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What Does it Mean to Love Your Enemy? | Part II

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Neither Biblical nor Noble

This is Part 2 of a 3 part series where we’re looking at how you are to love your enemy.

When you remain silent in the face of evil, you’re able to effectively insulate yourself from the attacks that come from those who want to silence anyone who would dare to point out their sinister actions and intent.

However sinful it may be (Gal 2:11-21; Jas 4:17), it’s an alluring way to remain on the sidelines so as to avoid the real conflict that’s happening on the field and the opposition you would otherwise have to contend with.

But when you look at Scripture as a whole, you are compelled to concede that remaining either silent or accommodating is neither biblical let alone noble.

These days, Politics and Current Events tend to be processed according to two very different worldviews.

One sees evil as something to be accommodated, the other sees it as something to be resisted.

Those who see evil as something that needs to be accommodated need to position it as something to pity. You don’t have to get someone to agree with you if you can get them to feel sorry for you.

You see that often in the Bible beginning in Genesis 3 when the serpent suggests to Eve that God is both afraid and resentful:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Gen 3:1-5)

Satan begins by suggesting that God had denied Adam and Even the ability to eat from any tree, He asserts the idea that God is unnecessarily harsh, which, by default, makes Adam and Eve victims of an overbearing administration. Then in verse 5 he suggests that God is secretly intimidated at the thought of Adam and Eve becoming more than what they are right now.

What was a generous provision is now seen as an unnecessary restriction imposed by a mindset characterized by fear and hate.

Poison Disguised as a Courtesy

However obvious it may be from a distance, it can be difficult to see up close because of the way compliance with an evil premise is often justified as an act of compassion.

  • Aaron’s part in building the golden calf (Ex 32:22-23)
  • Israel’s demand for a king (1 Sam 8:6-9)
  • Saul disobeys God by sparing King Agag and the best of the livestock (1 Sam 15:7-10)
  • King Herod’s request to the Magi to tell him where Jesus was born (Matt 2:7-8, 13)
  • Judas complaining about the perfume used to anoint Christ, saying that it should’ve been sold and the money given to the poor (Jn 12:1-8)

In each of the above scenarios, you have a situation where sin was concealed as a healthy and logical compromise. But what appeared to be rational and even noble, was a poison disguised as a courtesy.

The Right Questions

While discerning the difference between a legitimate request for mercy and a selfish demand for immunity is not always easy, you can gain some visibility into what’s actually the case by asking the right questions.

Accusations can be denied, and facts can be disputed. But a simple question left insufficiently answered cannot be ignored. With the right question, you’re able to proceed directly to that place where there’s either an answer or an excuse, and that’s an important dynamic to have in place in order to prevent a lie from being embraced as the truth.

Today’s political climate is frequently punctuated with soundbytes and snapshots that are presented as holistic perspectives on a particular issue. The result is a toxic environment where falsehoods are concealed behind cries for compassion and anything that has the capacity to reveal the truth is demonized as ignorant and tyrannical.

For example, the following was circulated on Social Media as an attempt to accuse anyone who supports the current administration as being less than Christlike. However compelling it may appear to be on the surface, its flaws from both a biblical and logical perspective are revealed simply by asking the right questions.

You’ll see the original post on the left with the “right questions” listed on the right.

post the right questions

Through the White House Office of Faith, the Trump administration has racked up several significant accomplishments on behalf of America’s faith based community which include:

Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias – In 2023, the Biden Administration labeled people of faith as domestic terror threats for opposing abortion and transgender ideologies. Paulette Harlow, a 75 year old grandmother confined to a wheel chair was arrested for “obstructing” an Abortion Clinic and sentenced to 2 years in prison. This was typical of the Biden DOJ. The Trump Administration, through the “White House Office of Faith” pardoned Harlow as well as several others who were imprisoned for their “terrorist” activities.

The Department of Veterans Affairs rescinded a Biden-era speech code that censored the sermons of military chaplains – Russell Trubey was a chaplain in a Pennsylvania VA medical center for 10 years. After delivering a sermon at the center’s chapel on Romans 1, police approached him alleging complaints were reported about the content of his message. He was removed from his duties and reassigned to stock shelves in the hospital. The Trump Administration rescinded that action and reinforced the fact that chaplains can preach in accordance with their faith without fear of persecution.

