October 18, 2019 • 25 mins
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- Phillip Mast
- patrick H
- Laverne Miller
- Jesse Killion
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Derek (00:06):
Welcome back to the Fourth Way podcast. We are
continuing to look at rebuttalsto Christian nonviolence. And
today, we are going to take alook specifically at Luke 22. In
this passage, Jesus tells hisdisciples to go out and buy some
swords right before he is aboutto get confronted in the Garden
(00:30):
of Gethsemane and betrayed byJudas. And a lot of a lot of non
pacifists are going to use thispassage to argue that Jesus,
right here, is encouraging andand promoting this idea of self
defense.
Because why else would he tellhis disciples to go out and sell
(00:54):
some of their items just to tobuy swords if Jesus didn't have
self defense in view? And ifJesus really was nonviolent, and
and He taught nonviolence andwanted to exhibit that, and
violence was off the table forHim, then it seems rather
contradictory for Him to set Hisdisciples up for failure, if He
(01:18):
was telling them to buy swords.I think this is a a really
interesting argument againstpacifism, but it's one that I
don't think is unassailable atall. And I think that a a deep
look into it actually helps usto uncover a lot of
presuppositions or, maybe notpresuppositions, but, traditions
(01:41):
that we kind of have in our mindabout some some of the events
that happened in in Jesus' lasthours that just aren't biblical.
And, I think it'll be aninteresting look.
So let's dive in. By the end ofthis episode, I I really want to
create a larger synthesis of ofall of the details and events,
(02:07):
and maybe paint a a big picturefor you. But before we get into
that, I I really need to pointout some individual pieces of
evidence that we're going toneed for our synthesis. Just
some interesting points that, inand of themselves, are are
important, but when piecedtogether, are going to create a
(02:28):
a more robust picture of what Ithink is actually going on here
in Luke 22. So first point, anda a very important one, is a lot
of times when when non pacifistsare going to try to point out
Jesus' telling his disciples togo ahead and buy swords, you
(02:51):
know, they say, well, I mean, itseems like Jesus is telling them
to do this for for reasons ofself defense.
But, fortunately, we're notreally left to wonder because
Luke tells us why Jesus had thedisciples go out and buy swords.
And he says that it was done sothat the prophecy could be
(03:13):
fulfilled, that Jesus would benumbered with the transgressors.
So the the purpose for Jesustelling the disciples to buy
swords seems pretty clear. Hewas trying to fulfill the
prophecy that he would benumbered with the transgressors.
Now, what that means, numberedwith the transgressors, might
(03:33):
not be quite so clear, andthat's something that we can,
argue about a bit.
So what are what are some of ouroptions? Now, if you ask most
people, if you bring up thisphrase, Jesus was numbered with
a transgression with thetransgressors, and you ask most
people, what does that mean? Youare, most of the time, going to
(03:56):
get a response that, oh, thismeans that Jesus was crucified
with 2 thieves. Right? He wascrucified with other sinners
even though he himself was notone.
And that sounds really good ifyou don't know where this
phrase, numbered with thetransgressors, comes from. But
(04:16):
this has absolutely nothing todo with the 2 thieves on the
cross. This, numbered with thetransgressors, is directly
related to, His disciples, orHis his, order for His disciples
to get some swords. So what whatother options are we left with
(04:38):
then? One option would be that,you know, if if you're a
pacifist, you could say, well,Jesus did teach nonviolence, and
he embodied nonviolence.
And so the fact that hisdisciples were carrying swords,
and intended to use themviolently was, this sin, that
(05:00):
this problem. And so because hisdisciples were were in this mode
of violence, and thereforesinning, then Jesus was numbered
with those sinners. I thinkthat's a a pretty bad argument.
I don't I think that justdoesn't make much sense of the
text. But it's one of thepossibilities, so there you go.
(05:23):
What I think is, the likeliestoption is that when when the
group came to arrest Jesus, theyneeded some sort of of reason to
arrest him. And, yes, Judas ledhim, led led the group to Jesus,
but they had to have some sortof charge. And so the the reason
(05:49):
that Rome took interest inJesus, seemingly, was that,
supposedly, Jesus was leading arebellion. And there are a lot
of a lot of pieces of, Jesus'dialogue, especially with with
Pilate, that leads you tobelieve that that's kind of what
they were they were talkingabout. And and one of the things
(06:11):
that Jesus says is, you know, mykingdom's not of this world,
and, you know, if it were, my mypeople would fight for me.
