Love Your Enemies

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:43–45)

Is our view of who we should love and who we should hate more like the view of those to whom Jesus spoke or more like the view of Jesus?

Jesus said to His Jewish hearers, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’” That was what this Jewish audience had heard. It was presumably a principle they were living by or else Jesus would not have bothered to mention it. But is it not also something we hear continually? Is it not, for example, exemplified in the form of discourse modeled by millions of participants on many social media platforms--the places where most young people are now learning the basic rules of how to interact with other human beings?

In the United States, as in many countries, there are different groups who take different positions on all manner of issues. Quite often, those in one group have heated and angry disagreements with those in other groups. Each group tends to view those in other groups as the enemy. Sometimes, those in one group treat those in "enemy" groups with hatred, contempt, and even violence. In some of our local communities, there are members of different groups physically fighting one another in the streets. In many of our virtual "communities," there are members of different groups verbally fighting one another in the comment boxes.

As Christians, we live in the midst of a world that teaches us by word and deed to "hate our enemy." Jesus instructs His followers to respond to our enemy differently. So, do we respond as Jesus commanded by loving our enemy and praying for him? Or do we respond the same way so many unbelievers do, by hating our enemy? Where are we going in order to learn what our response to our enemy should be? Scripture or Twitter? <b>Read More