Did Jesus Tell His Disciples to Buy Swords?

Luke 22:36 is one of the verses that many non-pacifists cite to justify violence. In it, Jesus told his disciples, “If you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.” As usual, and despite initial appearances, the context refutes a pro-violence interpretation. Here’s the statement in its immediate context:

Then Jesus asked them, “When I sent you without purse, bag or sandals, did you lack anything?”

“Nothing,” they answered.

He said to them, “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. It is written: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors’; and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment.”

The disciples said, “See, Lord, here are two swords.”

“That’s enough!” he replied. (Luke 22:35-38)

Two reasonable interpretations arise from this passage, neither of which condone any violence.

Interpretation #1. It’s hard to argue with Jesus’s own explicit explanation of why he told his disciples to buy a sword: to fulfill a prophecy. Take another look at what he said immediately after telling his disciples to buy a sword: “It is written: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors;’ and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment.”

Jesus was quoting from Isaiah 53 wherein the prophet predicts that the Messiah will be a suffering servant who, having done no wrong and committed no violence, will nonetheless be “numbered with transgressors” and consequently bear unjust punishment. Because the Romans only crucified potential threats to the empire, Jesus needed to give them a reason to arrest and crucify him. He needed to appear to be part of a band of sword-wielding outlaws, a member of a group of violent revolutionaries. So he asked the disciples to play the part of criminals by brandishing swords, which they did. In essence, he was saying to them, “I know I’ve previously asked you to trust me and not carry any equipment (referring to Matthew 10:9) and that worked out well for you, but now the time has come when equipment is necessary, so trust me again and go grab a sword. As prophesied, I’ve got to be accused of being a criminal and that needs to happen soon.”

Therefore, according to Jesus’s own words, he was literally instructing his disciples to go buy swords, but only for the limited, immediate purpose of fulfilling a specific prophecy, not to actually use or keep them.

Two other important pieces of context suggest such an interpretation. First, after the disciples produced two swords, Jesus said, “That’s enough!” This begs the question: Enough for what? The only way two swords is enough is if Jesus only intended for them to be used to fulfill the prophecy. Two is enough to be accused of being a criminal gang, but it’s not enough to equip each of the twelve disciples for their impending journeys.

Second, after the prophecy had been fulfilled, Jesus immediately condemned the use of the sword and reiterated that he had just fulfilled a prophecy. While Jesus was being arrested, one of his disciples drew his sword and cut off a man’s ear.1 Luke’s gospel says Jesus reacted by exclaiming “No more of this!” and healing the man’s ear (Luke 22:50-51). Matthew’s gospel gives a slightly more detailed account of Jesus’s reaction:

“Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?” (Matt. 26:52-54)

The nonviolence implications couldn’t be any clearer. Jesus told his disciples to go buy swords to help him fulfill a prophecy, and then just a few hours later after the prophecy is fulfilled, he (1) instructed them to put their swords away, (2) rectified Peter’s use of the sword by healing the man’s ear, (3) proclaimed that if he wanted to use violence to advance his kingdom on earth he would call down a few legions of angels from heaven, (4) condemned the use of swords in general, and (5) explained that using the swords to prevent his arrest thwarted the whole reason he wanted them to carry swords in the first place: to cause his arrest. These are not the actions of a king who wants his followers to advance his kingdom through violence.

This interpretation seems to rectify Jesus’s two contradictory sword instructions quite nicely. To fulfill the prophecy, he needed them to possess swords, so he ordered them to buy some. After the prophecy was fulfilled, he needed them to return to nonviolent business as usual so he ordered them to put their swords away, forever.

Interpretation #2. There’s another reasonable, although I believe slightly less plausible, explanation for Jesus’s instruction to go buy swords: mission preparation. When Jesus sent the disciples on their first mission, a local and temporary mission to spread the gospel among their fellow Jews, he instructed them not to take any money or luggage with them but to rely on the hospitality of their families, friends, and fellow countrymen.2 But now Jesus was preparing them for a much different, more permanent, and largely foreign mission: taking the gospel to the Gentiles. So the material nature of their mission had changed. Whereas before they could expect others to take care of them, now they should expect to take care of themselves. Hence Jesus’s new instructions: “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.”

