What does "Not Peace but the sword" mean?

[Ray the atheist]

Very often, Christians will argue about context.. so maybe the context of the verse I will be quoting isn't a call to violence, after all.

Matthew 10:34 (KJV)

“Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.”

2 Questions:

1. How does this verse accurately represent a message of harmony, mutual love and non-violence that I am told that Jesus was promoting?

2. How does the imagery of a sword suggest "peace"?

[Ray the atheist]

[Replying to tam in post #149]

and when he drowned those Egyptian warriors.. all drowned.

Are you referring to the Egyptians warriors that were chasing down people who had been enslaved, beaten, tortured, raped? To either kill them or force them back into the same - if not worse - slavery?

Yes, he drowned the soldiers.. you know your bible very well !!

He had "changed the heart heart of Pharaoh, he could have changed Pharaoh's hear to be "kind". He decided to drown them , he forced Pharaoh's heart to be hard. They didn't have to be drowned, the God character decided to, anyway because it really wanted to.


Apparently, that god character sure likes drowning people !!

“ And the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he pursued after the children of Israel.” Exodus 14:8 (KJV)

[tam]

Peace again,

[Replying to tam in post #149]

But what God did was FOR life, and it was done from LOVE. You simply do not know Him. If you want to know Him, you need to know His Son - who shows us the Father as the Father truly is.

I think what god did was for his own glory.

Really? And here I thought you were an atheist.

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You thought correctly.

I'm an agnostic atheist and I don't believe in the supernatural or superstitions.

When I criticize a work of fiction, I never need to think that the characters are real. I do an internal criticism for many criteria, one being logical consistency. When as story makes no sense, I think it's more poorly written than a story that does.

Just because I talk about the story doesn't mean that I believe everything that I read.
I concluded about oh..... 50 years ago that the bible is a collection of mostly fictional stories with fictional characters and magic.

I don't take the bible as if were a historical textbook.. I take it as historical fiction.
Hope that clarifies.

Well then please allow me to critique your critique of what you consider to be an historical fiction. Because there are problems in your approach:

1 - You disregard the intention and meaning of the author(s). It matters what they mean to portray about God.

2 - You disregard - and/or are ignorant of - the accounts in that book which contradict your opinion. Hosea 6:6; Matt 9:13; Isaiah 58:6-11, to name just a few. Not to mention the words and deeds of Christ, and at least most of the NT. Not to mention the gift of eternal life, the forgiveness given, the mercy given, the resurrection to come, the blessings and peace that He and His Son give, the healing that Christ did for others, through the power and authority that His Father gave Him. The world to come with no death, no suffering, no mourning.

3 - You disregard the conclusion of the book. The culmination. That is Christ - that Christ is the One who shows us His Father as His Father truly is. That Christ is the image and truth of God. That Christ is the One to whom we are to listen. I mean, if everything had been correct in the OT (or even in the minds of the people previous to Him coming), what need would there have been for Christ to come and explain all things (John 4:25)? He even corrected things from the law, such as the law on divorce, which He explained Moses had given the people because their hearts were hard. (Matt 19:8) And when it came to stoning a woman for adultery, Christ instead saved her life - showing mercy, showing love (John 8:1-11.) Which is what God desires and always had desired.

You disregard all these things, which means you miss a lot - you miss the CULMINATION even - and that makes your critique sound shallow and perhaps more than a little biased.



Peace again.

[Ray the atheist]

[Replying to tam in post #152]

1 - You disregard the intention and meaning of the author(s). It matters what they mean to portray about God.

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I can't "regard" their intentions.

1. They didn't WRITE their intentions.
2. They are dead, so I cannot ask them about their intentions.
3. I can't read minds.

[Ray the atheist]

[Replying to tam in post #152]

2 - You disregard - and/or are ignorant of - the accounts in that book which contradict your opinion. Hosea 6:6; Matt 9:13; Isaiah 58:6-11, to name just a few. Not to mention the words and deeds of Christ, and at least most of the NT. Not to mention the gift of eternal life, the forgiveness given, the mercy given, the resurrection to come, the blessings and peace that He and His Son give, the healing that Christ did for others, through the power and authority that His Father gave Him. The world to come with no death, no suffering, no mourning.

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No, I am fully aware of how theologians have interpreted the text im criticizing.

I am not criticizing their theology.
I am criticizing Matthew 10:34 (KJV)

“Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.”

You cite other verses that seem to point to a loving, peaceful god.
Where you see harmony, I see contradiction.

A loving, peaceful god would not bring a sword.
A loving, peaceful god would not say he doesn't bring peace.

It's fine that you can point to verses where the God is depicted as loving and peaceful, but it's extremely trivial for me to make lists of where the God is depicted as warring, commanding and committing bloody violence.

Lets not disregard those passages.

We could play tit for tat passages all day long, and that would still not resolve the actual meaning of Matt 10:34 that we have been debating for weeks already.

So, you gave me two "peaceful God verses", and I call with three warring, bloodthirsty verses:

1. 1 Samuel 15:3. God commands the Israelites to kill Amalekites, including children and infants.

2. Exodus 12:29. God kills all the firstborn in Egypt.

3. Deuteronomy 20:16-17. God commands the Israelites to destroy the inhabitants of certain cities.

[Ray the atheist]

[Replying to tam in post #152]

3 - You disregard the conclusion of the book. The culmination. That is Christ - that Christ is the One who shows us His Father as His Father truly is. That Christ is the image and truth of God. That Christ is the One to whom we are to listen. I mean, if everything had been correct in the OT (or even in the minds of the people previous to Him coming), what need would there have been for Christ to come and explain all things (John 4:25)? He even corrected things from the law, such as the law on divorce, which He explained Moses had given the people because their hearts were hard. (Matt 19:8) And when it came to stoning a woman for adultery, Christ instead saved her life - showing mercy, showing love (John 8:1-11.) Which is what God desires and always had desired.

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The Bible isn’t one continuous story with a single conclusion. Its later teachings don’t erase earlier passages depicting God commanding or committing violence.

The earlier teachings about a peaceful god also don't erase passages where the God commands and commits bloody violence.. very often with swords.