“I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” MATTHEW 10:34
Jesus never endorsed or promoted violence. When Peter used his sword against the armed guard who came to arrest Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus healed the man and said, “No more of this!” (Luke 22:51).
The gospel can never advance by violence or by conquest. “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD” (Zech. 4:6). So, what did Jesus mean when He said that He came to bring a sword?
Jesus had just warned His disciples that they would be persecuted for His sake (Matt. 10:17-18). Then He said, “When they persecute you in one town flee to the next” (10:23). Jesus does not say, “If they persecute you,” but “when they persecute you.” They will come after you; they will do all in their power to stop you. There is no doubt about who holds the sword. The sword is in the hands of those who oppose Jesus, and it is raised against His disciples.
Jesus warned that those who oppose us will include some in our own families. A man will be set against his father, a daughter against her mother, and so forth (10:35-36). Many families know this tension, and if Jesus had not come into the world, this tension would not exist. So, the effect of the coming of Jesus will be a separation, a distancing between His disciples and some of those whom they love.
When Mary and Joseph went to the temple, they met an old man, Simeon, who took Jesus in his arms and said to Mary, “A sword will pierce through your own soul also” (Luke 2:35). The coming of Jesus brought a sword for Mary, too. Loving Jesus as she did, how she must have grieved over the world’s hatred of Him.
How has the coming of Jesus brought a sword into your life?
Written by Colin Smith
Read by Sue McLeish
www.openthebible.org.uk
