The Warrior’s Suite: The Art of Making Disciples The Lord is a warrior; the Lord is His name. Exodus 15:3

Suite: n, a group of things forming a unit or set. Webster’s

It must be clearly understood that making disciples is, in my view, not a church program but rather making disciples is an art form. Each life is a unique canvass…not a production line. In fact, Ephesians 2:10 declares that we are God’s artistic masterpiece. So, the warrior’s suite begins with you, the individual warrior. Warriors are not mass produced even at conferences but rather are designed one at a time from the heart up, rather than from the head down. A man’s heart is the primary target of the devil as well as the primary target of Jesus. If we purpose to get our hearts right with the Spirit of Christ, our minds will get in line with our heart, that is just the way Our Father has wired us. Proverbs 4:20-23. Thus, we design our warrior suite beginning with our heart.

I was blessed to wear a “warrior suit” of one type or another for all of my professional life. This included over 24 years serving as a Naval Officer, 12 years serving on the Sheriff’s Office command staff and as Chief of Staff and 3 years as the Commanding Officer of the 5th Battalion South Carolina State Guard. In those cultures, you soon discover the important truth that all who wear the uniform on the body do not wear the uniform on the heart. This reminds me of a favorite quote from the great warrior Sun Tzu, “The warrior who wears two swords on his side but does not put the spirit of combat in his heart is nothing but a merchant wearing the skin of a warrior”. This may remind you of some men you may have encountered along the way, both warriors and merchants.

Our old pal, Sun Tzu, had incredible insight into the warrior ethos much of which has direct application into the Christian life and spiritual warfare today. For instance, 1 Peter 5:8 reads, “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy, the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith.” This is almost identical to the counsel of Sun Tzu who wrote, “The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy’s not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable.” Brothers, there is no greater unassailable position than The Rock of Jesus Christ. Psalm 40:1-3.

I often say to men that life’s toughest battles are fought in the heart where courage resides. Courage is a critical addition to the warrior suite, because courage is a heart issue not a head issue. In fact, the root word is cor is where the word coronary comes from. In Joshua 1:9, General Joshua commanded his men to be strong and courageous (not weak and cowardly) because he knew courage was a critical element of the warrior suite. When discussing these issues, I often default back to General George Patton’s “two kinds of courage”. He said there was physical courage which enabled men to face the enemy in battle. He also said there was moral courage which enabled a man to stand up for what was right in any situation. He went on to say that moral courage was the more important and that it was the one most lacking in men. We should pause for a moment and wait for a heart response to these truths.

Courage is not a quality a man can attain by completing a courage seminar, church program or a series of videos. From Webster’s 1828 Dictionary, courage is defined as, “The act or ability to face and deal with those things determined to be dangerous, difficult or unpleasant rather than withdrawing from them.” Withdrawal is, of course, cowardice. I believe this truth is what prompted General Patton to define moral courage so clearly. From my own experience, this and other Christ-like character qualities can come from committed discipleship relationships---like Jesus so carefully demonstrated. Peter proved that he was very handy with a sword in Gethsemane. Thankfully, Peter’s hand to eye coordination was outstanding so Malchus only lost an ear…temporarily. However, Peter’s action helps us to understand that, if making disciples were easy, everyone would be doing it. Peter seemed to be a challenge, even for Jesus.

In fact, our old pal C.S. Lewis weighed in on the issue of warrior suite 81 years ago as he summed up our 2024 situation in his classic, The Abolition of Man. In 1943 he wrote: “In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect from them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings to be fruitful.” In other words, we have created a culture with some spiritual eunuchs present. Lewis also skillfully confronted what he considered to be an opposing cultural force, the education of men, which is only exacerbated by our failure to “make disciples”.

In my view, we must develop bold, simple strategies and tactics to confront this influence in our day. Perhaps we should review how C.S. Lewis stated the issue in very simple terms: “…the difference between the old and the new education in a word, the old was a kind of propagation---men transmitting manhood to men; the new is merely propaganda.” Take a moment and consider that transcendent concept, “propagation---men transmitting manhood to men” …ergo, men disciplining men. Perhaps we should give our old pal C.S. Lewis’ thoughts a “Go” as we seek to evaluate and transform our propaganda saturated culture.

The warrior suite also contains “the warrior suit” which is the whole armor of God. It seems to me, from just anecdotal data gathered from 40 years of observing American church culture, that the following is often the case. We try to dress our men up with the whole armor of God with a lot of teaching about “the armor” but with little to no training with these six specially fitted pieces of “spiritual” armor. Any high school football coach would tell us that teaching without training is not the best way to prepare for game day. Our old pal, Musashi the greatest of the Samurai, gave us a 3-word key to success, “Know Your Sword” …ergo become intimate with your weapon, God’s Word.

In combat, a warrior quickly learns the value of intimacy with his weapon…of becoming one with his weapon. In so doing, the weapon becomes an extension of the warrior and of the authority the warrior represents. It is critical to point out that this is a Genesis Principle that we are introduced to in Genesis 14:14. Abram calls out his 318 trained men to participate on a hostage rescue mission. This was a very dangerous mission that would include a 90 mile march, dividing his men and executing a surprise night attack. The Hebrew word for trained is chanik which means seasoned, trained and practiced. So, Abram did not say “every man come with me”, that would have been foolish and probably catastrophic. The writer of Hebrews seemed to know the warrior maxim that the use of a weapon, like God’s Word, was an acquired skill, as well as a perishable skill. In Hebrews 5:11-14 this maxim is laid out clearly and is why Abram chose trained/discipled men to go on the dangerous mission to rescue precious family members. Please read and absorb this text.

I had trained for 20 months to prepare me to be a copilot on my first combat mission. However, no amount of training produces the intimacy with the weapon and brothership with other men, like actual contact with the enemy. Making rocket attacks at Fort Rucker Alabama against a disabled tank on a sunny afternoon with your helicopter gunship is a bit of a thrill if you have never done that…the noise, the smells, the explosions. However, launching on a dark night from a remote base in Vietnam to repel an attack on an allied outpost is a bit different.

For one, night vision lowers perception skills like in spiritual warfare, operating in spiritual darkness. For another, the tracers are very visible…the red ones are friendly, the green ones…the ones coming your way, are enemy. I believe this same principle is in play in spiritual warfare and in discipling men, we must fight thru life’s issues together and in close contact. This is what Jesus demonstrated so well, how to invest values in men…how to disciple men. As C. S. Lewis reminded us earlier, men transmitting manhood to men---and Christlikeness, this is the warrior suite. 2 Timothy 2:2; 2 Corinthians 10:3-6; Ephesians 6:10-18.

Barney Barnes, 12-04-2024, Former Promise Keepers National Ambassador For the Military and Prisons