“Not Peace but a Sword”: Jesus and the Sword in Matthew

South African society is characterised by the violence of crime, poverty and inequality as well as civil rebellion and disobedience, posing the question to Christians whether they should and may participate in violence against injustice and crime, and as a possible reaction to, for example, poor service delivery or civil rights wrongs. This article limits the discussion about the possible justification of the Christian’s use of violence to Matthew’s references to the sword as a metaphor of violence within the context of Jesus’s ministry. The first reference is found when Jesus prepares the apostles for the Jewish mission in Matthew 10, and he states that they should not suppose that he has come to bring peace to the earth, but a sword, because his coming will turn the members of their own households against them. Did Jesus endorse and encourage violence, even if presumably a righteous kind of violence? During his arrest scene, in Matthew 26, an unknown companion of Jesus reaches for his sword and strikes the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear. Jesus responds by commanding the disciple to put his sword back in place, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.” These references to “sword” are discussed in order to answer the question whether Jesus in any way supported violence.