CHristians and the Sword

Here is an extremely interesting article by James M. Arlandson at The American Thinker on Christians being armed. He points out that Christ told His disciples to buy swords for their protection not for the spread of His Word. He knows his Bible well and I highly recommend it. This is part two of a series I will follow, partI is here.
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Did Jesus endorse and encourage violence in the four Gospels, presumably a righteous kind of violence? Did he call his original disciples to this? Did he order all of his disciples to really buy swords? Two verses may indicate that he did these things.

Matthew 10:34 reads:

34 Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth, but a sword (New International Version, NIV)

And Luke 22:36 reads:

36 [Jesus] said to [the disciples], “But now the one who has a purse must take it, and likewise a bag; and the one who has no sword must sell his cloak and buy one.” (New Revised Standard Version, NRSV)

Cited in isolation, those two verses suggest that swords and violence are a possibility. It seems as if Jesus carried and wielded a sword. It seems as if all of the disciples should go out and buy one each. After the death and burial of Jesus, they would have to face the world alone without him, so they thought.

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God does mean for us to face evil with open palms, He gives us the weapons to fight, spiritually and physically as long as our palms are open to His.
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"It is too probable that no plan we propose will be adopted.
Perhaps another dreadful conflict is to be sustained. If, to
please the people, we offer what we ourselves disprove, how can we
afterwards defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the
wise and the honest can repair. The event is in the hand of God. "

-- George Washington (as quoted by Gouverneur Morris in Farrand's
Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, 25 March 1787)

Reference: George Washington and the New Nation, James Flexner
(116-7)

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Quite apropo, Let us raise a standard to which the
wise and the honest can repair , something all should take to heart and be willing to defend.