And so they they seem to betalking about this idea of of
leading a rebellion. And thefact that his disciples were
armed went a a long way inshowing that this was a
(06:35):
potentially legitimaterebellion. Because if they would
have arrested Jesus and none ofhis followers would have had any
weapons, and they said, hey.Look. This guy's leading a
rebellion without weapons.
That would be maybe a lip alittle bit problematic for their
case. So the fact that, therewere 2 swords and and,
(06:57):
interesting note there, youknow, why not just one sword?
Well, in in the Old Testament,at least, and presumably at this
time, when you're going to havea witness testify against
somebody, one witness was notenough. You needed 2 to kind of
prove the case. So the fact thatthere were 2 swords, and Jesus
(07:17):
says, that's enough.
Right? This idea that, you know,you could have a random person
carrying a sword on them. But ifyou had 2, something's something
might be afoot. That's that'sevidence that, there might be
something more. It's it's 2witnesses against, the crowd of
Jesus, as far as indicatingpotential rebellion.
(07:40):
It's at least enough for them tohave a a kangaroo court, anyway.
And we even get an indication ofthis a little bit later on in in
Luke 22 and verse 52. And Jesussays, am I leading a rebellion?
And and He asked this. And, sowe have lots of indications that
(08:01):
being numbered with thetransgressors means that because
Jesus's, entourage was carryingswords, more than one sword
specifically, that that washelpful in in, the Jews arguing
that he was leading a rebellionand numbering him with the
(08:23):
transgressors, saying he's partof this group that is is doing
wrong.
So our first line of evidence isjust that, Luke explicitly says
what what the swords were for.It doesn't say that they were
for self defense. It says thatthey're to fulfill prophecy. And
(08:43):
there are lots of indicationsthat that prophecy, is is that
Jesus was numbered as a sinneror as a transgressor or with the
transgressors, for the sin ofrebellion, a rebellion against
the state, which is why Romecould crucify him. A second
(09:06):
piece of evidence that, theseswords were not really for self
defense is that when when Jesusinquires about the amount of
swords within the group and hefinds out that there are 2, he
says, it's enough.
And, I mean, Jesus knows what'scoming, and he knows that the
(09:27):
people he's going to come faceto face with are, trained
soldiers, probably at least moreso, if they were if they were
Jewish soldiers. Probably atleast more trained than the
group that Jesus was with, abunch of fishermen. So the the
idea that 2 swords are enoughdoesn't make any sense, that
(09:50):
that Jesus was referring to thisin terms of being viable self
defense. The third piece ofevidence that we have is that,
when when Peter does use one ofthe 2 swords, Jesus reprimands
them, and He tells them to puthis sword away. If Jesus was
(10:12):
really intending for swords tobe there for self defense, and
then he reprimands somebody.
And and not just, like, saying,now you know what, Peter, I
changed my mind, but saying,look, the sword's really
problematic. You know? Thepeople who use that thing die.
You know? You live by the sword,you die by the sword.
And then He heals His enemy'sear. It just doesn't make sense
(10:36):
that Jesus is saying, hey, goget swords, but then gets upset
that they're used. So there'ssomething else going on here.
The 4th point here is that, evenif you want to dismiss all of
the things that I I said, andand you'd wanna say, well, even
though some of those pointsmight be credible, Jesus also
(11:00):
was leaving the door open forsome sort of self defense. Even
if you wanna say that Jesus waswas open to self defense, that
doesn't mean Jesus endorsed itand thought it was good.
And, one one big reason for thatis because we see Jesus face
(11:21):
this before. And, we we see itwhen Peter says, Jesus, I'm not
gonna let you suffer. I will notlet that come to you. And Jesus
says, get behind me, Satan. Youknow, the the time that you see
Jesus get angry is, and and faceSatan head on, outside of the
(11:44):
desert, when he's tempted in thedesert, is when Peter offers
Jesus the option of notsubmitting to God, of avoiding,
of avoiding pain and suffering,and of acting violently to
prevent it.
And we'll talk about this alittle bit more in, I believe,
(12:05):
the next episode when we talkabout, the messianic role.
Excuse me. Not the next episode.We talked about this in the
episode where, we talked aboutthe messianic role, in that, you
know, we we rarely see Jesustempted. Hebrews says that Jesus
was tempted in all ways justlike us.
