How To Love Your Enemies? (Part 1)
Matthew 5:43-48
Introduction
One of the most difficult commands in all of the Bible is to love your enemy. In the 19th century, military General and Spanish Prime Minister, Álvarez de Toledo, was on his deathbed when a priest came to him and said, “Does your Excellency forgive all your enemies and he replied I do not have to forgive my enemies for I have killed them all. At a similar point, no less than the famous philosopher Immanuel Kant dismissed those words as absurd.
That sentiment probably comes closer to the way most people have felt most of the time, yet Jesus comes along and says love your enemies, and when you feel like harming them, bless them instead. So how exactly do you do that, how do you love your enemies. I want us to look at the passage where Jesus said love your enemies because in it, he tells us not only what to do but how to do it. So, with that in mind would you turn with me to Matthew chapter 5 Matthew chapter 5 and I’m going to begin reading with verse 43
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
(Matthew 5: 43-48)
This passage has been called by some the central and most famous section in all of The Sermon on the Mount. Another said there’s no passage in the New Testament that contains such a consecrated expression of the Christian ethic of interpersonal relationships as this one that is describes here. I think we all recognize this is one of the high points spiritually in all of the scriptures other passages are like Ben Nevis, but this is the Mount Everest of the Bible. That you are to love your enemy, but the great question is how you do that. Here’s what I propose to do over the next couple of episodes. I’d like for us to first of all just look at the command love your enemy then I’d like for us to look at how Jesus clarifies that command. As a matter of fact, throughout this passage that is precisely what he does over and over again he begins each section with the little phrase, “you have heard that it is said, but I say unto you”, and what he does is he’s contrasts what the Old Testament says with what the Pharisees said about, what the Old Testament said. When we study this passage, we must first try to find out what Jesus was really saying, and what he was demanding of his followers, in the light of this commandment. However, If we are to try to live this commandment out in our everyday lives, we must first of all be quite clear as to what it is asking of us. What does Jesus mean when he talks about loving our enemies? Jesus is clarifying what real righteousness should look like so after we look at his clarification, we’ll draw some conclusions. Let’s begin by looking at the command in more detail aswe work through the text gai.he says in verse 43.
You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.
(Matthew 5: 43)
Old Verses The New
I’ve pointed out again and again as we’ve gone through Matthew chapter five, he doesn’t say, “you’ve seen it written”, what he says is, “you have heard that it was said”. So, again he’s not talking about the law of Moses he’s talking about what the Pharisees said about the law of Moses. Let’s look at this command and let’s begin by saying what the Old Testament says. Now the Old Testament does record the first part of verse 43, as a matter of fact it’s in Leviticus 19: 18, it says. Well, let me just quote the whole verse for you.
Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people but love your neighbour as yourself. I am the Lord.
(Leviticus 19: 18)
The Old Testament does say that you were to love your neighbour but the latter part of what the Pharisees taught about hating your enemies is nowhere to be found in the in the Old Testament law. Let’s just be clear about this, the Old Testament said you should love your neighbour, but says no more than that, and certainly nothing about hating your enemies. Jesus here clarifies this Pharisaic trickery, and what they did with this commandment. The Pharisee’s are the ones that added, “and hate your enemies”. In other words, they went way beyond what Leviticus 19:18 said they went beyond even the law of Moses and they concluded, yeah you should love your neighbours but you are allowed to hate anyone who wasn’t your neighbour.
How did they do that, one commentator says, simple, they invented it. They didn’t get it out of the Old Testament they just got it out of thin air. They focused on the Leviticus 19: 18 phrase and twisting it. In other words, technically Leviticus elsewhere says that you should not bear a grudge against any fellow Israelite, and then later says, you should love your neighbour as yourself. What apparently the Pharisees did is they focused on the “your people”, bit and said, all I have to do is love the Israelites which means I can hate everybody else. Is that mischievous or what? That’s just twisting the scriptures to suit their sinful purposes. So that the question comes down to, well, who is your neighbour. This way enables you to say who is your neighbour in order to see who they were not bound to show love to. They played with the little word neighbours they started with the fact that the word neighbours mean near and somebody that’s near to you. Then they asked the question how near is near, is next door across the street near, what about across town across the country across the sea, where do you draw the line. They decided that the answer was that a neighbour was someone physically close and they reasoned that people who were not near, who were not geographically close, were not neighbours, but could be enemies and you were free to hate them. They divided themselves from all other people and attempted to twist the command to love your neighbour into the idea that you could then hate your enemy.
