Peace and Swords

Some words of Jesus about his mission

Do not suppose that I came to cast peace upon the land. I came not to cast peace but a sword. Matt 10:34

Do you think that I arrived to give peace to the land? No, I say to you, instead, division. Luke 12:51.

These words of Jesus from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke strike at the heart of Jesus’s mission. Jesus’s mission was to bring the good news (the gospel, ὁ ἐυαγγέλιον) of the imminent reign of the one God, the God of Israel, Yahweh. Jesus did this by “bearing witness to the truth” (John 18:37).  Jesus bore the truth of God’s love, of God’s desire to save the world, for the world to be as God created it to be. To carry out this mission, Jesus called disciples, healed people, cast out demons, and taught. All well and good on its face. Go, Jesus!

And in fact, Jesus amassed a following of thousands who came for healing and to hear his teaching. The healing and the teaching could have, should have, brought peace and hope. For many they did. “Your faith has saved you, go in peace,” Jesus said to two women in Luke.

Jesus’s peaceful mission did not entail peace, though, and Jesus knew as much. Jesus played no favorites; his healing was for all, his teaching was for all, the gospel was for all. 

But for those in power, religious or political (often there was no difference), Jesus was nothing but a threat. The privileged, the rich, the powerful, though they had everything to gain before God, saw Jesus’s healings and teachings as the undoing of their privileged positions. The religious authorities (high priesthood and the temple cult and apparatus in Jerusalem and the synagogues in the Jewish towns, influenced by the Pharisees) maintained their positions or influence by arbitrating God for the people, whether the sacrificial system (high priests) or ritualized righteousness (Pharisees). Thus both groups in their own ways and spheres held control or respect. 

This observation does not deny that many priests and Pharisees sincerely believed they were following God, but their mediating positions created the oft-realized potential for corruption of their original desires—today’s churches are littered with the same dynamic.

Jesus laid the lie of their privileged mediation bare. In plain, simple words, and in powerful deeds of healing for the lowest of the low, Jesus revealed God as independent of temple and independent of constructed religiosity. Though temple and piety were in themselves neutral and could even be beneficial—Jesus taught in the temple and as far as we can tell was a pious Jew—but when manipulated by the powerful, both were evil.

Jesus exposed their (corrupted) motivations and through his healing and teaching showed himself to be the true voice of God to all people, all of whom needed deliverance.

To the poor, to the outcast, even to those with means who truly sought for God—Nicodemus comes to mind— Jesus’s words and deeds were those of peace. For those caught up in the lie of wealth (or aspiration to wealth), self-importance, privilege, and power (all of which can be summed up as mammon or idolatry), Jesus’s words and deeds were a sword. Not the sword of bloodshed, but a sword piercing the thoughts and intentions of each person. Jesus cut through the fat of self-lies to the beating heart motivations of every person. 

That beating heart was of two kinds: for God or for Satan. Notwithstanding the potential of a heart changing to “for God,” when Jesus cut through the fat of lies, those exposed as evil did what people still do, they fight tooth and nail to obscure and re-cover their deeds, or they get rid of the whistleblower.

Jesus was the ultimate whistle-blower.

Not from hate, but from love.

Jesus knew that the person caught in the lie of self-idolatry could never experience the love of God. The sword of truth creates crisis (from Greek krisis, judgment). A crisis is a circumstance or realization that demands a choice. The Gospel of John stated Jesus’s coming this way:

And this is the judgment (krisis): that the Light has come into the world and humanity loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil, for everyone carrying out ignoble deeds detests the Light and does not come to the Light, so their deeds might not be exposed. But those who carry out the truth come to the Light, so that their deeds are revealed as done by God (John 3:19-21).

Jesus’s words and deeds shine a blinding light into the world that exposes all things as true or false with no overlap. This light is the sword (a “light-saber” of sorts) that cuts and divides into those of the Light and those of the darkness. The quotation of Jesus in Luke 12:51 uses “division (Greek: diamerismon)” rather than “sword (Greek: machairan).” Jesus likely spoke this way in multiple settings using different terms but with the same intent: faced with the truth of God’s righteous character division will happen between those seeking God and those opposing God (even in God’s name).

This sword of truth will divide families, Jesus says: 

For from now on there will be five in one house divided, three against two and two against three, a father divided against son and a son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her son’s bride and bride against her mother-in-law (Luke 12:52–53).

Jesus’s words were true then and they remain true.

