The Long Shadow
The Prophets Who Bled and the Sword from His Mouth
Part 4 of 7 in the series: The Truth That Divides
So far in this series we have watched Jesus and Paul speak truth and watched the world react with cliffs, crosses, riots, and chains. But this pattern did not begin with Jesus. It runs all the way back through the Old Testament. And it did not end with Paul. It runs all the way forward to us.
This post rewinds to the prophets who bled long before Bethlehem then fast-forwards to modern converts who still pay the price and finally unpacks the sword Jesus said He came to bring.
Scene 5: The Long Shadow Prophets and Modern Converts
Textual backdrop: 1 Kings 18–19; 22; 2 Chron 16; 24; Jeremiah 20; 26; 37–38; Hebrews 11:36–38; Matthew 23:37; John 16:2; 1 Peter 4:3–4; 1 Corinthians 7:12–16
Men and women “leave the herd” because God speaks and the herd reacts.
Gideon tears down Baal’s altar; his neighbors are ready to kill him by morning (Judg 6:25–32).
Elijah confronts Ahab and Jezebel; Jezebel responds by killing the LORD’s prophets and swearing to take Elijah’s head (1 Kgs 18:4; 19:2).
Micaiah tells King Ahab the truth when four hundred court prophets will not; he is struck in the face and thrown into prison on starvation rations (1 Kgs 22:24–27).
Hanani rebukes King Asa; Asa imprisons him in stocks (2 Chr 16:10).
Zechariah stands in the court of the house of the LORD and calls the people back; King Joash has him stoned to death (2 Chr 24:20–22).
Uriah prophesies judgment; King Jehoiakim hunts him down and kills him with the sword (Jer 26:20–23).
Jeremiah is beaten, put in stocks, thrown into a cistern; his own people call him a traitor (Jer 20; 37–38).
Hebrews looks back and sums it up: “Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword…” (Heb 11:36–37).
Jesus weeps over Jerusalem: “the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it” (Matt 23:37).
Notice something: most of the blood is not shed by pagans. It is shed by Israel’s own rulers and elites. The prophets did not go looking for fights; they went looking for faithfulness. The fight came to them.
The pattern is old: obedience divides. Not because prophets seek division for its own sake, but because they seek God’s glory and glory has edges that cut through compromise.
Fast-Forward: Conversion Still Costs
Even today, conversion pulls you out of the herd:
Former companions “are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you” (1 Pet 4:4).
In mixed households, some come to Christ and others do not; the apostle writes sober instructions for living with that fracture (1 Cor 7:12–16).
In some religious communities, leaving the inherited faith for Christ means losing family, employment, sometimes life. In some states, conversion is literally illegal; in others, it is socially lethal.
Even in liberal democracies, public Christian speech can cost you reputation, career, friends and sometimes your life.
When Ayaan Hirsi Ali a high-profile critic of Islam and a symbol of secular Enlightenment announced in 2023 that she had come to believe in Christianity, she did not receive warm applause from her former allies. Richard Dawkins publicly dismissed core Christian doctrines as “theological bullshit.” The content of her conversion was treated as an intellectual regression, not a serious step.
And in 2025, a man who went from campus to campus insisting that Jesus is Lord and that God’s Word must shape law, culture, and personal lives was shot dead for it.
Saying the truth about God can get you killed. It happened to the prophets. It happened to the Son of God. It happened to the apostles. It still happens.
The Sword That Always Divides
Jesus did not hide what His coming would do:
“Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Matt 10:34–36; cf. Luke 12:51–53)
Later, on the eve of His arrest, He speaks another puzzling line:
“Whoever has no sword must sell his cloak and buy one.” (Luke 22:36)
Is Jesus contradicting Himself? First He warns that He Himself brings a sword, then He tells His disciples to buy swords but in Gethsemane He rebukes Peter for using one:
“Put your sword back in its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword.” (Matt 26:52)
So what sword did He come with? What sword does He want His followers to carry?
Two Swords, Two Levels
There is the sword He came by, and the sword He allows His people to have in hard times.