Even if Jesus was dispensing advice on how to prepare for their new mission, that doesn’t mean he was necessarily giving literal advice. There are many reasons to believe that at least the sword instruction wasn’t meant to be taken literally. If Jesus literally wanted them to each carry a sword, why did he tell them two swords was enough for twelve people, most of whom were going to different places? Why did Jesus not specify how he wanted them to use the sword, particularly because he had never before issued any instructions on using swords? Why just hours later when Jesus was being arrested did he condemn sword use? Why does the Bible not record the disciples ever carrying or using swords while missionaries to the gentiles? Did the disciples blatantly disobey Jesus, or did they understand he meant something else? Given those blatant contradictions, Jesus likely wasn’t giving the disciples literal advice on how to pack for their upcoming travel.

Instead, Jesus was issuing a figurative warning. He was saying, “You completed the first mission in relative comfort and safety, but now you are about to embark on a new mission that will be uncomfortable and dangerous, so brace yourself. Before, you could expect much welcoming and hospitality, but now you must expect rejection and persecution.” The purse and bag represented the material hardship they would face (e.g., hunger, thirst, a lack of shelter, etc.) and the sword symbolized the conflict they would encounter. Such a warning would prove prophetic because the biblical account of the disciples’ second mission is full of such struggles.3

If Jesus was prepping the disciples for their upcoming mission, he was saying “go buy a sword” in the same figurative sense he had said “I come to bring a sword, not peace.”

Interpretation #3. There’s actually a third reasonable interpretation option: a hybrid of the first two. Maybe Jesus’s instructions were part travel advice and part prophecy fulfillment. Perhaps he was giving them advice on what equipment to take on their new mission. Then, needing to fulfill Isaiah’s prophecy, the directive pivoted from packing instructions (take a purse and a bag) to prophecy fulfillment instructions (go get a sword right now), both of which he meant to be taken literally but for different purposes. Or maybe the sword served a dual purpose as both a figurative warning and prophecy prop.

As you can see, even if we interpret Jesus’s instruction to go buy a sword literally, there are more reasonable and less reasonable literal interpretations. The most reasonable is that he wanted them to purchase a sword solely to fulfill a prophecy. Any literal interpretation that goes beyond that narrow scope ignores all levels of context and reads things into the passage that aren’t there.

Plus, if we are going to be strictly literal, Jesus was speaking only to his disciples, not a crowd, and he told them to buy a sword, not use one. Thus, to conclude that this instruction to his inner circle to buy a sword really means that his followers today can use swords is a logical stretch, to say the least. It veers away from a literal interpretation into a nonliteral one while ignoring the contextual evidence that must necessarily inform any nonliteral analysis. If we can’t muster the strength to resist what Bradley Jersak calls the “sloppy propensity to literalize metaphors,” we should at least literalize them correctly.4

Furthermore, the fact that Jesus had to instruct his disciples to buy swords speaks to his nonviolence. It implies that his followers, whom he was about to send out into the world, didn’t already own swords (why order someone to buy something he already owns?), which in turn suggests Jesus didn’t literally want them using swords. If he had, surely he wouldn’t have waited until the end of their time together to instruct them on the moral use of violence.

For all of these reasons, Luke 22:36 does not support the Christian use of violence today. Whatever Jesus meant to communicate by instructing his disciples to buy swords, he did not intend for them, or for us, to use them. Tragically, a passage that should be seen as condemning violence has become just one more reminder of how far fallen humans will go to justify their violence.

Footnotes:

1. Luke 22:50; Matt. 26:51.

2. Matt. 10:5-14; Mark 6:7-13; Luke 10:1-12.

3. For example, see 1 Cor. 4:9-13 and 2 Cor. 6:3-10.

4. Bradley Jersak, A More Christlike God: A More Beautiful Gospel (CWR Press, 2015), 2556, Kindle.

This article is an excerpt from Jesus the Pacifist: A Concise Guide to His Radical Nonviolence.

