Week 48—Friday Acts 23:1-3
Acts 23:1-3
Week 48—FRIDAY
EVERY NEW TRUTH BRINGS DIVISION
We come to another objection: “Do not think I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matt. 10:34). That this is not a literal sword is seen from the parallel passage: “Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division; for henceforth in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three” (Luke 12:51-52). So the sword was not a literal sword but a sword of “division.” Whenever a higher truth comes it causes division—people take sides inevitably. When the Truth came, embodied in Jesus, then it was bound to cause “division”—and rightly. It is the price of progress; the presentation of a truth upsets people on one level to set them up on a higher level. It is a redemptive upset.
A similar objection: “And he said to them, ‘When I sent you out with no purse or bag or sandals, did you lack anything?’ They said, ‘Nothing.’ He said to them, ‘But now, let him who has a purse take it. . . . And let him who has no sword sell his mantle and buy one. . . .’ And they said, ‘Look, Lord, here are two swords.’ And he said to them, ‘It is enough.’” Or as Moffatt puts it, “Enough! Enough!” (Luke 22:35-38). If Jesus meant this literally, would “two swords” be “enough”? If he had depended on this armament against a hostile, armed nation they would have torn him and his followers to pieces. What he meant was that the situation is now changed—when you went out before you went into a friendly environment, but now the situation has changed, you are going into hostility. That he did not mean physical swords is seen in the fact that when Peter struck with the sword, “Jesus said, ‘No more of this!’ And he touched his ear and healed him” (Luke 22:49-51). So the record is clear: Jesus came to give his life and refused to allow his disciples to take the life of others.
Dear Prince of Peace, to twist your sayings and your spirit and make you into a person of war is to crucify you again. For there could be no deeper crucifixion than to make you, the Savior, into the Destroyer. Forgive us. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: May my life be so decisive that I cause division—upsetting the lower to establish the higher.