Do Christians Have to Be Pacifists?

Welcome back to Conversations with a Calvinist. My name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist. Today I am joined by my longtime friend, but first time on the show, James Binford from Plano, Texas. Well, he's not from Plano, Texas, but that's where he's coming to us from today.

Hi, James. How are you? Uh, Hey, thanks, Keith. Thanks for having me on. Yes, sir. I'm glad. And just to give you guys an introduction and why I've asked James to come on the program is because James is, uh, a martial arts instructor.

In fact, that's how he and I became friends. We both teach martial arts. He is a master instructor in the art of Taekwondo. And he is one of the leaders with Yesha ministries, which is a Christian Taekwondo association.

And, uh, we were just talking about before the program that even though he's moved out to Texas, he's still involved with that. And I'm thankful for that because that is a wonderful ministry that is going on and continues to go on.

He is also married. He has one child and another child that is on the way. And you did say it was this week, right? This week on the way. So, so if we hear, if we hear your wife yell, we got to go, then we know we'll cut the program and you can, you can run, okay, well, praise the Lord.

And we will certainly, uh, I know I'll be praying that all goes well with, with that delivery. Well, one of the reasons, or the main reason why we decided to have this conversation today is because James has had some friends who have been interacting with him about the subject of Christians and pacifism.

Christians, Pacifism, and the Case for Self-Defense

And really the question of, is it right for a Christian to practice self-defense to promote self-defense and, uh, like myself and James teach others how to defend themselves. And I know James does martial arts.

I do martial arts. I also teach firearms. I teach for the national rifle association. I have a certification to teach handgun classes for the national fire rifle association. So that's a question many people have.

Is it right for Christians to have this particular bent to be bent towards the defense of themselves, the defense of others, especially regarding certain scriptural passages, which would seem particularly new Testament passages, which would seem to almost go against that idea.

So James, I'm going to give it over to you for a minute and kind of let you explain sort of what you've heard. And we're going to just, we're going to walk through some of the arguments and, and try to decipher what, what do we want to, because I I'll ask you this and I think you would agree.

You are, you're a believer. You're a member of a church out there and you were with a Christian martial arts organization. So you, you've had to think about these things from a Christian perspective. So you're not coming at this from a secular perspective.

You're coming at this as a man who believes the Bible and believes that Jesus Christ is your savior and that the word of God is your authority. Yes, absolutely. And you know, my organization references a lot of scripture in regards to reasons why you would want to learn to defend yourselves and protect your family.

Now, a lot of, and, and to be honest, looking back on it, I looked through the manuals and such, and they, you know, they talk a lot about old Testament scripture. They always reference that there's a lot more physicality in the, in the old Testament, you know?

Yes. Psalm 144, one blessed be the Lord. My rock who trains my hand for war and my fingers for battle. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yeah. So you know, I, you know how sometimes you just jump into, you know, Facebook arguments or discussions.

And that's what I did. I wasn't directly addressed, but I jumped in there because you start, you're reading what people are saying. You're just like, oh, come on. All right. This is like shooting fish in a barrel.

Let me knock them out real quick. And, uh, you know, I ended up winning the debate, but it wasn't what bothered me is it wasn't based on my scriptural knowledge. I made no scriptural biblical because once they, they made it clear that they weren't interested at all in me referencing anything from the old Testament.

They only cared about what the apostles had to say and what Jesus had to say. So they completely dismissed all of that. And I essentially won it by saying like, you know, you don't really believe what you're saying.

I, I, I hear that you're, you're quoting the scripture, but you don't believe it. You don't believe it the way you're pretending to, to share it. Right. Because there's no way that you're going to let your children get abducted in the middle of the night without putting up a fight.

And unless you're willing to say that you don't believe what you're saying. And so I will say though, that, you know, I don't want to believe what they're saying, but on the other hand, I'm, I'm disturbed that I wasn't able to justify myself, at least by the new Testament scriptures knowledge and beat them on that, on that front, you know, I really used a straw man argument argument.

And you know, I feel like, you know, to be honest with myself, anytime I'm, I'm faced with something like that, I really need to wrestle with myself, try to read the scripture that I'm confused about and try to read other things.

You know, like we mentioned earlier about the internet being a great thing is, you know, it does help me as a non-biblical scholar to look at potential different verses that have to do at least with the topic and then compare and contrast and then try to research.

