How Should We Treat Our Enemies?

Today we’re going to be talking about how our relationship with God impacts our relationships with everyone else and this week we’ll be focusing on our enemies. Let’s face it, not everyone is going to like you and there will probably be plenty of people who are actively working against you.

With the rise of social media, the typical levels of hostility that people are willing to publicly inflict on someone else has grown exponentially so, as followers of Christ, how do we respond? The answer may sound simple, but it’s one thing to say and a completely different thing to be able to walk it out. Stick around as we dive into this tricky topic.

In Matthew 5:43-45, Jesus says, “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.”

“Love your enemies?” That is obviously not a popular way of thinking today, but it was no more popular back when Jesus first said it. It is never easy to love other people consistently, but loving someone who hates you, what does that even look like?

First, we need to understand our enemies from a Biblical perspective. Even though it’s been around 2,000 years since Jesus taught the sermon on the mount, we are facing many of the same interpersonal issues that they were facing then; oppression, racism, injustice, greed, political manipulation, social unrest continuously bubbling beneath the surface and always on the brink of war. Does any of this sound familiar? Jesus was speaking to a people whose historic lands were occupied by a foreign oppressor, who had been subjugated and forced to pay taxes to a leader they despised. They had a very clear picture in their minds of who their enemy was.

Understanding the historical context helps us to put into perspective the expectations the Jewish people had of their expected Messiah; they thought he would be a military leader who would overthrow Rome, drive out their occupiers and that Israel would be restored to their rightful place as a sovereign nation with a powerful king. Imagine their disillusionment as multiple false messiahs had come and been defeated and killed before Jesus arrives. This one seems different. He is healing the sick, restoring sight to the blind and some reports even suggest that He has raised the dead back to life! Surely, the time had finally come for Israel to rise again under this new king! Then, they hear that he is preaching to love your enemies, His first public proclamation of being the messiah was made to a Samaritan woman and He’s even healed servant of a Roman Centurian! This was not the messiah that most of the Jews were ready to receive and certainly not the one any of them had been hoping for. Even on the night of His arrest, when Jesus was betrayed by Judas, He healed the ear of Malchus, a servant of the high priest, who was one of the men sent to bring Jesus in. Again, while Jesus was dying on the cross, He looked on the ones who had hung Him there and prayed for their forgiveness. This is the perfect picture of what it looks likes to love your enemies, but that was Jesus. Is that what God expects of us?

Most likely, none of us will be literally crucified any time soon, but there are still many opportunities to love those who consider themselves our enemies. Over the past few years especially, we have seen how “us vs. Them" mentalities have plagued the headlines, flooded our newsfeeds and taken over the streets. We have seen the social divides widened as every side has become more entrenched in their own narratives and everyone else is portrayed as the embodiment of evil and everything that is wrong in the world today. Listening to me say this, I’m sure many of you have already filled in the blanks about which “radical group” I'm talking about. This is human nature. We are preconditioned towards self-preservation and we always assume that we are the “good guys” when faced with opposition. The thing is, maybe you are right. Maybe a great injustice is taking place. Maybe people are being lied to and manipulated. These things could be true, but being right in the diagnosis doesn’t always mean you are right when it comes to the treatment. Jesus told us to love our enemies “so that” we may be children of God. If we are not loving our enemies, who is our father then? There is a right way and a wrong way to stand up to injustice. While it is tempting to say, “When they go low, we go lower” but we’ve been seeing the results of that for the last few years. Is it working? Are we creating the world that we want to live in? As we think about what it means to love our enemies, take these words from the apostle Paul in the book of Romans to heart:

“Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” - Romans 12:14-21