(12:26):
Yet, I could never figure outhow Jesus was tempted. Like, he
never lusts, which, you know,you'd think that Jesus would
have if he faces the thetemptation that everybody faces.
You just don't see Jesus temptedwith anything. But what Yoder
points out in in his book, ThePolitics of Jesus, is that, you
(12:48):
know, Jesus faces tempttemptation a lot. In the desert,
He faced this temptation to totake power through various sorts
of coercive means.
Or, you know, taking thekingdoms, taking, the religious
institution, and taking themasses through economic means.
(13:10):
And then we see Jesus facetemptation with Peter, saying,
I'm not gonna let you suffer. Wesee Jesus face temptation here
in the garden, where His Hisdisciples have swords. And
instead of allowing them tofight for Him, He has them put
Him away. And we know that Jesusstruggled here because, I mean,
he was sweating drops of bloodjust a few minutes ago.
(13:33):
Like, this was really difficultfor him, and he wanted this cup
to be taken away. And Luke also,also shows us that, he could've
Jesus could've called angels. Hecould've called legions to to
come down and fight for him.This temptation of taking
control and and taking controlthrough violence in in several
(13:56):
of the means was ever presentbefore Jesus. And so, let's say
Jesus did really face legitimatetemptation, and this was the
biggest temptation that we wesee for Him.
And Jesus was, you wanna leavethis this idea of self defense
on the table. Even if Jesus wasleaving room for self defense by
(14:18):
having his disciples get swords,it doesn't mean that that was a
good thing because we see timeand time again that this isn't
something that Jesus wants onthe table. It's something that
is a temptation for him. Andmaybe having those 2 swords
isn't an indication of of Jesussetting himself up for something
(14:42):
that was good and right, butJesus saying, I I just this is
this is so tempting. Guys, getsome swords because I I just
don't know if I can resist thistemptation to, to sacrifice my
life.
Now, of course, He's God, and Hedidn't succumb to the
(15:04):
temptation. But to act like itcould not have been a
legitimate, powerful temptationfor him, and that these swords
could represent rather than,something that Jesus thought was
good. It could represent, theculmination of this difficult
temptation, I think is veryreasonable, especially when you
(15:25):
consider that Christ didn't gothrough with using the swords.
He he had Peter put them away.And the early church reads that
and says, look.
Is there any doubt about thiswhen when Jesus had Peter sheath
his sword? That's for all of usto follow. That's the messianic
(15:47):
claim on our lives and themessianic command for us that we
all sheathe our swords, and thatwe beat our swords into
plowshares, and that, we live atpeace like our Savior did. So,
you take all of the pieces ofevidence together, and you take
a look at the passage, it reallydoesn't seem at all like Jesus's
(16:09):
command to get swords hasanything to do with legitimizing
violence, even violence throughself defense. So now, I wanna
take those those pieces ofevidence, we're gonna we're
gonna add a little bit to it,and we're gonna synthesize it.
And this synthesis is by nomeans my synthesis. It's, it's
(16:32):
one that you can find on, one ofthe guest interview episodes of
Michael Heizer's The Naked BiblePodcast. And I highly recommend
you go there because, you'regonna hear a way better
explanation of this, much morein-depth, getting into the
(16:53):
structure of the book of Lukeand its differences from the
other gospels and Greek words.And it's it's just gonna really
go deep. And and I think it'sgonna be a lot better for you.
But I will do my best to to kindof summarize that here, and
maybe wet your palate to to takea a much deeper look at this.
(17:15):
The interesting part about Luke22 is that when we look at the
section where Jesus starts totalk about buying the 2 swords,
around verse 36, we notice thatthere's an extremely similar,
similar structure here to Luke9:3. And in Luke 9, we see Jesus
(17:40):
sending out the disciples. InLuke 9, Jesus says, hey guys,
don't bring anything with youwhen you go out. In Luke 9,
there are these ideas that, thatHis His disciples who are being
sent out are going to experiencepersecution for their
discipleship.
(18:02):
So we see this minimalisticapproach, like, don't even take
anything and expect that you'regonna have hardship. In Luke
2235, right before we get to thethe two swords section, Jesus
asks His disciples, referringback to Luke 9 when He sent them
out, and He says, hey. When Isent you out, did you guys lack
(18:25):
anything? I mean, I told you notto bring anything and, I mean,
you remember all those commands.Right?