And one thing you know, I'll say is another reason I've always, I've dismissed this topic many, many times. And I've really only heard of it within the last like five years or so. And, or it's, it's never crossed my path before, but usually the people espousing these things tend to have something in common, right?

You've, you've, maybe you've quoted this from someone else, but I, but I've heard it from you is that there's a difference between someone that's harmless and someone that's helpless and these helpless people are the ones that are saying it because they know they can't defend themselves.

They've done nothing to prepare, to protect their family. And they're, they're really hoping and praying on, on the, you know, God to protect their dead bolts on their house. Because if somebody gets in there, they're done for.

And so when they read these scriptures and honestly, the way I'm, I'm reading the scriptures and having a hard time reading them other ways is they're like, yeah, I totally agree with that because that's totally in line with, with, with who I am.

There's nothing I can do to defend myself. And that means I'm, this is great. I'm totally in line with what Jesus wants me to do. And my, my analogy was you know, I, one of the scriptures talks about being, you know, sheep for the slaughter, but my, my description was, we're, we're just a bunch of, a bunch of mice in a world of snakes that are here to be devoured by the enemy.

And that's our purpose after the coming of Christ or the the resurrection of Christ. Right. And so, yeah, that's kind of where I'm at. And I will say it, it, it feels a little bit like the Mandela effect.

Like I said, I'm almost 40 years old and this hasn't been discussed in church. This hasn't been debated in church, at least they've never, the pastors never offered it up and then said, okay, here's some controversy, some controversy regarding, you know, these two ideologies.

Let me explain to you why it's this way or why it's that way. And part of me wonders if, you know, maybe they're skirting the topic, like, you know, many pastors will tend to do is they're like, why get into this?

Like, look, our country was built on the fact that we're rebels. We're built on the fact that we stand up against the government. We're heavily involved in the military. Military is, you know, in the congregation.

Why, why, why basically condemn every police officer, military member, martial artist, anybody that has broken the speed limit, send them to hell, you know? Let's not have that discussion. I wonder if that might be the case.

It seems like there's a good argument on both sides. So I'm not sure why it is. Like I woke up in a, in a different dimension and now now this is a topic that we're confused about or I'm confused about.

Well, I'm glad you asked the question because I, I think you're right in so many ways, but I want to key in on something that you said, a lot of ministers will avoid topics that are controversial for their congregation.

Like for instance, in a congregation like mine, it's not controversial at all for me to call out homosexuals because homosexuality, everybody in our congregation, not everybody, but generally within our congregation, there's sort of a agreement that homosexuality is a sin, you know?

Um, but in certain congregations, the pastor would be afraid to say that because not everybody does agree. And there would be this battle and in a congregation like ours, what would be more difficult than to say abortion is wrong or homosexuality is wrong.

It would be more difficult to argue. Like patriotism can be idolatrous because that's a, and you see, I got my flag behind me. What's funny is the reason for this particular backdrop that I'm using is two or three weeks ago, I did a show on the question of, is patriotism, uh, uh, idolatrous, because I do think these are questions we should be asking.

These are things that we should be addressing. And one of the questions that is often left unaddressed is the, is the subject of self-defense. And I remember years ago, I had a man in my church who was, who was unhappy with me.

And, you know, that's not anything that's unsurprising. It happens. People get unhappy. And, um, he thought, um, well, you know, I want to try to get rid of you. And he said this basically to me, he says, you know what, I'm going to, I'm going to get the, I'm going to get the elders to take away your karate program.

And that'll make you look for another church. And I said, first of all, if you took away my karate program, it would not make me look for another church. I'm still going to be the pastor here. If I don't teach karate, that's a ridiculous, that's a ridiculous thing.

I said, but second of all, what basis would you have for them to take the karate program away? He said, well, you're teaching people how to fight. I said, well, I do have a difference of opinion there.

I believe I'm teaching people how to defend themselves. And I do think there's a difference between teaching people to be actively violent versus teaching people to how to be, uh, defensive, uh, or how to defend themselves.

And I said, and let me ask you a question. Do you own a gun? And he said, yes. I said, if a man broke into your house to rape you or rape your wife or hurt you, would you use that gun to defend yourself?

And he goes, absolutely. I said, then you are the biggest hypocrite that I've ever met, because you're telling me that I shouldn't teach people to defend themselves with their hands, but you're more than willing to defend yourself with a weapon.

So just like you, I won the debate, but I didn't suit, I didn't do so through scripture. I just did so by pointing out the hypocrisy of this man. And, and, and the thing that we often don't do is we often don't go to the scripture.