The sword He came by is not steel. He never leads an army. He never swings a blade. The only “weapon” He ever wields is the Word. Scripture calls it “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Eph 6:17), “sharper than any two-edged sword… discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb 4:12). In Revelation, the risen Christ appears with “a sharp two-edged sword” coming out of His mouth (Rev 1:16; 19:15). That is the sword He came with: the truth spoken, preached, embodied.
The sword He tells His disciples to buy in Luke 22 is about practical hardship. The age of easy travel and popular applause is ending; persecution and danger are coming. But even there, when Peter uses a real sword to cut off Malchus’ ear, Jesus immediately heals the man and rebukes the disciple (Luke 22:49–51). The physical sword is a concession to a fallen world, not the main instrument of His Kingdom.
The only sword He ever truly carries is the one that comes out of His mouth. And that sword always divides. It divides truth from lie, repentance from excuse, wheat from chaff, sheep from goats.
The Sword in Action
From the very start of His ministry, His words cut Israel in half.
In Nazareth, they love His gracious words until He applies them and reminds them that God’s mercy reaches Gentiles (Luke 4:16–30). Then they try to throw Him off a cliff.
In Jerusalem, He calls religious leaders “hypocrites,” “blind guides,” “fools,” “whitewashed tombs,” a “brood of vipers” (Matt 23:13–33). He unmasks their exploitation and spiritual pride.
When He says, “Before Abraham was, I AM,” they pick up stones to kill Him for blasphemy (John 8:58–59).
When He says, “I and the Father are one,” they pick up stones again (John 10:30–33).
The reaction is consistent. He is not stoned for being too “inclusive” or too “nice.” He is nearly stoned for claiming divine authority and for exposing the sins of those who considered themselves guardians of orthodoxy.
Why Truth Always Divides (and Why That’s Not a Bug)
You don’t need sociology to feel this, but a few categories help us see the mechanics.
Leaving the herd hurts. People stabilize their beliefs with relationships. Your sense of “we’re right” is often held up by “these are my people.” When you convert to Christ or when you start taking His Word seriously in public you don’t only change doctrines; you change belonging. Your old circle feels judged simply because you left it. Even if you say nothing accusatory, your very existence as “the one who walked away” is a mirror. The world’s most common interpretation of that mirror is: “You think you’re better than us.”
Truth exposes profit. In Ephesus, the silversmiths didn’t call a theology conference; they called a riot (Acts 19:23–41). When people stopped buying idols, the idol-makers didn’t say, “Interesting change in spiritual convictions.” They said, “Our trade is in danger.” When lies pay salaries, truth is labeled “hate speech” or “dangerous extremism.” When the gospel calls abortion murder, pornography slavery, or state-sponsored confusion about male and female an assault on God’s design people who profit from those things will not applaud. They will call you divisive.
Conscience hates mirrors. Jesus said plainly: “The world hates me because I testify that its works are evil” (John 7:7). He is not saying, “The world hates me because I’m rude.” He is saying, “They hate me because I name what they want unnamed.” People often prefer the comfort of never being challenged to the freedom of being forgiven. The mirror of truth is unbearable unless you also trust the mercy of the One holding it.
So yes: truth divides. Not because Christians enjoy conflict, but because reality has edges. The sword Jesus brings is not arbitrary; it is the necessary cut between what God calls good and what He calls evil.
We have now walked through all five scenes from Nazareth to Jerusalem, from Caiaphas’s council to Paul’s riot-strewn mission trail, from the Old Testament prophets to modern converts. The pattern is undeniable: truth spoken plainly into any age will split the room.
But that raises the hardest question of all: what about unity? Doesn’t the Bible command it? Isn’t division always bad?
In the next post, we confront the “unity trap” head-on and dissect exactly how the language of love and peace gets weaponized to silence the very courage Scripture commands.
Next in the series: “The Unity Trap” Biblical unity defined, the rhetorical anatomy of Arjen and Jan’s articles, and why “love” that only punches one way isn’t love at all.
