Red, was the sword a real sword, or was the sword His Word?
35 Then Jesus asked them, When I sent you without purse, bag or sandals, did you lack anything?
Nothing, they answered.
36 He said to them, But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you dont have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. 37 It is written: And he was numbered with the transgressors[b]; and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment.
38 The disciples said, See, Lord, here are two swords.
Thats enough! he replied.
Why would you have to buy a spiritual sword- God grants that for free.
When Jesus encounters the faithful centurion - an member of the foreign military no less- he doesn’t tell him to drop his sword and desert.
Later, when men came to arrest Jesus, Peter took out his sword and it was real enough to cut off a man’s ear. Peter hadn’t been smuggling the sword around all that time without Jesus knowing he had it, it was by all description an ordinary piece of equipment. No one was surprised by it, it just wasn’t the appropriate time to use it for Jesus still had to go through with his mission, which meant arrest and trial and death on the cross, and fighting to avoid arrest was pointless.