That's not at all what I said or implied and I added more in a subsequent post. Have a sword (gun) but keep it sheathed until it's necessary to defend your life and the lives of others. Pretty standard, really.

This post was edited by El1te on Jan 4 2024 09:14pm

Not what Jesus was saying there at all. He was literally saying the opposite.

The quoted passage was right before Jesus was taken. Jesus says the two swords they have are sufficient. Why are they sufficient? Not because they are intended to be effective defense. They are sufficient because they are evidence that Jesus was the leader of a violent mob, which can be turned against him and used to prosecute him as doing some form of rebellion.

Jesus wanted his followers to have swords at that time because it would help in condemning him to the cross, which was necessary to fulfill the plan.

Jesus is extremely explicit in the bible about violence. You don't do it. If you are struck, you get struck again if the other person wants to. You don't offer violent resistance to evil. Many places with no metaphore at all Jesus makes it clear that violence is not how his followers should respond.

His message was peace. He says "I come to bring a sword" not as a literal sword, but because he knows how controversial he will be and that strife will follow his message because of all the haters who don't think he's the king.

It's so weird how Christians will scream "OUT OF CONTEXT" and then absolutely refuse to look at context when something fits their agenda.

This post was edited by Thor123422 on Jan 4 2024 09:19pm

Did I mention Soros in my post?

So why did he tell his followers to buy a sword? Use it to massage people I guess?

This take is even more wild that saying that the crusaders weren't actually Christian. Where do you learn this stuff?

Are you a professing Christian? If not, why is your (frankly bizarre) interpretation of my religious scripture valid?

This post was edited by El1te on Jan 4 2024 09:26pm

This take is absolutely bog standard and is obvious when you read the surrounding text.

I first heard this when I was like 15 in a baptist church. You can just google any number of sources that agree with it. It's not an ambiguous interpretation.

So you're not a Christian? You went to church at 15, are you an apostate or were dragged there by family?

I went because I was curious. Even then, that Jesus was an idealistic pacifist was not a controversial opinion. The pastor's refrain was something to the effect of "Jesus asks us to be unrealistic because being perfect means you don't bend to the world. It's not supposed to be easy".

Jesus was absolutely unambiguously a pacifist in the bible, and expected his followers to be pacifists as well.

He knew they would die. He knew they wouldn't be able to defend themselves. They were expected to either be protected by God as a result of their extreme levels of faith (if their faith was strong enough they could literally move mountains, remember?), or die and have their faith be rewarded by God in heaven.

Jesus often used swords as metaphore for conflict. In the scripture Bogie brought up, where he says he didn't come to bring peace but a sword, the sword is not an example of his own holy army charging an enemy. It was that his message would bring conflict and turn family members who believed in him against family members who didn't.

You really have to bend over backwards to get the interpretation that Jesus expected you to be armed out of his teachings.

This post was edited by Thor123422 on Jan 4 2024 09:30pm

That is very admirable of you. His statement is true as that is the ideal for all of us and resonates with being persecuted. It also doesn't apply to pacifism, because being perfect would be saving an innocent life from a killer, not letting them be slaughtered (when you had the power to save them) on a pacifist principle. But remember that is the viewpoint of one pastor - there are a ton of "ultra"-MAGA pastors out there and also more wacky ones.

As I said before Jesus never preached pacifism. He Himself never partook in any violence because it was not His mission, nor was it ever a necessary part of His mission. That He Himself was pacifistic is something everyone knows, but as I said before only a small minority of Christian sects interpret scripture to mean that they themselves should be pacifists. There was also many more ascetic pacifist sects/groups that were destroyed in the inquisitions such as the Waldensians. The vast majority of sects are not pacifist.

Then the spin-off religion of Islam got rid of pacifism all together.

The sword is a universal symbol and word for violence and bloodshed - your interpretation again here is contemptable. At this time in history, the dominant weapon of war was the double-edged shortsword. Gladius, Seax, Xiphos.

You seem to be saying that the only "true" Christianity is asceticism.

This post was edited by El1te on Jan 4 2024 10:01pm