“Love your enemies.” (Matthew 5:44 and Luke 6:27)
“Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34)
Love your enemies.
No teaching of our Lord’s has been more attacked, slandered, ridiculed, and vilified than His calling on people to love those who hate them, to turn the other cheek when hit, to go the second mile with one’s oppressors, to give one’s shirt to someone stealing his coat.
And yet, this may be the most amazing, revolutionary, world-saving principle ever.
The text is Luke 6:27-35. It is a larger rendition of the same message found in Matthew chapter 5, the Sermon on the Mount.
Verse 27 of Luke 6 answers three huge questions…
“Lord, is this teaching for everyone?”
No. He said, “I say to you who hear.” Not everyone hears or gets spiritual things. “The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him.” (1 Corinthians 2:14)
“Lord, what do you mean by my enemies? Who are my enemies?”
Answer: Those who hate you, threaten you, curse you, hit you, take what is yours. It’s not that you make them your enemies so much as they put themselves in that category by their actions.
“Lord, how can I love them? I don’t even like them?”
Answer: He did not command you to like them. Some of them He doesn’t like either. He commanded you to love them. And in Scripture, love is never simply an emotion but is always accompanied by action. Love is something we do.