For your consideration:
When we consider "our feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace..."
The overarching lesson in the armor of God teaching is the authority of Christ.
The original intent of the teaching was to help us gain the reality of His authority in our lives.
From Ephesians 6:15: “..and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace...”
Your feet are the first part of your body to touch the earth, and usually it is the heel-to-toe that you
walk. So, your enemy lies in the grass to bite your heel. "He will bite the heel of the Son, and the
Son will crush his head." When your feet are shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, they
become the weapon that actually crushes the head of the serpent. We should never think that the sword is our only offensive weapon. Your feet are as powerful as the sword, and here is why:
The word “peace”—the Hebrew word shalom, comprised of the characters shin + lamed + vav + mem—means: "to destroy the authority that establishes disorder." So, the "Prince of Peace" is armed with the authority to destroy that which establishes disorder. You were destined, in Christ, to have your enemy under your feet.
The word “peace,” and therefore the "gospel of peace", is a military term. Pacification is a term of war. To pacify an enemy is not to give him everything he wants so he will leave you alone. Pacification, in a military sense, is to degrade the ability of your enemy to resist you. Your feet are shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, and the intent is that you so overwhelm your enemy with the authority that you represent that he has no ability to effectively resist you.
The gospel of peace is not a gospel of compromise, it is not a gospel of accommodation; it is a gospel of triumph and conquest, to destroy the authority that establishes disorder: “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil”. Your feet are designed to display the sovereignty of the authority that you represent over all that opposes your King and His Kingdom—all of it, the entire realm of darkness.
The prosecution of the victory of Christ was left to the Church. Ephesians tells us that God’s “intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord,” (Ephesians 3:10-11). You are His feet to have dominion over all the works of the devil. Anything short of that is that which falls short of our mandate in the earth.
The book of Ephesians essentially culminates with a discussion of the effective workings of the mighty power of the Lord Jesus Christ to not only overthrow the enemy in your life, personally, but to dismantle every conceit and every construct that the enemy has developed by which to entrap humans.
Grace and Peace,
Aaron56