Establishment of the Religious Liberty Commission – Compelling statistics reveal a disproportionate bias against Christian universities during the Biden era. Outrageous fines that were, in some instances, the largest dollar amounts in history, were levied against faith based colleges for identical infractions committed by secular institutions that were not punished to the same extent. This anomaly was seen, not just in academia, but in a number of instances pertaining to funding and tax exempt status.

For a complete listing of the Trump Administration’s accomplishments in the context of faith based initiatives, click here.
You can’t spend Sunday morning in church praising Jesus, talking about love, compassion, mercy, humility, honesty, and caring for the vulnerable, then spend Sunday afternoon defending an administration that does the exact opposite. Are you being being like Christ by insisting that everyone who is breaking into your neighbor’s house is only doing so because they’re hungry? And how are you not being hypocritical if you’re telling your nethat they should leave its doors open when yours are locked and you’ve got a security system in place?
And before someone says, “But I’m a Republican,” let me remind you of something: God doesn’t serve political parties. Jesus didn’t die for Democrats. Jesus didn’t die for Republicans. He didn’t wear a red hat or a blue one. He didn’t tell people to pick a team and hate the other side. He called people to love their neighbor, care for the poor, welcome the stranger, seek truth, show mercy, and hold the powerful accountable. You can’t praise the Good Samaritan while cheering policies that target immigrants and asylum seekers. Is it against the law to enter this country illegally?

How were the “foreigners” and “strangers” in Scripture treated when they broke the law? (Lev 24:17-22)

Loving your enemy, at the very least, means that you are working to promote their welfare. How are you doing that by enabling their illegal behavior?
You can’t celebrate “love thy neighbor” while mocking the poor, cutting assistance for struggling families, and treating human suffering like a political talking point. You can’t talk about protecting children while separating families, demonizing entire communities, and creating fear as a governing strategy. How am I “loving my neighbor” by ignoring fraud?

Why are you blaming law enforcement for separating families when it was the parents who put their families in that position to begin with?

Is it not common for guilty people to be afraid of being caught (Rom 13:3-4)?
Jesus fed the hungry. He didn’t ask for their paperwork first. Jesus healed the sick. He didn’t check their political party. Jesus stood with the marginalized. He didn’t use them as campaign props. Jesus challenged the powerful. He didn’t worship them. This administration has normalized cruelty, retaliation, greed, vengeance, dishonesty, scapegoating, and the constant division of Americans against one another. It attacks journalists, demonizes opponents, mocks compassion as weakness, treats empathy as a flaw, and encourages people to view fellow Americans as enemies rather than neighbors. How would you expect someone who’s guilty of fraud and deceit to react when they’re revealed for who and what they are?

What’s the purpose of division according to 1 Corinthians 11:19?

Which party is it that refers to its opponents as Nazis?
The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Ask yourself honestly: are those the values being demonstrated? Or are we seeing anger, fear, revenge, hostility, insults, loyalty tests, culture wars, and endless outrage? You don’t have to be a Democrat to see it. You don’t have to be liberal to see it. You just have to compare what Jesus taught with what this administration celebrates. Does love delight in evil? And is it not evil to ignore the rule of law (Rom 13:4)?
If your politics require you to ignore cruelty, excuse corruption, justify lies, or abandon compassion, then politics has become your religion and your politician has become your idol. God doesn’t have a political team. Jesus doesn’t wear a campaign hat. What does the Bible say about a fool’s reaction to discipline (Prov 15:7, 10)?

If truth is whatever an individual wants to believe, then how else would they react to correction if not by labeling it as cruel, corrupt, and lacking in compassion?
And no politician is important enough to place above the values you claim to believe in every Sunday morning. Why would I not support a politician who enforces the rule of law, deploys a foreign policy that’s characterized by actions and not just words, and calls out falsehoods when he sees them?

City Limits

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When God draws a line, it’s tempting sometimes to get as close as you can to that boundary without actually crossing over into forbidden territory.

After all, you’re not actually “sinning,” if you’re not crossing that line. You can drink without getting drunk (Eph 5:18), you can flirt without being intimate (1 Thess 4:3), and you can interact with some people without being influenced (1 Cor 15:33).

