Personal Weaponry in the Kingdom of Heaven
“As far as the Bible is concerned, the use of guns is a matter of personal conviction. There is nothing unspiritual about owning a gun or knowing how to use one.” ~ www.gotanswers.com
The Bible has nothing to say about my right to own a gun.
For the record, it has nothing to say about my right to own a
cell phone or an electric car, either.
Can Biblical insights written in an age of slings and swords
give us any enlightenment about our era of Rugers and Remingtons? What Biblical principles matter most when we
consider how a believer should approach the idea of owning a gun for personal
use and protection?
***
Among Americans, online discussions of gun ownership by
Christians almost immediately devolve into arguments about individual rights
versus government controls. One extreme
of the debate will insist Scripture claims all who live by the sword will die
by the sword. The other extreme will
claim that Christ commanded apostles to carry multiple swords with them, even
when traveling to preach.
It's the dual Scriptures behind those dueling claims that
capture my attention this month.
Full disclosure: I know my thoughts here are unlikely to
change any minds. What I hope to
provide, though, is the opportunity for a little prayer-time reflection for Christians
at both ends of the spectrum. For me, neither
extreme I’ve blithely summarized above is quite on point, particularly when I
look closely at the references they’re trying to cite.
***
BUT FIRST: Let’s deal with a few distractors before we
proceed, if only in a fleeting manner. There
are some arguments that pop up regularly when Christians argue online about gun
control, gun use, and their faith.
DISTRACTOR A: JESUS CLEARED THE TEMPLE.
When I peruse social media debates about Christians and gun
control, I’m surprised how often discussions jump to references of Jesus aggressively
clearing the Temple by fashioning a whip to weaponize His visit. The implicit assumptions behind citing this
act seem to be (1) that the individual Christian is, thanks to this episode,
justified in using aggression, even violence, himself; and (2) that the modern world
is the Christian’s personal House of Prayer turned Den of Thieves, therefore
ripe for corrective vengeance at the Christian’s discerning hand.
I’ve asked those bringing up this point how it ties, even
indirectly, to an individual Christian’s right to, for example, conceal-carry a
sidearm. I’ve never gotten a fully
coherent answer. Responses reduce to
some version of, “Jesus got really mad once, so I have a Christian right to
bear arms.” I’ve tried to point out that
Jesus, good Guy with a whip that He was, didn’t hit any humans in that Scriptural
scenario. He simply drove out livestock
and tipped over banking tables. But no
one has engaged in a deep dive with me on this idea. The discussion never goes further than,
“Jesus got mad, so guns.”
DISTRACTOR B. THE OLD TESTAMENT IS FULL OF RIGHTEOUS WEAPONS.
I’m not the sort to toss around that way-too-easy dismissal,
“Old Testament isn’t New Testament, so it doesn’t count for Christians!” That kind of argument is lazy thinking. But I am the sort to point out that
old covenant laws, directives, and infrastructure for a nation state are not
the same thing as new covenant principles of personal morality. Yes, the Hebrew Scriptures are chock full of calls
for warfare and border expansion. But post-biblical
cultures (my own Puritan forebears among them) erred by assuming their own nation-building
exploits would replace Israel as the Almighty’s favored nation. The new covenant is not a blueprint for a
kingdom of this world built on precepts used to maintain ancient Israel. A sling used by David does not logically or
theologically lead to a Sig Sauer in my purse.
May I hazard the suggestion that our new covenant, founded
in the blood of Christ, is not meant to evolve into a well-armed theocracy replacing
the fruit of the Spirit with literal armaments?
And speaking of literal …
DISTRACTOR C. EPHESIANS 6 COMMANDS WE PUT ON THE ARMOR OF GOD.
A whole lot of modern believers assume they are active-duty
soldiers in a literal army of God. The
non-Biblical term “prayer warrior” is a recent verbal manifestation of that
mentality … a mentality that stretches back through “Onward Christian Soldiers”
hymns, Spanish Inquisition atrocities, numerous Crusades, right into the early
tomes of St. Augustine, prominent promoter of the “just war” theory in
Constantine’s Christendom.
Please look closely at the “armor of God” text in Ephesians. Even if you’ve heard your pastor proclaim
this Scriptural list as “the weapons of spiritual warfare,” they’re not
weapons. The items listed are for
defense, not offense– a breastplate of righteousness, a belt of truth, a shield
of faith, a helm of salvation, and shoes for the Gospel of (say it with me) peace. The only implement of offense on the list is
the sword of the spirit, the very Word of God, and before you start whacking
people with that, read ahead in the verses.
Our enemies “aren’t of flesh and blood.”
The armor isn’t for moving worldly Christendom onward, O Christian soldier, it’s
for standing strong in our faith. Give
that passage a re-think, and remember that it’s a metaphor. It no more requires you to keep a Glock in
your nightstand than Biblical metaphors about “running the good race” require
you to buy Air Jordans.
***
That was a whole lot of words for lead-in, so I’m going to
up my pace now: There are hardly any weapons in the New Testament. There’s one
bow, one spear mentioned twice, and one fiery dart. After that, it’s all swords.
Fans of multiple armaments need to rely on the Old Testament
for their pleasure reading. There, you’ve
got endless examples of slings and hafts and hilts and battle axes and blades
and knives and quivers and even a couple battering rams over in Ezekiel. In our New Covenant testament, there are only
two weapons that get more than a passing reference in the Greek text. Both are translated “sword” – RHOMPHAIA (with
one mention in Luke and six more in the Revelation); and MAKAIRA (which covers
all twenty-nine other sword references in the Testament).
