Paul's charge to Timothy: Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier (2 Tim 2:3-4). The Christian life is consistently framed in military metaphor: spiritual warfare (Eph 6:10-18), the weapons of warfare not carnal but mighty through God (2 Cor 10:4), the fight of faith (1 Tim 6:12; 2 Tim 4:7), and Christ Himself as Captain of the host (Josh 5:14-15) and Captain of our salvation (Heb 2:10). The Christian soldier is enlisted under Christ the Commander, fights against principalities and powers (not flesh and blood), endures the hardness of the long campaign, and refuses to be entangled with civilian affairs that would compromise his service. The metaphor is biblical, not optional; the Christian life is, properly understood, the life of a soldier on active deployment until the campaign's end.