The Best Books I Read in 2019

In no particular order, here are the best books I read in 2019:

Boom Town: The Fantastical Saga of Oklahoma City, its Chaotic Founding... its Purloined Basketball Team, and the Dream of Becoming a World-class Metropolis by Sam Anderson

Although I have strong ties to Oklahoma City, you don’t need any to enjoy this book. The Economist, The New York Times, NPR, and many others declared Boom Town one of the best books of 2018. Anderson presents the history of Oklahoma City—including its chaotic founding during the land run of 1889, its legendary tornados and colorful weatherman, and the 1995 bombing—alongside the drama of the Thunder’s 2012-13 NBA season (the team with Russell Westbrook, Kevin Durant, and James Harden). It’s a wild ride full of ambition and eccentricity. And as you’ll discover, Oklahoma City is anything but a sleepy Midwestern flyover town.

Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man's First Journey to the Moon by Robert Kurson

What a ride! Rocket Men is the story of humankind’s first trip to the moon—not the one with the moon landing (that’s Apollo 11), but the first time we reached the moon, orbited it, and returned home. I found it to be just as incredible, inspiring, and attention-grabbing as the Apollo 11 journey, if not more so. Kurson’s account has everything—great characters, great subplots, and great prose.

Nothing but the Blood of Jesus: How the Sacrifice of Jesus Saves the World from Sin by J.D. Myers

In this paradigm shifting book, Myers presents a biblically supported, Christ-centered case for viewing numerous fundamental Christian concepts (sin, law, sacrifice, and atonement) in a fresh, highly intriguing, interconnected way. If you’ve only heard the conservative evangelical take on these topics, you will never look at them the same way again. The book also serves as a fantastic introduction to Rene Girard’s work on mimetic desire and scapegoating. As a bonus, Myers is also a good writer—clear, logical, and readable.

The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life by David Brooks

For a few years now, Brooks has been on my radar as a thoughtful author to check out. I finally pulled the trigger and am glad I did. The book’s underlying message is that true happiness and success don’t come from achieving worldly success (wealth, fame, power, achievement, etc.) but rather from committing yourself to serving a cause greater than oneself. Admittedly, the main point sounds trite, but the way Brooks explores the issue is anything but. Most of us, he explains, spend most of our lives trying to climb the first mountain of personal advancement, which at best produces rather surface-level, fleeting pleasures. At some point along the way, however, the more mature and wise among us transition to climbing the second mountain of service to others, which is where we find more substantive satisfaction and fulfillment. (In this regard, I think the book’s original subtitle is a more accurate description of what it’s about: How People Move from the Prison of Self to the Joy of Commitment.)

This topic resonated with me for two reasons. First, I just turned forty and spent most of my thirties wrestling with this transition (the grappling continues). Second, and at the risk of gross oversimplification, Christianity in America seems divided along these lines, with one group of believers approaching their faith largely—but not entirely—as a means of self-help (i.e., as a means of developing their best selves and living their most “successful” lives) and the other group believing the heart and soul of faith is about service to others. Or as Brooks would describe it, the former group is on the first mountain and is focused on “building up the ego and defining the self,” while the latter group has made its way to the second mountain and is in the process of “shedding the ego and losing the self.” For many of us, I suppose a certain degree of self-improvement is necessary if we will ever be capable of not only taking care of ourselves but also serving our communities. That being said, however, I’m learning there’s a fine line between equipping ourselves to serve and becoming sinfully preoccupied with personal growth and achievement.

War and Peace: From Genesis to Revelation by Vernard Eller

If you are into theology and have never read Eller, check him out. He has a way of contextualizing things from a big picture perspective that makes everything in the Bible just fall into place, including the Old and New Testaments’ seemingly contradictory views on violence. He deserves to be much more well-known and more widely studied.