So that is what, one of the things we are going to do today, we're going to look at some of the relevant passages. We're going to ask some of the more difficult questions, and I'm not, I'm not going to promise you that I'm going to be able to give you a satisfactory answer to every single thing that you ask, because we didn't do any pre-show scripting.

We are, we, all of this is coming. You know, I asked you to come on the show today and you're here and I'm thankful, but, um, but before we do, I do want to make a quick point. Um, and it kind of goes along with what I just said.

I do think that there's a difference between defense and fighting. And, and, and I don't even think fighting as a sport is always wrong. That's it. That's something we could maybe get to, if we have time, because I do, Paul uses an example where he talks about boxing and he uses boxing as an example of, uh, discipline in the Christian life.

And he says, you know, I, and so we know going back to the time of Paul and the time of the Greeks, there were Olympics and part of the Olympics were wrestling and, you know, they were boxing and things like that.

So they understood sport fighting. And so I've had people ask me, do you think that something like MMA is automatically wrong? I don't think so. I think that there's a sense in which when two men are engaging in a situation where they are both, neither one of them are attempting to, in a sense.

Hurt or injure one another. They're trying to best the other, um, that they're in an overcome. And, and it's just like, you know, if, if you, if you think MMA is, is sinful because two men are swinging, well, what's the difference between that and football or hockey or anything else that involves a, a physical.

Sport. And somebody says, well, in football, they're not intentionally trying to hurt each other. Have you ever watched football? They're trying to knock their heads off, you know? And, and, and so, but yeah, I like, I like to draw a distinction between, you know, hurt and injuries, um, and also killing, um, the intention of the MMA match is, uh, certainly not to kill, um, somebody else.

Uh, so that's, that's not their goal. Um, not even necessarily injuring, um, hurt, right. When we're tapping out, um, that, that, that's a hurt. That's not necessarily an injury. If you don't tap out, you might get injured.

And then I tell my students in my class, especially, uh, the advanced classes, like, um, our goal is to hurt each other, uh, but we want to avoid injury and it's all a matter of semantics of what we call hurt and injury.

I agree. Just because you bend your fingers back too far. That doesn't mean you're injured. Uh, the, the hurt goes away within seconds. Um, maybe, you know, if you get the armbar put on you too hard, maybe your, your elbow hurts for, you know, uh, you know, a few days, a week, um, that's not being injured, right?

Yeah. So, yeah, it's funny. I mentioned that in class today's Tuesday, I had my class last night and I made that distinction between pain and injury. You know, pain is often what grows us, you know, when we learn to overcome pain.

And again, Paul uses that example. You know, there are pains in life that cause us our faith to grow. And these are all examples that we could draw from. I do want to make another distinction if I could, before we get into the scripture passages, because within the realm of Christianity, there are two wildly diverging perspectives on this.

And there is the complete pacifist perspective, um, which is held, you know, depending on it's held by a vast majority of people or not majority, but a large group of people. But we would often think of like the Amish, the Mennonites, people like that, who would hold to a specifically pacifistic view.

Um, but there are also some more mainline Christians. Like, are you familiar with John Piper? Do you know who John Piper is? That name sounds familiar, but, uh, I'm not sure what he stands for. He was the pastor of Bethlehem Baptist church, which I think is in Minnesota.

I had to check that, but he was, he was a long time, very well-known pastor. Well, recently, and it's been within the last few years, he was asked about the subject of self-defense. And he said, he said, if somebody broke into my house to hurt my family, I would rather him kill me and my family than to kill him.

And I was very surprised to hear him say that, but that was his perspective. He said, because if I kill this man, I'm condemning his soul to hell. But if he kills me, all he's doing is giving me a one-way ticket to be with Jesus.

And if he kills my family, I know my family safe. I'm not saying I agree with him. I'm just saying, this is that I've heard that before. This is that far, um, far perspective saying yeah. And I would say, I would say John Piper fits in that very extreme pacifistic.

I wouldn't even defend my wife if she were being raped. I wouldn't, I wouldn't take a gun and shoot somebody if somebody was hurting my kids. And that to me is, I'm going to say it. I think that's an unbiblical perspective as much as I respect John Piper.

I hope to show by the end of today's program, I see that as an unbiblical perspective, but that is late. It's hard to relate with that. And, and it also has to do with our, I think our society and what we've been taught and the values we've, we've grown up with, uh, justice has always been very important.

You know, when we have a whole branch of government dedicated to it, slowly getting worse, but the goal is to make sure that everybody is treated fairly equitable, um, equally, not equitably equally. And, uh, you know, uh, the idea of not defending those that are in need, um, is really hard, I think for us to conceptualize.

I wonder if we had a totally different society that was used to just getting picked off like fish in a barrel by predators, if that was just part of it. Cause there are animals in the world that, you know, a lot of animals were built for, to sustain others.

You know, you got animals like Guinea pigs, what in the world are they here for? They're here to feed other people and they, they, they run around and I don't know if you've seen Guinea pigs in the wild, they run around the herd and they're just there to be taken out and eaten by bigger animals and they cry.

They scream when they're in pain, but ultimately, you know, the rest of the herd's not going to jump on the wolf or dingo or whatever the world is, the predator in their country. Um, uh, they're not going to defend each other.

They're just going to, uh, accept the sacrifice that the other one made for the rest. And, uh, that's just not how we are here. And in the Western society, at least never, never. Yeah. So anyway, no, no, that's a good thought.

And, and, and it leads to really the, the, um, what's typically referred to. Cause I, I mentioned the side that's over here and then you have, of course you have the far side on the other side. That would be like, no matter what, if little Johnny slaps you, you slap little Johnny, you know, the idea of, you know, any time you look at me the wrong way, I'm going to knock you in the head.

That's the, obviously that's a, there are some Christians who hold that perspective, but I would not say that's a biblical perspective. So I think we're, we have two unbiblical perspectives, a perspective that says you never can defend.

And then there's a perspective that says that, you know, no matter what somebody does to you, they're, they're, they're, they're cruising for a beaten, you know, they might, might makes right. Exactly.

Yeah. Strike first strike hard. Yeah. No mercy. Yeah. They, they, the Cobra Kai Christian, that would be a funny shirt. Yeah. So in the middle, and I don't even know if it's in the middle to, to, to write, say, but, but oftentimes one of my fellow elders, uh, brother Andy, he often talks about the ditches.

He says in life, you got to look out for the ditches because there's ditches on both sides. And oftentimes the truth is, is, is not in the ditch, but rather it's in the middle, it's where you find, you know, and that may sound like you're riding the fence, but he's not riding the fence.

That's not what he means. Yeah. It's easy to fall off into the ditch on either side. And Augustine was a, um, was a, uh, a thinker. We oftentimes we think of Augustine, but I say Augustine, but it's, you're familiar with the city, St. Augustine was South of where you used to live.

And, uh, Augustine was, uh, a brilliant Christian thinker, writer, uh, theologian, pastor, teacher, and he, um, describes for us the basis of what we call just war theory and just war theory is based on the idea that sometimes love of neighbor, which is what we are called to do.

If you break down all the law of God, according to Jesus, it's all broken down into two laws. Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. That's the whole law.

I said on that as all the law and the prophets. He says, there are times where love of neighbor would require the intervention of a act of violence. And this is the description he used. He says, if I were coming home and I were to walk by and see my neighbor being assaulted by someone else, I would have two choice or three.

I forget. I think he said two or three choices. I think there was a third, but the one choice he said, I could continue walking. I could not intervene at all, he said. And that would not be an act of love, he said.

And then there was another act. I think there was an act of like trying to engage with some form of diplomacy. He says, but that doesn't always work. You can't always talk the violent man out of being a violent man.

And then the third was I may have to engage violence with this act of violence, but it would be a just act of violence because it would be to save this person who is the victim. The victim is the one I'm showing love to.

And that particular model for understanding just war has actually been used down through the centuries. Because again, we're looking at Augustine. He lived in the four hundreds. So we're looking at 1 ,500, 1 ,600 years ago, but that model has been used and understood by Christians throughout the centuries as how we are able to address the subject of can a Christian serve as a soldier, can a Christian serve as a police officer, because you know as well as I do, James, that a police officer can't be a pacifist, not in the sense that he would never lift his hands because I was going to say when they do that, they're essentially saying that if they want police to exist, if they want military to exist, they're hoping that the pagans take care of us.

Am I wrong? No. In fact, I'm glad you mentioned that you're actually right in line with something that I have said many times. If we say that no Christian can serve as a military man, no Christian can serve as a policeman, no Christian can serve in the National Guard or whatever, what we are saying is that we have abandoned any responsibility for self-preservation and protection to the unbelieving world.

And therefore, there won't be any godliness in the military. There won't be any godliness in the National Guard. There won't be any godliness in the police. And that's a dangerous thing. And I want to read something that it's on my notes here, because this is something that I have argued this point.

I've said that pacifists live safely under the protection of those who are ready to do violence on their behalf. There's a reason why there's a bunch of Amish people here, and there's not a lot of Amish people in Afghanistan.

Yeah, because they're here under the protection of those who are willing to do violence on their behalf. They have police who are willing to protect people from doing them harm. They have a military that's willing to protect them from harm.

They live under the protection of men who are willing to do violence. So even though they themselves would not do violence, they are benefiting from people who would. Yeah, I don't want to jump the gun, but they will reference in regards to obeying leadership and being underneath ungodly leadership.

Paul was talking about obeying the government, listening to what they do. They are appointed by God. And this was under Nero. And so they were already under an ungodly, oppressive government yet. And Paul was constantly in prison.

Maybe he wrote it while he was in prison. I forget, but they make that argument that it's okay that the military, the government, et cetera, are ungodly because God's in control and God appointed them.

And whatever they do, it's for the greater good. It's for the long term, long end goal. And I think that's very much their argument on that one. It's like, yeah, there's going to be terrible people. God will use them too, which is hard to accept for sure.

I have talked a little bit about Romans 13 on the show before, because that's the passage that's often cited there. Even in Romans 13, though, the government has a responsibility. The responsibility, according to Romans 13, is that the responsibility of the government is to reward good and punish evil.

And how do you know that you're under a godless government? Well, the book of Isaiah tells us that when the good is called evil and evil is called good, and when sweet is replaced with bitter and bitter is replaced with sweet, that tells us that we're under a godless government.

That's not the goal. That's not what we should hope for. We should pray that the government is a government that rewards good and punishes evil. And while I can say America has never had a perfect government, as no nation ever has, we have seen points of righteousness in our government and in the history of our government.

We're the only government that really, in a sense, well, not the only. We're the first to really have abolished slavery around the world. Slavery was a standard in all nations around the world for centuries, for millennia.

And yet we had a civil war that eradicated slavery here in the United States and now, of course, it's a standard for the rest of the world. And that's a good thing. And that was led by people who understood the dignity and value of human beings, you know, whether they be black, white, or whatever.

So there is good that the government can do, and we should promote good. And how do we promote good within a government without having men and women in leadership who are godly people? So, yeah, just a thought.

But we have to go down the tunnel, go down the tunnel eventually without some level of godliness or at least accountability from those that are godly. Right. So our voting system was set up in a way, in theory, that the godly could vote and that the representatives would, you know, even if begrudgingly complete the mandate they were given by the citizens.

But, yeah, absolutely. Easier said than done. Yeah. Oh, for sure. Well, we're going to look at some specific scriptures, but I want to go back one last thing about Augustine's just war theory. The thing about just war theory, and I'm actually one day I hope to pen a book.

I've got my outline and everything ready, but I haven't sat down to write it. But the book would be entitled Benevolent Violence. And the idea behind that is that there are times based on Auguste, it would be based on Augustine's teaching would be my own idea, be his idea, is that there are times when violence is not just a necessary evil, but it's actually a moral good.

There are times when doing violence is a moral good. When a police officer stops a shooter from shooting up a school by shooting that shooter, that's a moral good. When that when that man, I don't remember if you remember that church in Texas where the guy came in with a shotgun.

And this dude, I mean, he was he was the I mean, he was a hero. He stood up, drew his gun 25 foot away, headshot one shot. Dude fell down. He probably saved countless lives that day. He can't he save the people in that church.

And that was not a necessary evil. That was a moral good. That's the difference. Seeing that as a moral good helps me at least recognize that that it's not about choosing the lesser of two evils, because that's often the argument, right?

Well, if you have to choose between two evils, don't choose either. Just let yourself be the the gerbil getting eaten by the snake. No, there's a moral virtue using force. Like, for instance, and I know this sounds silly, but I hope I hope the listener can understand what I'm saying.

If you walk down the continuum of violence. CPR is a violent act, it often breaks ribs, it creates bruising, there's all kinds of things, but no one would doubt that that's a benevolent violence when it's done to the body because it's done to save their life.

And so that is an example of what I would say is a benevolent form of violence. When I spank my child and oh, don't send the we do spank our children. And I believe that that is a benevolent form of, in a sense, violence because it's a spank.

