Most people who study the life of Jesus come away convinced that he taught and practiced nonviolence, even if they find it hard to make such a commitment themselves. There are a few passages in the gospels, though, that seem to contradict this impression. These few passages inevitably seem to come up in discussions of whether Christians should be nonviolent, and whether Christian churches should be peace churches. I'm going to address one of these passages here, and three others in commentaries that will also appear on this Web site.

There are two places where Jesus seems to speak positively about weapons in relation to his mission and that of his disciples, one each in Matthew and Luke. I'll deal with the passage in Matthew here, and the one in Luke in the final commentary.

In Matthew 10:34, Jesus says, "Don't imagine that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword!" Taken alone and out of context, this might suggest that Jesus' mission was one of violence, that he was not a peacemaker but approved of using weapons of violence, and indeed intended for them to be used. Of course, taking a passage alone and out of context is one of the surest ways to misinterpret it. Using the same method, one might gather from Matthew 5:29-30 that Jesus intended for his disciples to perform do-it-yourself amputations!

Reading the saying in its context makes it clear that it is anything but a commandment to take up arms. Immediately following it (Matthew 10:35-36) is a quotation from Micah 7:6 having to do with mistrust and betrayal within families: "I came to divide a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one's enemies will be the members of one's own household." This in turn is reminiscent of a saying earlier in the same chapter, Matthew 10:21: "Brother will betray brother to death and father will betray child, and children will rise up against parents and have them executed." This stark prediction is part of Jesus' description of the persecution that his followers will suffer when they undertake the mission on which he is sending them (Matthew 10:16-23).

It seems, then, that the "sword" that Jesus came to bring is symbolic of the division that will occur within families as a result of his mission. The saying is thus a typical example of Jesus' "parabolic" speech, his use of sharply drawn word images to convey sometimes troublesome realities (Matthew 5:29-30 being another such example). This reading of it is confirmed by the parallel version that we find in Luke 12:49-53: "Do you suppose that I have come to provide peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division!" Luke changes the metaphor into a plain statement, and thereby shows that he understands the "sword" to be in fact metaphorical.

Going one step further in reading this saying in its context, we may note that Matthew (as he has done throughout this chapter) has stitched together a number of once-independent sayings linked by common themes. Following the quotation about family disloyalty from Micah 7:6, we read that anyone who loves father or mother, son or daughter, more than Jesus is not worthy of him, a saying paralleled even more vividly in Luke 14:26, which speaks of hating father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, and even life itself. As in Luke 14, this saying is followed by a call to take up the cross and follow Jesus; and to the saying on the cross is added the precept that those who love their lives will lose them, and those who lose their lives for Jesus' sake will find them (Matthew 10:37-39). Household conflict, then, resulting from placing loyalty to Christ and to the God he represents above family loyalties, is one way in which Jesus' disciples encounter the cross and lose what is most precious to them, only to find it again more truly.

So the assertion that Jesus "did not come to bring peace, but a sword" is part of a whole complex of teaching that Matthew presents as having to do with the mission of Jesus' followers. The underlying theme is that "disciples are not above their teachers" (Matthew 10:24). Jesus' followers will continue his mission, and they can expect to meet the same fate as he did: his cross will be their cross, his suffering their suffering, his betrayal their betrayal. In the early years of the Christian mission, divisions within families over joining the new movement must have been deep and not that uncommon, judging by these texts at any rate. (We never seem to hear about this in discussions of "Christian family values," for some reason.) The "sword" that Jesus brings is not a sword for his followers to wield but one for them to suffer, as even family members reject them and their newfound commitment.

The fact that Jesus called his disciples to be peacemakers does not automatically guarantee that they will succeed. They are liable to be targets of hostility themselves. The peace that they seek to make may well be denied to them. But at no point does Jesus authorize them to take up arms in retaliation, least of all in carrying out the mission he has given them.

David Rensberger is Professor of New Testament at the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta. He has written extensively about the gospel and letters of John and on Christian spirituality. drensberger@itc.edu

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