Christians and Firearms: Does Loving Your Neighbor Require Being Prepared to Kill?

Christians and Firearms: Does Loving Your Neighbor Require Being Prepared to Kill?

Self-defense, protecting our families, and the Christian hope of resurrection.

There is a significant difference between asking whether a Christian may own a firearm and insisting that Christians have a biblical responsibility to prepare themselves to use deadly force. The first is a legitimate question of Christian liberty, conscience, and wisdom. The second is a theological claim that must be established from Scripture.

Discussions about firearms among Christians frequently begin with an admirable premise: we should protect innocent life. From there, however, the argument can become that loving one's spouse, children, or neighbors necessarily entails being willing and prepared to kill anyone who threatens them. Those who disagree may even be characterized as irresponsible, cowardly, or unwilling to protect their families.

But does Scripture actually teach this?

A constitutional right establishes what a government permits its citizens to do; it does not establish what Jesus requires His disciples to do. Likewise, the absence of an explicit biblical prohibition does not automatically establish a biblical mandate.

Christians must be careful not to turn personal convictions into divine commandments. More importantly, our understanding of protection should reflect the teachings of Jesus and His apostles, particularly their conviction that death has been defeated through Christ.

Reading the Old Testament Through Christ

One common argument for Christian firearm ownership begins with the sixth commandment: “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13, NASB). The Hebrew verb רָצַח (rāṣaḥ) generally concerns unlawful human killing, although its precise application depends upon context. The commandment is not a categorical prohibition against every conceivable taking of human life.

That distinction is legitimate. However, demonstrating what a commandment does not prohibit is not the same as establishing what God positively requires.

Other frequently cited passages include Psalm 82:4 and Proverbs 24:11, which call for rescuing vulnerable people from danger and death. Both affirm an important moral responsibility, but neither prescribes lethal force as the necessary means of fulfilling it.

The larger interpretive issue is that Christians cannot simply transfer every practice authorized or described under the Mosaic covenant into the responsibilities of individual believers under the New Covenant. We must read the Old Testament through the teachings of Jesus and His apostles.

This does not diminish the authority of the Old Testament. It recognizes Christ as its fulfillment and allows Him to establish how His followers are to live.

Did Jesus Tell His Disciples to Buy Swords?

Perhaps the most frequently cited New Testament defense of Christian weapon ownership is Luke 22:36, where Jesus instructs His disciples to obtain a sword, even if doing so requires selling a cloak.

This passage deserves serious attention, but responsible interpretation requires reading the entire conversation and the events that immediately follow it.

Jesus was preparing His disciples for a dramatic change in circumstances. Previously, He had sent them out without provisions, and they had lacked nothing. Now hostility was approaching. He immediately connected His instruction to the fulfillment of Isaiah 53:12, concerning His being numbered among transgressors.

When the disciples responded that they already possessed two swords, Jesus answered with the Greek expression Ἱκανόν ἐστιν (Hikanon estin), conventionally translated “It is enough” (Luke 22:38).

The meaning of this response is debated. Some understand it as Jesus acknowledging that two swords were sufficient for the immediate circumstances. Others understand it as an abrupt conclusion to a conversation His disciples had misunderstood. Neither interpretation, however, establishes a general command for every Christian to arm himself. Two swords would hardly constitute sufficient equipment for eleven disciples if Jesus intended to establish an ongoing system of armed protection.

More importantly, Luke does not leave us wondering what happened when the disciples attempted to use those weapons.

When the armed crowd arrived to arrest Jesus, the disciples asked whether they should strike. Peter drew his sword and cut off the ear of the high priest's servant. Jesus immediately stopped the violence, healed the injured man, and instructed Peter to put away his weapon (Luke 22:49–51; Matthew 26:52; John 18:10–11).

Consider Peter's motivation. He was not seeking revenge or pursuing an innocent stranger. He was attempting to protect someone he loved from an unjust arrest by armed men. If loving another person necessarily justifies armed intervention, Peter's conduct presents an especially relevant example.

Yet Jesus corrected him.

Admittedly, Jesus' arrest was unique. His suffering and death were essential to His redemptive mission, so we cannot automatically transform this incident into a categorical prohibition against every conceivable act of physical defense. Nevertheless, neither can we responsibly use Luke 22:36 to establish a universal mandate for armed protection while disregarding what Jesus did when a disciple actually employed his sword.

The narrative must be read as a whole.

The Same Peter Later Taught the Church How to Suffer

There is another dimension to Peter's experience that deserves particular attention. Years after Jesus corrected him in the garden, Peter instructed Christians concerning their response to unjust treatment.

In 1 Peter 2:21–23, he presents Christ as the example believers are called to follow. Jesus suffered without responding with threats or retaliation, entrusting Himself to the One who judges righteously.

