In Matthew 10:34, Jesus said, “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Non-pacifists often cite this statement to justify the use of violence, but for numerous reasons, it doesn’t. To see why, we simply need to review its biblical context—immediate, intermediate, and broad.
The immediate context below indicates that Jesus was speaking figuratively about the division he and his message would cause, rather than literally about a sword.
Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn “a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.” Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it. (Matt. 10:34-39)
Luke’s account makes the figurative nature of the metaphor even clearer by using the word division instead of sword: “Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three” (Luke 12:51-52).
The Bible frequently uses a sword to symbolize the Word of God (i.e., truth), often in the context of conflict and division. When encouraging the Ephesians to “put on the full armor of God” so they can “stand against the devil’s schemes,” Paul told them that “the sword of the Spirit … is the word of God” (Eph. 6:10, 17). The author of Hebrews declares that “the word of God” is “sharper than any double-edged sword,” and that “it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow” (Heb. 4:12). The book of Revelation depicts a “sharp, double-edged sword” actually “coming out of [Jesus’s] mouth,” which implies that it represents words or truth (Rev. 1:16). Revelation likewise portrays Jesus threatening to fight the unrepentant “with the sword of [his] mouth” (Rev. 2:16). Why shouldn’t we interpret the sword in Matthew 10:34 as another reference to the Word of God, a declaration that Jesus came to bring and wield the truth?1
Experience confirms that the gospel message can be divisive. Loving your enemies, for example, often angers your allies. It’s often interpreted as an act of disloyalty and can divide those who are united primarily by their common opposition to someone or something. If you doubt this, express love for your nation’s enemies and observe how most of your fellow countrymen react. The same goes for family bonds: ask a Christian convert born into a family of Muslims, Hindus, or Buddhists what impact their conversion had on those relationships.
The intermediate context reveals that Jesus made this statement in the middle of preparing his disciples to take his message into the wider world. He was warning them about the personal sacrifices they would have to make to fulfill their mission. Just a few verses earlier, he had told them he was sending them “out like sheep among wolves” (v. 16), instructed them not to fear “those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul” (v. 28), and warned them they would be hated and violently persecuted (vv. 17, 22).2 Now he was telling them that discipleship could also cost them their families, and maybe even their lives.
Therefore, as Richard Hays observes, “If we are to think at all of any literal sword … we will immediately see that the disciples of Jesus are to be its victims rather than its wielders.”3 David W. Bercot explains: “Sheep don’t carry swords, and they don’t slay wolves. Rather, it’s the wolves that do the slaying. Jesus was telling His apostles that they needed to be ready to die for Him.”4
Jesus prioritized the gospel message above everything else, even familial and social peace. He declared the embodiment of God’s kingdom, not relational harmony or social stability, to be the highest ideal. He proclaimed that he came to bear witness to the truth, not to absolve all conflict by whatever means necessary. Jesus was and is concerned with establishing true peace on earth through reconciliation, not with imposing the shallow, fleeting peace that results from violent control. This is why Paul writes, “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone” (Rom. 12:18). Sometimes peace isn’t desirable—for instance, when it requires denying the gospel or collaborating with injustice.
Of course, Jesus wasn’t encouraging division. He was only pointing out that pledging supreme allegiance to his kingdom would occasionally produce it. Jim Forest summarizes:
The “sword” referred to here is not a deadly weapon but a symbol of the fractures that often occur within families and between friends when one chooses to live a life shaped by the Gospel. Jesus is … saying that the way of life he proposes will at times be a cause of discord that may even cut into the closest relationships.5
Everything else Jesus says and does (the broad context of this quote) also reveals he isn’t speaking about a literal sword. Nothing in the Bible indicates Jesus ever even touched a sword during his life, let alone came for the purpose of using one. As Hays notes, Jesus’s statement about bringing a sword must be interpreted “within the story of a Messiah who refuses the defense of the sword and dies at the hands of a pagan state that bears the power of the sword. The whole New Testament comes rightly into focus only within this story.”6
Jesus used similar figurative hyperbole on many other occasions to stress the radical commitment he requires of his followers: “If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away…. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away” (Matt. 5:29-30).7 “And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven” (Matt. 23:9). “Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God” (Matt. 19:24). “[Jesus] said to another man, ‘Follow me.’ But he replied, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God’” (Luke 9:59-60).8
Jesus’s statement about hating our family and life may be the most instructive: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26-27). Jesus didn’t want us to literally abhor our families or lives. He wasn’t overturning the Fifth Commandment to honor our parents, which he and Paul both affirmed elsewhere.9 Instead, he was speaking about priorities, about total commitment and the cost of discipleship. He used the verb hate not to encourage hostility but to warn against developing idolatrous loyalties.