And you remember, that you weregonna face hardship. I mean, did
you did you lack anything when Isent you out with those
limitations and and, that kindof dreary outlook on how things
would be? And the disciplessaid, no, we didn't lack
(18:47):
anything. And it's then thatJesus starts to go into this 2
sword section, and it's likeHe's telling them to do the
opposite of what He told them todo when they were lacking
nothing. So he says, we lacknothing?
No. We weren't lacking anything.And then Jesus is like, oh good.
(19:07):
Well, do the opposite now, andstart taking stuff. Right?
You don't need anything. Youjust told me you didn't need
anything because you were allprovided for when you submitted
and followed and trusted. Butyou know what? I'll tell you
what. Why don't you go take abag?
And, yeah, take a take a purse.And, you know what? Why don't
(19:28):
you go out and buy a sword? Andit's this I it seems to me that,
Jesus is being really sarcastichere, because he's reminding his
disciples of this this time thatshould have been difficult for
them, and he's reminding them ofthe provision of God. And then
(19:49):
he goes into telling them to dothe opposite.
And when he when he asks aboutthem having swords, they're
like, well, we we got 2 swordson us, which is in addition to
Christ's command in Luke 9 to totake nothing. And so he's like,
yep. There you go. There you go.You said you were lacking
(20:13):
nothing.
You trusted in God. God providedfor you. And now now what?
You've got 2 swords on you. Why?
And, I I see this as kind oflike a a divine setup from
Jesus, where He's not tellingthem to go out and get 2 swords
because they've already got theswords on them. It's kind of
(20:34):
like, an, exposing of this lackof faith that his his disciples
have had. Because if he reallywanted them to go out and buy
swords, they would have gone outand buy swords. But that's not
what Jesus was getting at. Jesuswas uncovering their their lack
of faith and their their changein, change in in standing, or
(21:01):
position, or or posturing fromLuke 9 to now, as they were they
were living in fear.
And as they experienced thisfear, they're losing trust. In,
in The Naked Bible Podcast, theygo a lot more into this chiastic
structure that we find in inLuke 22, or I guess, beyond Luke
(21:25):
22, and how there's this really,beautiful development of not
just Peter's betrayal, butshowing in this section how the
disciples' addition to the Luke9 command was actually, in the
chiastic structure, thisrepresentation of all of the
(21:46):
disciples' betrayal. And you canget a lot more of that from from
that podcast, and I highlyrecommend it. So in in summary,
we can't say exactly what'sgoing on here. I don't know if
Jesus was being sarcastic andjust trying to expose the, the
difference between the Luke 9disciples and faith, and, the
(22:08):
dwindling faith of the disciplesin Luke 22.
I don't know if Jesus was facingstrong temptation and was was,
having self defense as a anoption on the table for him. If
he was trying to leave thatopen, you know, potentially,
(22:30):
erroneously. Like, if if Jesuswould've given in to that self
defense, that would've been aproblem because that's not what
God wanted Jesus to do. I Ireally don't know what the
reasons were. But when you lookat the evidence, there's a lot
going for this idea that swordshas little or nothing to do with
(22:54):
self defense.
And even if it does, it it hasnothing to do with approving
self defense or violence. As faras as I'm gonna read it, I think
it it's pretty clear, that thepoint here, like the reading of
(23:19):
the early church was, is thatJesus is telling his disciples,
of which we are his disciples,to put the swords away. And
Jesus shows us that, theviolence done to his enemies, he
is going to heal when he healsthe ear of Malchus. And Jesus is
(23:42):
gonna go beyond just that, buthe is going to go to the cross
and die for his enemies of whichI was 1, of which you are or
were 1 as well. And, more thananything, we see the laying down
(24:04):
of violence.
We see the withholding oflegions of angels, of disciples
fighting for their, for anearthly kingdom. And we see
enemy healing, enemy love, andself sacrifice. And to try to
draw self defense and out ofthis, I think, is just a
(24:28):
travesty to to the passage. Itit doesn't fit at all with
Luke's narrative. It doesn't fitat all with the New Testament
narrative, with Jesus' life,with what Jesus Jesus is about
to do.
It just doesn't fit with withany of that. I think it's a
stretch that that really marsthe beauty of of the radical act
(24:51):
that Jesus is actuallyperforming. So take that as you
will, and please follow that upwith, with a look at the Naked
Bible Podcast and and, that thatbetter extrapolation of
information. So for now, peace.And since I'm a pacifist, when I
(25:12):
say it, I mean.