The Greek word ὑπογραμμός (hypogrammos), translated example in verse 21, conveys the idea of a pattern or model to be followed. Peter was not merely recording an interesting detail about Jesus' behavior. He was instructing believers to imitate Him.

The man who once reached for a sword to protect Jesus now directed Christians toward the suffering example of Jesus.

This instruction is consistent with the broader New Testament. In Matthew 5:38–48, Jesus teaches His followers to reject personal retaliation and love their enemies. Paul similarly instructs Christians not to repay evil for evil, to pursue peace insofar as it depends on them, and to overcome evil with good (Romans 12:17–21).

These passages do not provide an exhaustive framework for every emergency involving a violent aggressor. They do, however, establish the Christian's governing disposition. We cannot treat the use of force as an uncomplicated expression of love while relegating Jesus' teachings on enemies, mercy, suffering, and retaliation to secondary importance.

Paul reminds us that although we live in the flesh, “the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses” (2 Corinthians 10:3–4, NASB 1995). He identifies those fortresses as arguments and pretensions raised against the knowledge of God (v. 5). Likewise, Ephesians 6:10–17 reminds believers that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual forces, requiring the full armor of God. Our enemies are not the people we are called to reach, and the kingdom of Christ cannot be established or defended through earthly weapons. Our calling is to overcome evil through truth, faith, righteousness, prayer, and the Word of God.

Does Protecting Our Families Require Readiness to Kill?

Many Christians who advocate armed self-defense do so out of sincere concern for their spouses, children, and neighbors. They are not necessarily motivated by anger or a desire to harm anyone. They believe that protecting those entrusted to their care is an expression of love.

There is truth in that concern. Scripture commands believers to care for their households (1 Timothy 5:8), love their neighbors (Matthew 22:39), and attend to those in danger or distress. The Good Samaritan illustrates love through costly, practical intervention on behalf of someone who has suffered violence (Luke 10:25–37).

But we must distinguish between the biblical responsibility to care for others and the assertion that such care necessarily requires a willingness to employ deadly force.

The New Testament never presents weapon ownership or preparation to kill as qualifications for faithful Christian parenting or responsible household leadership. Nor does it teach that a believer who declines to carry a weapon has thereby abandoned his family.

There are numerous ways to protect someone: intervening, removing them from danger, shielding them, seeking assistance, providing shelter, and accepting personal risk for their sake. Circumstances may require difficult decisions, and Christians may disagree in conscience about whether force is permissible in an immediate emergency.

But the claim that love requires preparedness to kill demands biblical support that cannot simply be assumed.

Indeed, there is a deeper theological problem with making the prevention of physical death our highest responsibility: the New Testament repeatedly prepares believers, including those we love most, to face suffering and death with confidence in the resurrection.

Preparing Those We Love for Something Greater Than Survival

Hebrews 11 offers one of Scripture's most extraordinary descriptions of faith. Its author recounts those who conquered kingdoms, escaped danger, and experienced remarkable deliverance. Yet the chapter does not end with stories of survival.

In Hebrews 11:35–38, women receive their dead back through resurrection, while others endure torture, refusing release because their hope is fixed upon a better resurrection. Still others experience imprisonment, persecution, and death.

The women and those who endured torture are distinct examples; the passage does not explicitly identify the tortured individuals as their children. Nevertheless, together they demonstrate something essential: God's people are not always delivered from death, and the absence of such deliverance does not constitute a failure of faith.

The author celebrates those who survived and those who did not. Their common victory was faithfulness to God.

This challenges a protection-centered theology that treats preventing the physical death of those we love as the supreme expression of Christian responsibility. Scripture certainly permits us to seek their safety, but it directs our ultimate concern toward something greater than survival.

Paul demonstrates this beautifully in his relationship with Timothy.

He addresses Timothy as his beloved child in the faith (1 Timothy 1:2; 2 Timothy 1:2). Here was a younger man whom Paul loved, instructed, encouraged, and regarded with deeply personal affection. Yet Paul did not prepare Timothy for a life in which suffering must be avoided at all costs. Instead, he instructed him to join in suffering for the gospel (2 Timothy 1:8) and endure hardship as a good soldier of Christ Jesus (2 Timothy 2:3).

Paul was not indifferent to Timothy's well-being. His letters reveal precisely the opposite. But his pastoral responsibility included preparing his spiritual child to remain faithful even when obedience to Christ might cost him his life.

Jesus Himself established this perspective when He instructed His disciples not to fear those who could kill the body but could not kill the soul (Matthew 10:28). He did not promise His followers immunity from physical death. He prepared them to remain faithful even when confronted with it.

Paul expressed that same confidence: “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21, NASB).

This was not a romantic dismissal of death or an excuse for recklessness. Paul knew suffering intimately, took reasonable steps to escape danger when appropriate, and understood the value of continuing his earthly ministry. Nevertheless, his hope extended beyond the preservation of his physical life.