Families, communities, and societies are still divided today because of this Light that shines truth on falsehood. The invitation to come to the Light never stops, but many (even most) refuse to even gaze at the light of God’s love for them because they are addicted to their own godhood. Accepting God’s Light means admitting that their entire lives were based on a lie.

Though Jesus’s mission was to bring the peace of God into every life, the means of that mission was the sword of truth that divided truth from falsehood, the Truth of God’s reign from the lie that humans are divine and control their destiny at the expense of others. Jesus preached the former and exposed the latter. Only sacrificial love could counter the lie and Jesus was the author of this love on the cross, itself a sword of division until today.

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This ends my first post on this Substack. In the days ahead I plan to work through Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. What follows here is a short examination of the Greek texts at the beginning of the post. Subsequently the Greek observations at the end of posts will be paywalled for subscribers who desire to develop their skills in Greek and in the future Hebrew (whenever I post on Old Testament texts). Of course, anyone is encouraged to subscribe!

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Observations on the Greek texts

Do not suppose that I came to cast peace upon the land. I came not to cast peace but a sword. Matt 10:34

Μὴ νομίσητε ὅτι ἦλθον βαλεῖν εἰρήνην ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν· οὐκ ἦλθον βαλεῖν εἰρήνην ἀλλὰ μάχαιραν.

Do you think that I arrived to give peace to the land? No, I say to you, but instead, division. Luke 12:51.

δοκεῖτε ὅτι εἰρήνην παρεγενόμην  ⸀δοῦναι ἐν τῇ γῇ; οὐχί, λέγω ὑμῖν,  ⸂ἀλλ’ ἢ⸃ διαμερισμόν.

Not only are these two texts presented at different locations in Jesus’s ministry in the respective Gospels, but the texts themselves show independence both in language and structure.

Matthew

Matthew’s version begins with a negated aorist subjunctive, μὴ νομίσητε, which implores the audience to not even begin to suppose something. The ὅτι here (and in Luke’s version) is declarative rather than causal. It introduces the content they are not to consider.

ἦλθον βαλεῖν εἰρήνην … οὐκ ἦλθον βαλεῖν εἰρήνην ἀλλὰ μάχαιραν. This rhetorical contrast includes a repetition of an aorist indicative (ἦλθον), and aorist infinitive (βαλεῖν) and the object of the infinitive (εἰρήνην) and the addition of οὐκ and a contrastive object ἀλλὰ μάχαιραν in the second clause. “I came to cast” is a dry statement of fact from Jesus: this was his mission from God. Jesus could have made the simple statement “I came to cast a sword upon the earth,” which would have been true, but not as clear. With the constrast structured by μὴ νομίσητε … οὐκ … ἀλλὰ,  Jesus also sweeps away misconceptions about his mission. While peace may have ultimately happened for some, that peace only came from Jesus being true to his mission to cast the sword (of truth). 

Luke

Luke’s version is very different, but with the same basic message. Structurally (in rhetorical contrast to the statement in Matthew), Jesus asks, then answers, a question: “Do you think …? No, but instead.” Further the vocabulary is wildly different, only ὅτι, εἰρήνη, ἠ γῆ, and ἀλλά are in common. One would be hard-pressed to argue that one version is dependent on the other. Rather, Jesus spoke these on different occasions.

Nonetheless, the question (which could be answered with yes or no), is answered with “No,” thus roughly corresponding to the μὴ νομίσητε prohibitive negation in Matthew; οὐχί is simply another form of the negative particle οὐ. The aorist verb παρεγενόμην is virtually synonymous with ἔρχομαι; rather than “cast (βαλεῖν)” Luke has “give (δοῦναι).”

There are several notable discourse features besides the question form in Luke’s version. First, εἰρήνην is placed at the front of the clause, even though it is the object of δοῦναι. Not only does this placement emphasize “peace” but sets it as the topic Jesus addresses. The second discourse feature is λέγω ὑμῖν, a so-called “metacomment” (from Steven Runge) that prepares for the reader for something important to follow. That something is introduced by the third discourse feature ἀλλ’ ἢ a strong contrastive phrase for the opposite element to come, in this case διαμερισμόν “division.” Once again, Jesus could have simple stated, “I came to give division on the earth.” What he did say was much richer in meaning and impact.

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An Invitation

Are you interested in learning New Testament Greek? I will be teaching an intensive course with 50 hours of live instruction via Zoom from June to August. Please contact me at jack.painter@gmail.com for more information. I would love to have you!