: bringing Chapters 5 and 7 into the narrative style of the rest of the book, completing the later footnotes, and a final fact-check of the historical material.
Chapter 6
The strongest chapter, showing both voices, the classroom and the storyteller: from Scaeva's shield through Homer and Polybius to a locked room in Jerusalem, with its small-group discussion guide. It carries the claim the whole book rests on: Jesus held the shield first.
The sample chapter is available to publishers and agents on request. Request the sample