Can Christians be Warriors?

A friend asked me: Is it ok for Christians to use weapons? And what do these passages mean?

[Luke 22:36] Then said He unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.

[Mat 26:51] And, behold, one of them which were with Jesus stretched out his hand, and drew his sword, and struck a servant of the high priest's, and smote off his ear.

[Mat 26:52] Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the swordshall perish with the sword.

Good questions.

When interpreting scripture you always want to understand the context in which it was written. Since the books of the Bible were written to a specific intended audience we need to understand that audience a little and try and hear as they would have heard. As an illustration, if I was trying to understand what a particular function did in a larget code block, I can't do that unless I understand the functions called before it and after it from the main().

So first thing is that Luke in general is written to gentiles (non-jews). In particular this part of the book is when Jesus is in the Upper Room, where He is celebrating the passover with His disciples right before He is captured by the Jewish religious ruling council. It's His last night, and He has a lot of rapid-fire issues He wants to bring up with them to prepare them for life without Him in the flesh. Among those issues is the state that they will find themselves while carrying out their lives in service to Him.

Reading back just a bit we see in Luke 22:35-38 that Jesus is comparing their preparedness when He sent them out on a little missions trip earlier in their service to Him, to how they will need to be prepared after He is ' numbered with the transgressors' i.e. punished and killed.

So catching up to 22:36 there are probably a couple of ways to look at this. In general Jesus was never against defending oneself, though He was willing to take condemnation if it meant expansion of His mission. Therefore this passage could mean that Jesus was warning His disciples that soon they would need to prepare for hardship by guarding their money and their light-weight possessions (enough to fit in a backpack, not extravagant living) and get a sword for defense. A verse later the disciples say they have 2. If Jesus thought swords were a problem, He would have prohibited the sword long before they got to the upper room, since they likely carried them all the way from home in Galilee. Jesus says they are enough. It could be that even though 2 swords for 13 men is no where near enough, it is enough given that they have Jesus.

On the other hand it could be that Jesus was suggesting that they metaphorically have the sword of the spirit (Eph. 6:10-17) and later when they say they have 2 physical swords His word: "Enough" could be a rebuke.

Of the two ways to look at it, I'd probably lean towards the first one. Seems like He's giving them a lot of 'going away' advice so why not warn them to defend themselves. In the ultimate sense, God will protect and bring us to heaven if we believe that His Son died on the cross for the sins that we committed against Him. So we don't really need to worry about being killed in the line of duty to Him.

Matt. 26:51,52 == Again we need to look at the context of the book and the original audience, so we know how to understand what the author wrote. Matt 26:47-56. Matthew was written to a Jewish audience. So everything that Matthew writes should be interpreted in that context. He often doesn't explain Jewish mindset or customs, b/c he assumes that the reader gets them by default. This understanding applies here b/c the Jews were expecting the Messiah to come back in strength and overthrow the oppressors. God had been silent between the last Prophet Malachi and Jesus for about 400 years or so. The Hebrews that welcomed Him into Jerusalem on 'Palm Sunday', 4 days earlier, waved palms b/c those were symbols of kingship in Hebrew culture. So with all that expectation of overthrow of the current power over them (the Romans), the Jews had a really tough time understanding that Jesus was not leading a political rebellion. Even His own followers didn't really get it until after He was dead.

We can see this understanding carried out b/c Peter uses his sword to cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest. Jesus immediately rebukes Peter and heals the servant's ear. Jesus makes the point that (a) He must suffer at the hands of the high priest so that He can die and pay the penalty of our sins. (b) Jesus makes the point that He didn't come to take a political kingdom, but to inaugurate a spiritual one.

This is the explanation of Mat. 26:52. Jesus is saying that if you try to take the world by force to convert them to my kingship then you're going about it the wrong way. If Jesus wanted to do things by force He could call down legions of angels. But He didn't. The father was calling Him to suffer.

So what's our responsibility in all this? Do we have the right to defend ourselves? Yes. Do we have the requirement to do so? No. If it will advance the kingdom to be humble before someone's attack, then it is worth it to suffer for Jesus. All of this applies to our personal lives and behavior.

The state on the other hand is not a person. What applies to the person and His life does not apply to the state. Even though the state is an amalgamation of lots of individuals. It cannot behave like the individual in all areas because it doesn't make sense. The state has to act in the best interests of it's people which may not always favor the individual.

-- Luke 3:12-14 Jesus approves of soldering. Just not abuse of their power as individuals.

-- Romans 13:1-4 Paul discusses how we are to submit to the governing authorities b/c they've been appointed by God and have the right of the sword to carry out God's judgement on both internal matters and external matters.

-- 1 Peter 2:13-14 Peter tells us to submit to authorities again who have the right to punish evil-doers. Again they have that right to punish internal to their country and externally against other countries.

I could go on with other examples of warriors whom God approves of:

-- David. He was a warrior King who defended his people and attacked those who sought to oppress Him. He even expanded the nation of Israel to new, wider boarders.

-- Joshua. He led the people into the promised land and conquered many of the inhabitants of the land of Canaan.

-- Gideon. Led the people in the time of the Judges. With the Lord's help they vanquished the enemies of God.

And more and more. In all of the examples though, they are leaders of the state and are approved by God to make war, and more than that they are helped/protected by God to ensure that they win.