Love Your Enemies

“Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy: But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you: That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”  Matthew 5:43-45

In Leviticus 19, God instructed Moses as to how folks should treat their neighbors based on the Ten Commandments.  God’s people were required to not avenge another nor hold a grudge against another.  This statement that Jesus made in His Sermon on the Mount was not new.  Leviticus 19:18b states to “love thy neighbour as thyself” and adds “I am the LORD”.  I can find nowhere in scripture that God told His people to hate their enemies.  Psalm 97:10 tells us to “hate evil”, but we are not to hate those who commit evil.  As the saying goes, “Hate the sin, but love the sinner.”

We all know what hate is.  A person filled with hate is a miserable person.  Ecclesiastes 3:8 tells us that there is “a time to love, and a time to hate.”  In Luke 14:27, Jesus tells us to hate our parents, children, families, and one’s own life also in order to be His disciple.  Thus, how do we reconcile being told to love our enemies and hate our families?  The KJV of scripture uses words in different ways than how we use them today.  The Greek term for “hate” as translated in Luke is “miseo” which means to “love less”.  Jesus is emphasizing that we are to put Him first before all others.  Another example of old English words in the KJV is “suffer”.  Jesus said, “Suffer little children…”.  I was watching a television program when one of the actors made a comment as to how Jesus could call for the suffering of little children.  What he didn’t understand was, “suffer” means to “allow”.  Jesus was saying to allow the little children to come to Him.  “Hate” in the Ecclesiastes verse, as described by Matthew Henry, means that there is a time to be friendly and cheerful with another person, but sometimes there comes a time to break off that relationship for one reason or another.

The religious leaders of Jesus’ day had, by their traditions, taught that it was permissible to hate their enemies, of which they had many.  The Jews were very prejudiced against anyone who was not a Jew.  They called Gentiles, “dogs”, not a very flattering description in those days.  Today, dogs are so valued among pet owners that the term “dogs” doesn’t have the same meaning.  Some folks love their dogs more than people.  The Jews hatred of Gentiles did not come from God.  In Deuteronomy 23:7, God said, “Thou shalt not abhor an Edomite; for he is thy brother: thou shalt not abhor an Egyptian; because thou wast a stranger in his land.”  Hatred is an emotion of the flesh.

To love our enemies, bless them, do good to them, and pray for them is a tall order.  On our own strength, it is impossible.  How do we not be bitter against someone who hates us, has treated us badly, or has harmed one whom we care about?  Whether it is loving our enemies, turning the other cheek, or giving till it hurts, none of these things can be done by man in his own strength.  However, God can make the impossible possible.  The way we respond to our enemies says a lot about the kind of Christian that we are.  Peter told us to be courteous and not render evil for evil or talk back to someone in the same hateful rhetoric that they have used toward us (I Peter 3:8-9).  As God works through us, it is possible to do good to them who hate us.  Sometimes that is the last thing that we want to do.  Also, there is no guarantee that doing good will cause them to see us in a different light.  Matter of fact, it might make them more hateful towards us, but that’s on them.  There is always the chance that they might just see that some changes need to be made in their lives.  That old saying about catching more flies with honey than with vinegar just simply means that being kind to someone is much more beneficial than being hateful or obnoxious.

Jesus is the greatest example of all who loved those who hated Him.  After all the horrible things that were done to Him before and during His crucifixion, He still asked His Father to forgive them.  We are to imitate Christ, not just as an outward show, but as an inward reflection of all that He is.  Loving our enemies is only possible by God’s grace.  He blesses the unjust, and He blesses the just.  We all feel the warmth of the sun, breathe the air, and receive the rain to wash the earth and provide for our survival.  We might have a tendency to believe that our enemies do not deserve God’s blessings, but then neither do we.  Perhaps if we spent more time praying for our enemies, more of them would become not only our friends, but our brothers and sisters in Christ.  Isn’t that what Jesus desires?