It.
Welcome back to the Fourth Way podcast. We are
continuing to look at rebuttalsto Christian nonviolence. And
today, we are going to take alook specifically at Luke 22. In
this passage, Jesus tells hisdisciples to go out and buy some
swords right before he is aboutto get confronted in the Garden
(00:30):
of Gethsemane and betrayed byJudas. And a lot of a lot of non
pacifists are going to use thispassage to argue that Jesus,
right here, is encouraging andand promoting this idea of self
defense.
Because why else would he tellhis disciples to go out and sell
(00:54):
some of their items just to tobuy swords if Jesus didn't have
self defense in view? And ifJesus really was nonviolent, and
and He taught nonviolence andwanted to exhibit that, and
violence was off the table forHim, then it seems rather
contradictory for Him to set Hisdisciples up for failure, if He
(01:18):
was telling them to buy swords.I think this is a a really
interesting argument againstpacifism, but it's one that I
don't think is unassailable atall. And I think that a a deep
look into it actually helps usto uncover a lot of
presuppositions or, maybe notpresuppositions, but, traditions
(01:41):
that we kind of have in our mindabout some some of the events
that happened in in Jesus' lasthours that just aren't biblical.
And, I think it'll be aninteresting look.
So let's dive in. By the end ofthis episode, I I really want to
create a larger synthesis of ofall of the details and events,
(02:07):
and maybe paint a a big picturefor you. But before we get into
that, I I really need to pointout some individual pieces of
evidence that we're going toneed for our synthesis. Just
some interesting points that, inand of themselves, are are
important, but when piecedtogether, are going to create a
(02:28):
a more robust picture of what Ithink is actually going on here
in Luke 22. So first point, anda a very important one, is a lot
of times when when non pacifistsare going to try to point out
Jesus' telling his disciples togo ahead and buy swords, you
(02:51):
know, they say, well, I mean, itseems like Jesus is telling them
to do this for for reasons ofself defense.
But, fortunately, we're notreally left to wonder because
Luke tells us why Jesus had thedisciples go out and buy swords.
And he says that it was done sothat the prophecy could be
(03:13):
fulfilled, that Jesus would benumbered with the transgressors.
So the the purpose for Jesustelling the disciples to buy
swords seems pretty clear. Hewas trying to fulfill the
prophecy that he would benumbered with the transgressors.
Now, what that means, numberedwith the transgressors, might
(03:33):
not be quite so clear, andthat's something that we can,
argue about a bit.
So what are what are some of ouroptions? Now, if you ask most
people, if you bring up thisphrase, Jesus was numbered with
a transgression with thetransgressors, and you ask most
people, what does that mean? Youare, most of the time, going to
(03:56):
get a response that, oh, thismeans that Jesus was crucified
with 2 thieves. Right? He wascrucified with other sinners
even though he himself was notone.
And that sounds really good ifyou don't know where this
phrase, numbered with thetransgressors, comes from. But
(04:16):
this has absolutely nothing todo with the 2 thieves on the
cross. This, numbered with thetransgressors, is directly
related to, His disciples, orHis his, order for His disciples
to get some swords. So what whatother options are we left with
(04:38):
then? One option would be that,you know, if if you're a
pacifist, you could say, well,Jesus did teach nonviolence, and
he embodied nonviolence.
And so the fact that hisdisciples were carrying swords,
and intended to use themviolently was, this sin, that
(05:00):
this problem. And so because hisdisciples were were in this mode
of violence, and thereforesinning, then Jesus was numbered
with those sinners. I thinkthat's a a pretty bad argument.
I don't I think that justdoesn't make much sense of the
text. But it's one of thepossibilities, so there you go.
(05:23):
What I think is, the likeliestoption is that when when the
group came to arrest Jesus, theyneeded some sort of of reason to
arrest him. And, yes, Judas ledhim, led led the group to Jesus,
but they had to have some sortof charge. And so the the reason
(05:49):
that Rome took interest inJesus, seemingly, was that,
supposedly, Jesus was leading arebellion. And there are a lot
of a lot of pieces of, Jesus'dialogue, especially with with
Pilate, that leads you tobelieve that that's kind of what
they were they were talkingabout. And and one of the things
(06:11):
that Jesus says is, you know, mykingdom's not of this world,
and, you know, if it were, my mypeople would fight for me.
And so they they seem to betalking about this idea of of
leading a rebellion. And thefact that his disciples were
armed went a a long way inshowing that this was a
(06:35):
potentially legitimaterebellion. Because if they would
have arrested Jesus and none ofhis followers would have had any
weapons, and they said, hey.Look. This guy's leading a
rebellion without weapons.
That would be maybe a lip alittle bit problematic for their
case. So the fact that, therewere 2 swords and and,
(06:57):
interesting note there, youknow, why not just one sword?
Well, in in the Old Testament,at least, and presumably at this
time, when you're going to havea witness testify against
somebody, one witness was notenough. You needed 2 to kind of
prove the case. So the fact thatthere were 2 swords, and Jesus
(07:17):
says, that's enough.
Right? This idea that, you know,you could have a random person
carrying a sword on them. But ifyou had 2, something's something
might be afoot. That's that'sevidence that, there might be
something more. It's it's 2witnesses against, the crowd of
Jesus, as far as indicatingpotential rebellion.
(07:40):
It's at least enough for them tohave a a kangaroo court, anyway.
And we even get an indication ofthis a little bit later on in in
Luke 22 and verse 52. And Jesussays, am I leading a rebellion?
And and He asked this. And, sowe have lots of indications that
(08:01):
being numbered with thetransgressors means that because
Jesus's, entourage was carryingswords, more than one sword
specifically, that that washelpful in in, the Jews arguing
that he was leading a rebellionand numbering him with the
(08:23):
transgressors, saying he's partof this group that is is doing
wrong.
So our first line of evidence isjust that, Luke explicitly says
what what the swords were for.It doesn't say that they were
for self defense. It says thatthey're to fulfill prophecy. And
(08:43):
there are lots of indicationsthat that prophecy, is is that
Jesus was numbered as a sinneror as a transgressor or with the
transgressors, for the sin ofrebellion, a rebellion against
the state, which is why Romecould crucify him. A second
(09:06):
piece of evidence that, theseswords were not really for self
defense is that when when Jesusinquires about the amount of
swords within the group and hefinds out that there are 2, he
says, it's enough.
And, I mean, Jesus knows what'scoming, and he knows that the
(09:27):
people he's going to come faceto face with are, trained
soldiers, probably at least moreso, if they were if they were
Jewish soldiers. Probably atleast more trained than the
group that Jesus was with, abunch of fishermen. So the the
idea that 2 swords are enoughdoesn't make any sense, that
(09:50):
that Jesus was referring to thisin terms of being viable self
defense. The third piece ofevidence that we have is that,
when when Peter does use one ofthe 2 swords, Jesus reprimands
them, and He tells them to puthis sword away. If Jesus was
(10:12):
really intending for swords tobe there for self defense, and
then he reprimands somebody.
And and not just, like, saying,now you know what, Peter, I
changed my mind, but saying,look, the sword's really
problematic. You know? Thepeople who use that thing die.
You know? You live by the sword,you die by the sword.
And then He heals His enemy'sear. It just doesn't make sense
(10:36):
that Jesus is saying, hey, goget swords, but then gets upset
that they're used. So there'ssomething else going on here.
The 4th point here is that, evenif you want to dismiss all of
the things that I I said, andand you'd wanna say, well, even
though some of those pointsmight be credible, Jesus also
(11:00):
was leaving the door open forsome sort of self defense. Even
if you wanna say that Jesus waswas open to self defense, that
doesn't mean Jesus endorsed itand thought it was good.
And, one one big reason for thatis because we see Jesus face
(11:21):
this before. And, we we see itwhen Peter says, Jesus, I'm not
gonna let you suffer. I will notlet that come to you. And Jesus
says, get behind me, Satan. Youknow, the the time that you see
Jesus get angry is, and and faceSatan head on, outside of the
(11:44):
desert, when he's tempted in thedesert, is when Peter offers
Jesus the option of notsubmitting to God, of avoiding,
of avoiding pain and suffering,and of acting violently to
prevent it.
And we'll talk about this alittle bit more in, I believe,
(12:05):
the next episode when we talkabout, the messianic role.
Excuse me. Not the next episode.We talked about this in the
episode where, we talked aboutthe messianic role, in that, you
know, we we rarely see Jesustempted. Hebrews says that Jesus
was tempted in all ways justlike us.
(12:26):
Yet, I could never figure outhow Jesus was tempted. Like, he
never lusts, which, you know,you'd think that Jesus would
have if he faces the thetemptation that everybody faces.
You just don't see Jesus temptedwith anything. But what Yoder
points out in in his book, ThePolitics of Jesus, is that, you
(12:48):
know, Jesus faces tempttemptation a lot. In the desert,
He faced this temptation to totake power through various sorts
of coercive means.
Or, you know, taking thekingdoms, taking, the religious
institution, and taking themasses through economic means.
(13:10):
And then we see Jesus facetemptation with Peter, saying,
I'm not gonna let you suffer. Wesee Jesus face temptation here
in the garden, where His Hisdisciples have swords. And
instead of allowing them tofight for Him, He has them put
Him away. And we know that Jesusstruggled here because, I mean,
he was sweating drops of bloodjust a few minutes ago.
(13:33):
Like, this was really difficultfor him, and he wanted this cup
to be taken away. And Luke also,also shows us that, he could've
Jesus could've called angels. Hecould've called legions to to
come down and fight for him.This temptation of taking
control and and taking controlthrough violence in in several
(13:56):
of the means was ever presentbefore Jesus. And so, let's say
Jesus did really face legitimatetemptation, and this was the
biggest temptation that we wesee for Him.
And Jesus was, you wanna leavethis this idea of self defense
on the table. Even if Jesus wasleaving room for self defense by
(14:18):
having his disciples get swords,it doesn't mean that that was a
good thing because we see timeand time again that this isn't
something that Jesus wants onthe table. It's something that
is a temptation for him. Andmaybe having those 2 swords
isn't an indication of of Jesussetting himself up for something
(14:42):
that was good and right, butJesus saying, I I just this is
this is so tempting. Guys, getsome swords because I I just
don't know if I can resist thistemptation to, to sacrifice my
life.
Now, of course, He's God, and Hedidn't succumb to the
(15:04):
temptation. But to act like itcould not have been a
legitimate, powerful temptationfor him, and that these swords
could represent rather than,something that Jesus thought was
good. It could represent, theculmination of this difficult
temptation, I think is veryreasonable, especially when you
(15:25):
consider that Christ didn't gothrough with using the swords.
He he had Peter put them away.And the early church reads that
and says, look.
Is there any doubt about thiswhen when Jesus had Peter sheath
his sword? That's for all of usto follow. That's the messianic
(15:47):
claim on our lives and themessianic command for us that we
all sheathe our swords, and thatwe beat our swords into
plowshares, and that, we live atpeace like our Savior did. So,
you take all of the pieces ofevidence together, and you take
a look at the passage, it reallydoesn't seem at all like Jesus's
(16:09):
command to get swords hasanything to do with legitimizing
violence, even violence throughself defense. So now, I wanna
take those those pieces ofevidence, we're gonna we're
gonna add a little bit to it,and we're gonna synthesize it.
And this synthesis is by nomeans my synthesis. It's, it's
(16:32):
one that you can find on, one ofthe guest interview episodes of
Michael Heizer's The Naked BiblePodcast. And I highly recommend
you go there because, you'regonna hear a way better
explanation of this, much morein-depth, getting into the
(16:53):
structure of the book of Lukeand its differences from the
other gospels and Greek words.And it's it's just gonna really
go deep. And and I think it'sgonna be a lot better for you.
But I will do my best to to kindof summarize that here, and
maybe wet your palate to to takea a much deeper look at this.
(17:15):
The interesting part about Luke22 is that when we look at the
section where Jesus starts totalk about buying the 2 swords,
around verse 36, we notice thatthere's an extremely similar,
similar structure here to Luke9:3. And in Luke 9, we see Jesus
(17:40):
sending out the disciples. InLuke 9, Jesus says, hey guys,
don't bring anything with youwhen you go out. In Luke 9,
there are these ideas that, thatHis His disciples who are being
sent out are going to experiencepersecution for their
discipleship.
(18:02):
So we see this minimalisticapproach, like, don't even take
anything and expect that you'regonna have hardship. In Luke
2235, right before we get to thethe two swords section, Jesus
asks His disciples, referringback to Luke 9 when He sent them
out, and He says, hey. When Isent you out, did you guys lack
(18:25):
anything? I mean, I told you notto bring anything and, I mean,
you remember all those commands.Right?