Accordingly, just as Jesus’s instruction to hate our families and lives was a hyperbolic and figurative demand for total allegiance, so was his declaration that he came to bring not peace but a sword. He didn’t bring a literal sword of violence. He brought a figurative sword of prioritization.
Lastly, even if we interpret Jesus’s sword statement literally, it still doesn’t justify our use of violence. If we are going to ignore all context and be literal, let’s be literal. Jesus was talking about his use of the sword, not ours. He said he came to earth to bring a sword, not teach us to use one. In fact, he didn’t even say he came to use a sword. He said he came to bring one. Furthermore, he came to bring only a sword, not knives, guns, nunchucks, or bombs. He said sword, not weapons. And he came to bring a sword for the purpose of dividing families—nothing else.
Consequently, the only way we can get from “Jesus came to bring a sword to divide families” to “Christians may use various types of violent weapons to do things other than divide families” is to ignore the literal interpretation and the actual context of his statement and instead just make something up. As usual, I like how Hays puts it: “To read this verse as a warrant for the use of violence by Christians is to commit an act of extraordinary hermeneutical violence against the text.”10 Or as Greg Boyd writes, “The use of this passage to justify violence rather reflects the extreme exegetical lengths to which people will go to give divine authority to their own violent agendas.”11 Indeed. It’s almost like concluding that Psalm 14:1 asserts, “There is no God,” although the entire sentence reads “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’”
Regardless of whether we interpret the passage literally or figuratively, it doesn’t justify our use of violence. To interpret it literally is to justify Jesus’s possession of a sword, not our own use of one. To interpret it non-literally is to invoke its context, which reveals that Jesus wasn’t even talking about violence. He was speaking figuratively about the division that proclaiming the truth and prioritizing allegiance to him inevitably cause, even within families. Had he intended to provide a justification for violence, he would have done so much more clearly, particularly in light of the contradictory immediate, intermediate, and broader contexts of his statement.
Footnotes:
David W. Bercot also points out that in ancient times, “a sword served two purposes,” one being “the use we normally think of … in warfare, where the sword was used for killing” and the other being “a tool for cutting or dividing.” See The Kingdom that Turned the World Upside Down (Scroll Publishing Company, 2003), 1325, Kindle.
See also Matt. 24:9; John 15:20; Luke 21:12, 16-17; and Mark 13:13.
Richard Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation; A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics (HarperOne, 2013), 9315, Kindle.
David W. Bercot, The Kingdom that Turned the World Upside Down (Scroll Publishing Company, 2003), 1325, Kindle.
Jim Forest, Loving Our Enemies: Reflections on the Hardest Commandment (Orbis Books, 2014), 2452, Kindle.
Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament, 9451.
See also Matt. 18:9-9 and Mark 9:43-47.
For Matthew’s account, see Matt. 8:21-22. For a different but similar encounter, see Luke 9:61-62.
Exod. 20:12; Matt. 15:1-6; 19:1-19; Mark 10:17-19; Luke 18:18-20; Eph. 6:1-3; Col. 3:20.
Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament, 9318.
Gregory A. Boyd, The Crucifixion of the Warrior God: Interpreting the Old Testament’s Violent Portraits of God in Light of the Cross, Volumes 1 & 2 (Fortress Press, 2017), 13150, Kindle.
This article is an excerpt from Jesus the Pacifist: A Concise Guide to His Radical Nonviolence.