It is this deception that Jesus intends to speak against which is why he says, “you’ve heard that it was said you can love your enemy and love your neighbour and hate your enemy”. Let’s look at what he says, verse 44.
But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
(Matthew 5: 44)
The first thing we need to do is focus on the word love, now I’m sure this is not new to most of you sitting here but it bears some review
Four Biblical Words for Love
There are four Greek words for love, the first is storgi.
Storgi, is the word that means the love within a family the love you have for your Mum or Dad, or your child, the love of family.
The second is eros and it is passion and usually involves a sexual relationship between two people.
The third is philio, which was a warm tender affection, like between two close friends and the fourth word as you know is agape. One definition I read described agape as incomparable, goodwill.
Agape is a decision to choose to love. To choose to do what is best for the other person. Agape is not an emotion it’s not a feeling it’s not even necessary to like someone to show this type of love to them. It’s about making a choice to do what is best for the other one.
In agape love we seek the highest good for the other person at all times. In the extreme it can mean choosing to have you disciplined, if that’s what’s best for you. But you can’t ever take the line of tough love out of revenge or to get even, only if it is the best thing for the other person. If in my opinion the consequences would make you a better person if that’s what the law declares then that’s the loving thing to do. But it is always a choice. It’s what we choose to do.
I think this is critical, this is very important, people who exercise agape love do not even allow insult or injury resentment or bitterness to prevent them from seeking the other person’s highest good How do we make that choice, what is involved what are the particulars and what does it look like, well Jesus has told us, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”.
It must be noted at this point that Jesus laid this love down as a basis for personal relationships. People sometimes use this passage as a basis for pacifism. Of course, it includes having the attitude of always seeking peace, but first and foremost it deals with our personal relationships, with our family and our neighbours and the people we meet with every day in life. It is a commandment of how we should live and communicate with those around us. Please note there’s three things you can do, Jesus gives you three specific things you can do to demonstrate this type of love. This is Jesus explanation of three ways we can fulfil the command to , love our enemies.
Three Ways to Love People
Number one you can bless them. The apostle Paul picks this idea of blessing our enemies up in Romans chapter 12, saying this is the ultimate test of living the Christian life, in that when you are cursed and if you’re a loving person you bless them even in return for ill will. The exact nuance that the word translated as “bless” is not just returning a blessing with blessing, but blessing those who are against you, and curse you.
Second thing, do you can do good to those who hate you. Notice even if they hate you or try to harm you, speak a blessing, but do good also.
Proverbs tells us;
If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat;
if he is thirsty, give him water to drink.
(Proverbs 25: 21)
So, when I say that Christian love is doing what is best for the other person, here are the specifics. If that person has a need that you can meet, then meet it, and then, go one step further. We are to love our enemies by speaking blessing upon them and at the same time by doing something good for them.
There is a third thing we can do. We can pray for them. The words used in this text to describe those who are ill disposed towards you is spiteful. The Greek word translated spitefully I am told actually means to threaten and abuse you. It’s always referring to a way of someone using speech against you. So, if someone is abusing you verbally this persecuting will likely involve something they do to you, but also the spitefulness will usually involve hostile speech. So, what you are to do is pray for that person. Maybe they don’t know the Lord, then ask the Lord to save and change an enemy into a friend. And if they are a believer, then we are repeatedly told throughout the New Testament that like the apostle Paul we are to pray for our enemies, and if they’re believers that they might become our friends. Pray that they have insight into the word of God that they would allow the spirit of God to give them understanding of the will of God that they would have the grace to do it.
I once read of a story of a man who kept a small black book in which he placed all the names of those who had wronged him, not so they might seek revenge but so that he would remember to pray for them. On the next page he kept another list of those he himself had wronged, so that he would remember to pray for them also. I think we sometimes keep mental list of all those people that have hurt us in some way, maybe the way to get rid of that mental list is to transpose it into a prayer list. That’s the way to really love your enemies.
So those are the three ways Jesus tells us to bless those people who persecute us, to bless them, to do good for them, and to pray for them. Having given us the instruction Jesus will now give two reasons why we should do this, two benefits of choosing to live this way. We shall look at them in the next episode.