Honorable Mentions

• Warlike Christians in an Age of Violence: The Evangelical Case against War and for Gospel Peace by Nick Megoran

• The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus's Crucifixion by N.T. Wright

• Christian Anarchism: A Political Commentary on the Gospel by Alexandre Christoyannopoulos

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DISCLAIMER: By endorsing these books, I’m not endorsing everything in them.  I don’t think I’ve ever read a book I completely agreed with.  To do so would arguably be a waste of time, not to mention an indication that I'm not thinking for myself.

The Best Books I Read in the 2nd Half of 2018

In no particular order, here are the best books I read in the second half of 2018:

Even in Our Darkness: A Story of Beauty in a Broken Life by Jack S. Deere

Through brutally honest autobiographical storytelling, pastor and theologian Jack Deere paints a raw, gritty, sometimes-hard-to-read but ultimately hopeful portrait of what life is like as a fallen being living in a fallen world. In our culture of carefully curated social media feeds that project seemingly perfect lives full of endless happiness and success, it’s a healthy reminder that no one escapes the brokenness of our fallen condition. We all battle temptation, undergo struggles, and suffer disappointments. And, we should all act accordingly, extending grace to others and ourselves.

The Lessons of History by Will and Ariel Durant

This is a short but insightful book. To borrow from the Amazon description, it’s a “concise survey of the culture and civilization of mankind” resulting from “a lifetime of research by Pulitzer Prize-winning historians.” In a Jordan Peterson-esque style, the authors’ present their lessons by interweaving historical, philosophical, and anthropological evidence. I plan on rereading it once a year to maintain a big-picture perspective on life and humanity.

Reading Revelation Responsibly: Uncivil Worship and Witness: Following the Lamb into New Creation by Michael J. Gorman

Of the eight books I’ve read on Revelation in the last year (as research for my next book), this one is in a league of its own. In fact, I can’t imagine a book on Revelation being any better. Gorman provides the perfect antidote to the non-contextual, genre-violating, often-shallow, too-literalistic interpretation that seems to pervade mainstream conservative Christianity. I deeply wish all of my fellow evangelicals would read it, particularly those who ascribe to a “Left Behind” view of the “end times.” Bonus recommendation: After getting your bearings by reading this book, jump to N. T. Wright’s Revelation for Everyone for an accessible passage-by-passage commentary.

Chris Beat Cancer: A Comprehensive Plan for Healing Naturally by Chris Wark

According to Wark, although he doesn’t phrase it this way, eating the food God created in its originally created state (i.e. eating organic food) has powerful healing properties, so much so it can cure cancer. Makes sense. It’s typically pretty hard for humans to outdo God. Beyond resonating with my admiration for our Creator, this book is thoroughly researched, deftly presented, and highly motivating. If your notion of a healthy meal is a low-fat frozen dinner or a salad with ranch dressing (or you simply want to learn how to take your already-healthy-diet to the next level), read this book. By the way, Wark’s encounter with the healthcare industry’s near complete indifference to the role nutrition plays in health is nothing less than scandalous, if not criminal.

A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix, Revised Edition by Edwin H. Friedman

In this refreshingly “old school” leadership book, Friedman argues that good leaders are forged not through more data, better techniques, the latest management fad, or even increased empathy, but instead through a gradual, conscious process of taking responsibility for their own emotional functioning, which then produces the ingredients for strong leadership: character, maturity, and self-differentiation. As the author puts it, the book “encourages leaders to focus first on their own integrity and on the nature of their own presence rather than on techniques for manipulating or motivating others.” In other words, and to oversimplify it, the book asserts that good leadership arises from cultivating good old fashioned virtue, a message that’s needed as much today as ever.

Honorable Mentions

• The Romance of Religion: Fighting for Goodness, Truth, and Beauty by Dwight Longenecker

• Happiness Is a Serious Problem: A Human Nature Repair Manual by Dennis Prager

• Jesus Unbound: Liberating the Word of God from the Bible by Keith Giles

• Disarming the Church: Why Christians Must Forsake Violence to Follow Jesus and Change the World by Eric Seibert

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DISCLAIMER: By endorsing these books, I’m not endorsing everything in them.  I don’t think I’ve ever read a book I completely agreed with.  To do so would arguably be a waste of time, not to mention an indication that I'm not thinking for myself.