The rhomphaia is the slicker of the two weapons. It was a Thracian sword reminiscent of a katana with a hilt half as
long as the blade attached to it, the full affair about meterstick in length. Thrace was located
in modern-day Bulgaria, much closer to the Isle of Patmos than to Jerusalem,
which is likely why John of Patmos referenced that blade exclusively when authoring the
Revelation. The gospel writer Luke uses
the other term, makaira, when he discusses swords, but intriguingly uses
rhomphaia a single time: “A sword shall pierce through thy own soul
also,” (Luke 2:35) spoken in prophecy to Jesus’ mother Mary. It reads as if Luke felt the heartbreak she
would have in her life couldn’t be symbolized as well by the much-shorter makaira
blade.
And much shorter it was.
Forget any images of unwieldy, body-length broadswords swung about by
the heroines of your favorite RP console games like Diablo 3 (okay,
okay, that might just be me). The Greek makaira
with its curved blade was the length of a human forearm at its longest and
often as short as ten inches. Outside
the Bible, it’s sometimes translated as “knife.” It was a travel sword that needed to be
easily packed and easily concealed. Those on one side of the debate I referenced above
might take that to mean the makaira was a tool, not a weapon. They’d be mistaken. Makaira is the same word used
throughout Luke 22 when the angry mob came to arrest Jesus and when a disciple (elsewhere
identified as Peter) drew steel to fend the crowd off.
And here we get to the heart of the matter. The night of Jesus’ arrest provides fodder
for both extremes in the debate about Christian gun ownership, as long as one
has no issue equating guns with swords.
From Luke chapter 22, on the night of the arrest –
He
said to them, “When I sent you out without a purse, bag, or sandals, did you
lack anything?” They said, “No, not a thing.” He said to them, “But now, the one who has a
purse must take it, and likewise a bag.
And the one who has no sword must sell his cloak and buy one. For I tell you, this scripture must be
fulfilled in me, ‘And he was counted among the lawless,’ and indeed what is
written about me is being fulfilled.”
They said, “Lord, look, here are two swords.” He replied, “It is enough.”
INTERPRETATION FROM THE ONE EXTREME: “See? Jesus is telling them that while He was around, they were safe without swords. Now that He’s going to be arrested and leaving the world, they need self-defense. He’s telling them to go out and arm themselves while they travel the world, spreading the Gospel!”
REBUTTAL FROM THE OTHER EXTREME: “That was situational. Jesus was fulfilling a prophecy about how he’s
counted among thieves and hoodlums, so he needed them armed so they’d be
mistaken for that.”
And now, from Matthew 26, once the mob has arrived for the arrest:
Then
they came and laid hands on Jesus and arrested him. Suddenly one of those with Jesus put his hand
on his sword, drew it, and struck the slave of the high priest, cutting off his
ear. Then Jesus said to him, “Put your
sword back into its place, for all who take the sword will die by the sword."
INTERPRETATION FROM THE ONE EXTREME: “See? Jesus said that anyone, all who draw the sword will die by it, so He’s forbidding weapons to be used in the New Covenant!”
REBUTTAL FROM THE OTHER EXTREME: “That was situational. Jesus needed to be arrested in order to die for
the sins of the world, so he was keeping the disciples from interfering in that
particular moment.”
One night, one series of events, and two radically opposed
conclusions. The only thing our two
extremes agree upon is that, for some reason, rules about ancient mini-swords
apply to modern guns. Fair enough, I can
work with that, but I do have several questions that should be considered by
both extremes:
- When Jesus says “It is enough” about two swords,
is He really claiming that’s a good number of weapons for a gospel-preaching
troupe to carry? After all, there were eleven
disciples and Jesus on hand at the time, and there was quite a mob coming.
- When Jesus says all who draw a sword … not all who
live by it, not who kill with it, but the much simpler “all who draw it from
its place” … will be killed by it (the Greek has the much stronger meaning of
being utterly wiped out by it), is He really saying that no disciple
should ever lay hands on a weapon? Is He
saying so immediately after telling them to sell a cloak if they don’t own a
sword yet?
- Do those who point at the recommendation to sell
a cloak for money to buy a sword agree with the celebrated Watchman Nee that
Jesus’ closing “It is enough” was actually a dismissal of the conversation
about swords, indicating frustration that they’d taken Him literally rather
than understanding His symbolic meaning?
- If, as Luke shows Jesus saying, being numbered
among those with swords means Jesus is numbered “among the lawless,” does
owning swords (and by extension today, guns) make one lawless? Scripturally?
- Did Jesus
mean to direct the disciples to arm themselves … only to moments later tell
them to disarm and abandon weapons forever?
Was it some sort of object lesson about the time of nation-state warfare
coming to an end and a New Covenant of peace to begin in the hearts of true
disciples? Or am I overthinking that?
- Would Jesus think it wrong of me to use a weapon
to save the lives of my loved ones and family?
- And why didn’t Stephen, the first martyr, whip out a makaira or a rhomphaia to stand his ground rather than submissively standing in his faith and accepting his death?
I don’t know. I might
never know. I hope you didn’t expect me
to answer questions that I can only see through a glass, darkly. As I said up front, I just want to provide
material for prayer-time reflections.
I will say one thing, though. After this event in the life of Christ, we
never see a Scripture showing a human believer wielding a literal weapon. We must wait three centuries until the age of Constantine to see believers doing that. So I don’t know whether weapons
are banned from the hands of believers.
It seems, though, that when Jesus tells a dozen men that a couple of swords
are enough for the lot of them, it’s at very least a way of telling them not to
overdo it.
Because if owning guns is Scriptural, then rules for gun control may
be Scriptural, too.
Marana Tha,
Cosmic Parx / YoYo Rez
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