Letters to the Editor July 20

Purchasing a sword?

To the editor,

From a letter printed in the July 13th edition, a writer found justification within the Bible for purchasing a sword (read as a firearm) as a present need “to be armed and thus prepared to defend themselves and their families.” Purposeful cherry-picking of passages from the Holy Scriptures masks the writer’s call for vigilantism. With the apparent disregard for law enforcement agencies already in place, our nation has 120.5 firearms for every 100 American residents (wikipedia.org). This selective appeal of Christian ethics for solving a societal issue is troublesome on many levels.

From Exodus 21-7, “If a man sells his daughter as a servant, she is not to go free as male servants do. If she does not please the master who has selected her for.” Or how about “On six days work may be done, but the seventh day shall be holy to you as the sabbath of complete rest to the LORD. Anyone who does work on that day shall be put to death.” (Exodus 35-2)

If the Bible provides the answer for arming our citizenry, then selling one’s daughter into slavery or killing a worker who violates the Sabbath should also be indisputable.

Glenn Black

To the editor,

In a recent Courier Letter to the Editor entitled “What does the Bible Say about Weapons” the writer seems to place all his trust on Luke 22:35 (“…if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one”). He’s not the first pro-gun supporter to hedge all his bets on that one quote. Those words of Jesus, according to Luke, were spoken at the Last Supper. Yet later on that evening, in Gethsemane, Matthew (26:52) quotes Jesus telling Peter “Put your sword back in its place. All who take the sword will die by the sword.”

Two different versions of Jesus’ supposed view on “swords”, one from Matthew and another from Luke. It’s always risky to take a position solely on one biblical quote without considering others on the same topic. Granted, guns didn’t exist then and swords would be the only equivalent to guns today. But comparing swords to guns is stretching the analogy much further than comparing apples to oranges. It’s more like comparing apples to grenades. So, if Jesus were physically here today would he really be encouraging everyone to buy assault rifles or even lethal hand guns?

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