Friday, September 26, 2008

The Two Swords

This is a comment I made on a discussion on Luke 22:36-38 in MennoDiscuss, as follows:
"And He said to them, "But now, whoever has a money belt is to take it along, likewise also a bag, and whoever has no sword is to sell his coat and buy one. For I tell you that this which is written must be fulfilled in Me, 'AND HE WAS NUMBERED WITH TRANSGRESSORS'; for that which refers to Me has its fulfillment." They said, "Lord, look, here are two swords." And He said to them, "It is enough."


It is notable that two swords were carried around by the apostles, in that they just had them available.

But they were clearly misunderstanding what Jesus was talking about. He was "applying" the Scripture saying, "If I'm supposed to be hanging with robbers, then we need some swords." The apostles repled, "We've got two swords, should we get some more?" Jesus replies, "Enough"-- which was probably a note of irritation, telling them to shut up, but they understood it as two swords being sufficient.

But when the time came to use the swords later on, Jesus commanded them not to.

The whole point is: Jesus came to fulfill the Scriptures by any means. It doesn't have anything to do with weapons.

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