In Philippians 3:10–11, he speaks of sharing in Christ's sufferings, being conformed to His death, and attaining the resurrection. In 2 Corinthians 4:10–14, he explains that believers carry the reality of Jesus' death in their bodies while trusting that the God who raised Jesus will also raise them.

Christian parents should certainly teach their children wisdom, awareness, and appropriate precautions. But if we teach them how to protect their earthly lives without preparing them to suffer faithfully for Christ, we have neglected something far more important.

Our children need to know that death is not the ultimate enemy from which their parents must somehow guarantee their escape. Christ has already secured the victory that no earthly weapon can provide.

This does not eliminate our responsibility to protect them. It places that responsibility within the larger Christian hope.

The Person Threatening Your Family Is Also Someone Christ Can Redeem

There is one final consideration frequently absent from discussions about Christian self-defense: the spiritual condition of the aggressor.

When someone threatens an innocent person, we understandably focus on the potential victim. That concern is appropriate. Yet the person presenting the threat is also made in God's image, and Christians should never lose sight of the possibility of that person's repentance and salvation.

Consider Saul of Tarsus.

Saul was not merely a man who disagreed with Christianity. He approved of Stephen's execution, participated in the persecution of the Church, dragged believers from their homes, and committed them to prison (Acts 7:58–8:3). Acts 9:1 describes him as actively threatening the disciples with murderous intent. Later, Paul himself acknowledged that he had persecuted Christians even to death and cast his vote against believers when they were condemned (Acts 22:4; 26:10).

By any reasonable assessment, Saul represented a genuine danger to Christian families.

Yet Christ redeemed him.

The man who once pursued believers to their deaths became one of Christianity's greatest witnesses. His conversion reminds us that even those who threaten innocent life are not beyond the redeeming power of Christ.

This does not mean Christians must stand passively while another person commits violence. Nor does it mean that an aggressor's potential salvation automatically prohibits every action necessary to stop an immediate threat. It means that even when intervention is necessary, our desire should never be the destruction of another human being.

Our objective should be to stop evil while preserving life wherever possible—including the life of the person committing the evil.

Jesus taught that the greatest expression of love involves laying down one's own life for another (John 15:13). He did not establish a corresponding command that love requires preparing to take someone else's life.

The distinction is worth contemplating.

So, Can a Christian Own a Firearm?

I do not believe Scripture establishes a categorical prohibition against Christian firearm ownership. Nor do I believe it establishes a universal Christian duty to own, carry, or prepare to use one.

A Christian may conclude that responsible firearm ownership is permissible within the bounds of conscience, civil law, wisdom, and the teachings of Christ. Another Christian may conclude that personally carrying a weapon conflicts with his understanding of Christian discipleship. Neither should automatically condemn the other for a decision Scripture does not explicitly command or universally prohibit.

Romans 14 offers an important principle here: believers must not elevate disputable matters of conscience into universal requirements of faithfulness. This does not mean that every proposed use of a firearm is morally permissible. We must distinguish between the ownership of an object, the intentions of its owner, and the circumstances in which that object might be used.

A firearm should never become a source of identity, confidence, intimidation, or imagined moral superiority. Neither should a Christian who chooses not to own one be accused of cowardice or of failing to love his family.

The more searching question is whether our decisions reflect the character of Christ. Are we cultivating gentleness and self-control? Are we prepared to show mercy? Do we understand the difference between stopping an immediate threat and punishing someone for wrongdoing? Have we considered that taking a human life, even under circumstances we believe might justify it, is an extraordinarily grave matter?

Christians on both sides of this discussion should take those questions seriously.

Our Greatest Protection Is Not Against Death

The central problem with presenting armed defense as a Christian obligation is not that protecting others is wrong. It is that such an argument can subtly replace the New Testament's understanding of Christian faithfulness with an overriding commitment to earthly survival.

The apostles did not teach believers that faithful parenting, responsible leadership, or love for one's neighbor required preparedness to kill. They taught Christians to care for one another, pursue peace, endure suffering, love their enemies, and remain faithful even when confronted with death.

They also taught something that fundamentally changes how Christians understand protection.

Death does not have the final word.

Paul's declaration in 1 Corinthians 15:54–57 celebrates the ultimate defeat of death through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is not merely a comforting thought for funerals. It is foundational to how believers should live, raise their children, understand suffering, and respond to a world that often operates through fear.

We should protect those entrusted to our care, intervene when people are in danger, exercise wisdom, and take reasonable precautions. But our calling is not to preserve earthly life at any cost. It is to remain faithful to the One who has promised us eternal life.

A Christian may own a firearm. A Christian may choose not to. What neither Christian should do is turn a personal decision into a divine command without clear biblical authority.

Our confidence is not that we possess the means to prevent death. Our confidence is that Jesus Christ has conquered it.

And that is the hope we should be preparing our families to carry into whatever tomorrow brings.

Scripture references: New American Standard Bible (NASB). Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved.