Mat 10:34 "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword." This has been quoted and unfortuantely used, as a justification for some pretty awful behavior; because the quotes are out of context. Recently a friend asked me how I'd interpret Matthew 16:28, and, in the ensuing explanation my sense is, my friend, probably won't ask again. It was pretty lengthly but boiled down to this, context is very hard when it comes to interpreting Matthew, because we who try to hold to a true sense of the history in the Bible and the Bible itself know that Matthew is likely an eyewitness to Jesus. We also have come to believe that Matthew's gospel was written to make sense to those who were Jewish in their origin; that was likely his first audience. Matthew is therefore hard to understand from a context sense as you have to feed in a lot of varialbes to get to the truth. Was Matthew old? Why would that matter? Because people who are old don't think like people that are young. You might say, "well so what, the Spirit inspired his writing..." Sure this is true, but remember that inspiration is a sense of awe and urgency, a sense of place, it is a feeling; a book later, you can be sure that feeling changes. So Matthew isn't easy to understand, now to the statement above...it you apply it to the local ministry of Christ at that time, you miss it, He is addressing the future? If you apply it to any one nation, or set of belief's, you are missing it, it is general in scope. So was Jesus a bringer of conflict- is He responsible for war- is that the sword? Or was His meaning, something else? If you look at the statement in context, guess what, His meaning was likely something else entirely...something you may have overlooked...here is what Jesus was actually talking about- folks were trying to make Jesus be something He wasn't. There it is, simple, huh? Only guess what, we're still trying to make Jesus be something He isn't, even today...can we today, try not to do that - but instead let Jesus be who Jesus actually is? In order to do that, my suggestion is, we know who Jesus actually is, wouldn't you say? And in order to know that, wouldn't you say, we'd need to speak with him more than for a few seconds a day? We'd need to listen to him a bit more than ...a few moments out of a day?
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