Nobody wants to be spanked. If I walked up to you and hit you with a belt on the rear end, you'd be mad because I have no right to do that. But for my children, but there's an act of love there because the Bible says if I spare the rod, I hate my child.

I have not done him right by allowing him to continue in his foolishness. So there is a sense where I believe use of force can be virtuous. It can be benevolent. And so let's look at some passages. You said you had some thoughts I'd like to.

Jesus Telling the Disciples to Buy Swords

Yeah, so one of the first things that always came to my mind and, of course, was was quick for me to shoot off the hip in the discussion was like, hey, you know, Jesus told them to go buy swords, right?

So as time was coming that Jesus knew he was going to be arrested and crucified, he told his people like, hey, you make sure you got some swords on you, right? And, you know, so they'd quickly retort back.

And again, this could be could be a stretch of their understanding of the scripture was first off that the swords weren't really like combat swords. It was kind of more like a machete or dagger to help do, you know, a utility knife, you know, and also to help protect them against, you know, wild animals and stuff as they're traversing their part of the land back in the day.

And they also said that part of it also was so that Peter could fulfill, you know, kind of the story that Jesus knew was going to play out. He was going to be able to rebuke Peter for cutting off the ear of the soldier, policeman, whatever it is.

And and that was the only reason he said, hey, make sure you got your swords because he knew that Peter was going to do that. And he could rebuke him, which he did. He told, you know, Peter put it back in its place and healed the man and his ear at that in that time.

So I think that was one of their kind of their first rebuttals to the only scripture that I could think of at the time right off my hip. Yeah. And that's a that's an interesting passage, because that passage is often used to defend the idea of having a weapon.

You know, Jesus, Jesus tells us. And just to be clear that we're on the same passage, because I am I'm looking as you're talking here, Luke, Luke 20. Yep. Verse 36, it says he said to them, but now let the one who has a money bag take it and likewise a knapsack and let the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one.

And, you know, time does not allow us to sit here and go through all the different commentaries on this. There are certainly many commentaries. And the thing about commentaries is they will often they just like a translation, a commentary is always going to be affected by the person who's making the comment.

Right. The best types of commentaries for getting to the meaning of a text. Our exegetical commentaries, ones that look at the use of language and the use of the historical grammatical context of this language.

So when you say, you know, that the person you were talking to said that the sword is more like a machete or whatever, that we would have to look at the historical grammatical context to know. But I know that there have been difference of the way people interpret that.

And why would Jesus tell them to pick up a sword? Some people, like you said, say that was to defend them from animals because they were going to be going out into they were going to be having to go out and they may face animals.

I had never heard the interpretation that you gave about Peter, that Jesus was preparing Peter for this moment. But it is interesting that Jesus did tell them to have a sword. And then later he tells Peter that that very memorable line, he who lives by the sword will die by the sword.

And I do think that that's an important consideration that we have to give. What did Jesus mean when he said he who lives by the sword will die by the sword? I don't think it's really hard to understand what he means there.

But again, it's not always interpretation, but it's application. How do we apply that? Does that mean it's always wrong to have a sword? No, because he just a few verses earlier told him to have a sword.

So go ahead. You had a thought. Yeah, I was going to say, does dying by the sword necessarily mean that you were wrong or evil? Perhaps you were called to a braver role like a soldier or someone that keeps the peace.

And that would still be true. If you lived by the sword, you died by the sword. A policeman that is often involved in shootouts, hypothetically speaking, there's a much higher chance that he's going to get shot.

Right. So I think that it still stands to reason it wasn't necessarily telling someone that they would die by the sword. It's kind of like a warning, like you play with fire, you're going to get burned.

Well, someone's got to be a fireman. Yeah, that's true. And the idea of if you live by the sword, you will die by the sword. I do think there's also in that the built in concept of the idea of reliance.

If your faith is in your sword, then that's the problem. Our faith is in God, not in our abilities, not in our weapons. But that doesn't mean it's just like this. I've recently come across a great saying, and I've been saying I've said it like six times this week.

Someone said on the program, you don't lay on the shovel and pray for a hole. God gives you the shovel to have the hole. Right. And so there is a reason to have a sword. Jesus told them, go and buy a sword.

So there's whatever the reason is, whether it's animals or whatever, there's a reason to have a sword. So when Jesus later says he who lives by the sword will die by the sword, he's not saying that having a sword is wrong because he just told him to get one.

He's saying, though, that there is a certain sense in which our reliance, where is our faith, where is our trust? And I do know some people and you probably know some people, too, who that is where their faith is.