The primary one, of course, is Ephesians 6. Yet in that one, Paul is not speaking specifically to men, but to all believers. (Which has been one of my comments on the other two so far.) And when you contrast it to a Roman soldier, the differences are striking. Our only weapon is the Word of God. (And given the general usage of that phrase, it’s Jewish roots, and what I know of the Christian mutation of those roots, I’m not convinced he’s speaking about Scripture in that metaphor.) And most importantly, we wear on our feet the shalom of the announcement of the rule of God through Jesus the Messiah.

In 2 Corinthians 6, we see Paul referring to himself through his hardships as having the armor or weapons of righteousness. (Different translations.) But that’s a very different picture of a warrior than the “noble warrior” picture you posed.

And finally, in 2 Thessalonians 5, we have Paul’s confusing mix of metaphors about the thief coming in the night, so the woman is going into labor, so don’t be drunk, wake up, and put on your armor. Whatever he’s trying to convey, again it’s directed to all believers, not specifically to men.

The rest of the imagery is mostly the apocalyptic imagery from Revelation.

So why is this a pillar of biblical manhood when there is no reference specific to men?

And yet David was not fit to build the temple of the Lord, the place where God dwelled in all his shekinah glory and the place where heaven and earth intersected. Why? Not because his son would be more moral than David had been. From that perspective, Solomon was arguably worse than his father had been.

No. David could not build the Temple because he had too much blood on his hands. Never mind that it had been in the service of God (mostly). Never mind that it had established Israel as a great nation in the ancient world. David had lived the life of a warrior and he was unfit to build the Temple.

Why does that matter? Turn to the right in your Bible past Malachi. Hebrews is one good place to look, but it’s hardly the only place. Where does the shekinah glory of God now reside among men? Where is the intersection between heaven and earth today?

Isn’t it us? Are we not now the Temple? Do we not teach that God takes up residence with us in the Spirit? Do we not form the new intersection of heaven and earth? Not geographical, but rather everywhere we can be found?

And if bloody hands could not build the temple, how can they be the temple?

The purpose of a soldier is to kill people and destroy things (or at least carry that threat to force capitulation) for the accomplishment of political goals. And typically the soldier does not get to decide what those goals are. When I decided (at 17) to join the Army National Guard, I knew enough about what I was doing to ask myself if I believed myself capable of killing people I did not know for the purposes of others. And I decided I could before I swore that oath.

In truth, I believe I remain capable of doing so. However, at that time Christianity was not informing my perspective. Now it is. And it adds the pesky burden of the question: Is that something I should do? And that’s an entirely different and much more difficult question.

Certainly, we are called to be soldiers for the Kingdom. But what does that look like? Remember, Jesus flips our expectations, quite explicitly. You know how it is with the rulers of this world, it’s not going to be that way with you. Instead, our way is the way of the cross, the way of the servant, and the way of love. We are not asked to kill for the Kingdom, we are asked to give up our lives for it.

The way of the warrior, of course, can be carried into many spheres of life. Sun Tzu’s The Art of War shows that. But at it’s heart is the application of power to bend others to your will. I fail to see how that can be reconciled with the way of Jesus. It looks to me exactly like what he told us it’s not to be.

And it has nothing to do with love of war or sadistic pleasure. You set up a false dichotomy in order to dismiss a straw man. Instead, we need to look at the way of the warrior and the soldier and see if they reconcile with the way of Jesus.

And anything we wish to say about the way the text would have been read in the first century must be reconciled with what we actually do know about history. And one thing we do know is that the early persecuted church wholly followed the way of peace. They did not rebel. They did not fight. They did not kill. And by the time of Constantine as much as half the empire was Christian. They did not read the text in such a way that it evoked a warrior-like response.

As far as Revelation 19 goes, I’m hardly a Revelation expert. However, I do know the literary genre is Jewish Apocalyptic and must be read that way just as we read the Song of Songs as a particular sort of poetry. What little I know of Jewish apocalyptic imagery is that a white horse is symbolic of victory. The many crowns came from ancient kings and show he is king of many countries. (I would say Lord of the whole world — all nations, but that may just be me.) The robe dipped in blood evokes Isaiah 63. However, here it has been reshaped in light of the Lamb (chapter 5) to bring to mind the fact that in achieving victory Jesus did not shed the blood of others. He shed his own blood. His only armament his his word. And highly unusually in the literary genre, he does not call his people to war. He is the sole combatant.