And you remember, that you weregonna face hardship. I mean, did
you did you lack anything when Isent you out with those
limitations and and, that kindof dreary outlook on how things
would be? And the disciplessaid, no, we didn't lack
(18:47):
anything. And it's then thatJesus starts to go into this 2
sword section, and it's likeHe's telling them to do the
opposite of what He told them todo when they were lacking
nothing. So he says, we lacknothing?
No. We weren't lacking anything.And then Jesus is like, oh good.
(19:07):
Well, do the opposite now, andstart taking stuff. Right?
You don't need anything. Youjust told me you didn't need
anything because you were allprovided for when you submitted
and followed and trusted. Butyou know what? I'll tell you
what. Why don't you go take abag?
And, yeah, take a take a purse.And, you know what? Why don't
(19:28):
you go out and buy a sword? Andit's this I it seems to me that,
Jesus is being really sarcastichere, because he's reminding his
disciples of this this time thatshould have been difficult for
them, and he's reminding them ofthe provision of God. And then
(19:49):
he goes into telling them to dothe opposite.
And when he when he asks aboutthem having swords, they're
like, well, we we got 2 swordson us, which is in addition to
Christ's command in Luke 9 to totake nothing. And so he's like,
yep. There you go. There you go.You said you were lacking
(20:13):
nothing.
You trusted in God. God providedfor you. And now now what?
You've got 2 swords on you. Why?
And, I I see this as kind oflike a a divine setup from
Jesus, where He's not tellingthem to go out and get 2 swords
because they've already got theswords on them. It's kind of
(20:34):
like, an, exposing of this lackof faith that his his disciples
have had. Because if he reallywanted them to go out and buy
swords, they would have gone outand buy swords. But that's not
what Jesus was getting at. Jesuswas uncovering their their lack
of faith and their their changein, change in in standing, or
(21:01):
position, or or posturing fromLuke 9 to now, as they were they
were living in fear.
And as they experienced thisfear, they're losing trust. In,
in The Naked Bible Podcast, theygo a lot more into this chiastic
structure that we find in inLuke 22, or I guess, beyond Luke
(21:25):
22, and how there's this really,beautiful development of not
just Peter's betrayal, butshowing in this section how the
disciples' addition to the Luke9 command was actually, in the
chiastic structure, thisrepresentation of all of the
(21:46):
disciples' betrayal. And you canget a lot more of that from from
that podcast, and I highlyrecommend it. So in in summary,
we can't say exactly what'sgoing on here. I don't know if
Jesus was being sarcastic andjust trying to expose the, the
difference between the Luke 9disciples and faith, and, the
(22:08):
dwindling faith of the disciplesin Luke 22.
I don't know if Jesus was facingstrong temptation and was was,
having self defense as a anoption on the table for him. If
he was trying to leave thatopen, you know, potentially,
(22:30):
erroneously. Like, if if Jesuswould've given in to that self
defense, that would've been aproblem because that's not what
God wanted Jesus to do. I Ireally don't know what the
reasons were. But when you lookat the evidence, there's a lot
going for this idea that swordshas little or nothing to do with
(22:54):
self defense.
And even if it does, it it hasnothing to do with approving
self defense or violence. As faras as I'm gonna read it, I think
it it's pretty clear, that thepoint here, like the reading of
(23:19):
the early church was, is thatJesus is telling his disciples,
of which we are his disciples,to put the swords away. And
Jesus shows us that, theviolence done to his enemies, he
is going to heal when he healsthe ear of Malchus. And Jesus is
(23:42):
gonna go beyond just that, buthe is going to go to the cross
and die for his enemies of whichI was 1, of which you are or
were 1 as well. And, more thananything, we see the laying down
(24:04):
of violence.
We see the withholding oflegions of angels, of disciples
fighting for their, for anearthly kingdom. And we see
enemy healing, enemy love, andself sacrifice. And to try to
draw self defense and out ofthis, I think, is just a
(24:28):
travesty to to the passage. Itit doesn't fit at all with
Luke's narrative. It doesn't fitat all with the New Testament
narrative, with Jesus' life,with what Jesus Jesus is about
to do.
It just doesn't fit with withany of that. I think it's a
stretch that that really marsthe beauty of of the radical act
(24:51):
that Jesus is actuallyperforming. So take that as you
will, and please follow that upwith, with a look at the Naked
Bible Podcast and and, that thatbetter extrapolation of
information. So for now, peace.And since I'm a pacifist, when I
(25:12):
say it, I mean.
It.
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