Matthew 10:34-37 - I did not come to bring peace

10:34-36

We then get another warning. Jesus did not come to bring peace but the sword, and this followed with another warning about conflict within families. Does this conflict with the promises of Jesus being the prince of peace etc? No. First, there is peace with God, and that is the foundational peace or all other peace. Secondly, for two people, or groups of people, to be at peace, they both need to be at peace with God through Christ. That is the only way the Israel-Palestine conflict will be resolved. But if a person refuses to be reconciled with God through Christ, then there will be conflict. Our response to Christ is utterly fundamental, everything else hinges on it. Our relationship, or lack of relationship, with Christ ultimately determines everything else.

10:37

So family members may be set against each other because of Christ. So what are we to do? Well, Jesus tells us what not to do. We must not love family members more than we love Jesus. If we do so we are not worthy of Him. We really need to get a hold of this, and to get a hold of it properly. There are two wrong ways of approaching this. The most common is to ignore it, to think that Jesus couldn’t possibly want this.. Now it is true that Jesus is not saying that family members will always be against each other. We are to love our parents, and many times family members will be united in following Jesus. But sometimes they won’t, and that is a normal part of the Christian life. The second wrong way is to deny our family, to deliberately shun them. That is not what we are to do. We love Jesus first, and if at some point we have to choose between family and Jesus, we choose Jesus. Note also the incredibly high value Jesus places upon Himself. Any notion that He just saw Himself as a teacher or prophet is blown out of the water by this verse. He is demanding absolute allegiance, and only God has the right to do that.