To be fair, Augustine and Christians after him provided justification for war in part by asking questions about passages like these. But my response to Augustine would be the same as our response was to the Muslim debaters: “What is Jesus actually saying in this verse? We should read the context.” In context, it is incontrovertibly clear that Jesus is talking not about war but about division among families: “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—a man’s enemies
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