But there’s a pattern that you see, both in Scripture and in real life, that’s worth considering, when it comes to making those concessions that make it easier to fail.

Think of sin as a city. Within those city walls, you’ve got pain, regret, and all that occurs in the aftermath of disregarding God’s commands. No one in their right mind goes into that city on purpose. It happens, but for the most part, it’s the result of a process that begins with being within the city limits.

Adam and Eve

When God told Adam and Eve not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, it should’ve been a situation where they prohibited themselves from going anywhere near the tree, let alone close enough to notice that the fruit looked genuinely appetizing.

But instead, they chose to be close enough to hear the serpent make his presentation and then actually pick the fruit off the branch and then stare at it for a minute.

They were within the city limits. Instead of remaining outside the city walls where temptation isn’t a factor, they willfully put themselves in harm’s way and what should’ve been a distant and inconvenient prospect is now a very reasonable looking concession.

Sodom and Gomorrah

In Genesis 13, it says that Lot pitched his tents near Sodom, a city that was already on God’s list of people who were “…sinning greatly against the Lord.”

In Genesis 14:12, we find that Lot is now living in Sodom.

He’s now within the city limits. Given the way he’s described in 2 Peter 2:8, he knew he was surrounded by depravity and perhaps it was that influence that made him so willing to offer up his daughters to prevent the homosexuals of Sodom to violate the angels that were in Lot’s house at the time (Gen 19:4-5).

Every Form of Evil…
Don’t suppress the Spirit, and don’t stifle those who have a word from the Master. On the other hand, don’t be gullible. Check out everything, and keep only what’s good. Throw out anything tainted with evil. (1 Thess 5:20-22 [MSG])

This is a good means to prevent our being deceived with false doctrines, or unsettled in our faith; for our Saviour has told us ( John 7 17), If a man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God. Corrupt affections indulged in the heart, and evil practices allowed of in the life, will greatly tend to promote fatal errors in the mind; whereas purity of heart, and integrity of life, will dispose men to receive the truth in the love of it. We should therefore abstain from evil, and all appearances of evil, from sin, and that which looks like sin, leads to it, and borders upon it. He who is not shy of the appearances of sin, who shuns not the occasions of sin, and who avoids not the temptations and approaches to sin, will not long abstain from the actual commission of sin. (Matthew Henry)

David and Bathsheba

1In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem. 2One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, 3 and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, “She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” 4 Then David sent messengers to get her… (2 Sam 11:1-4)

David is outside the city limits right up until verse 3. On the surface, nothing seems out of place. Even when he sent messengers to get her, there’s no line being crossed.

But when you hit verse 4, it’s then when he’s not just within the city limits, he’s right at the city’s gate. At that point, disobedience isn’t merely possible, it’s almost inevitable.

A Safe Distance

In each of the above scenarios, disaster could’ve been avoided had a safe distance been established between themselves and the one place they were told to avoid. But instead of remaining well outside the city limits, each of the above individuals positioned themselves in a way where satan’s voice and their own sinful nature were given more attention than they would’ve received otherwise.

Bottom line: The closer you get to sin, the easier it becomes to sin.

Maybe that’s part of what inspired Paul when he told the church in Thessalonica to reject every kind of evil…

20 Do not treat prophecies with contempt 21 but test them all; hold on to what is good, 22 reject every kind of evil. (1 Thess 5:20-22 [see sidebar])

No doubt, you can get into subject territory, as far as what constitutes “city limits.” Some use their desire to avoid a problem by becoming legalistic and harmless indulgences are processed as major infractions (see Ecc 7:16-18).

Every Form of Evil…

This command forbids not only the acts of fornication and adultery, but, (1.) All appetites to them, all lusting after the forbidden object; this is the beginning of the sin, lust conceiving (James 1 15); it is a bad step towards the sin; and where the lust is dwelt upon and approved, and the wanton desire is rolled under the tongue as a sweet morsel, it is the commission of sin, as far as the heart can do it; there wants nothing but convenient opportunity for the sin itself. (Matthew Henry)

Then you’ve got the other extreme where reckless and irresponsible concessions lead to a world of sin and consequences that are nothing short of dramatic.

A great example of that is the way Christ talks about the way you can commit adultery in your heart without actually being physically intimate (Matt 5:28). On the surface, it looks almost absurd, given the way it seems that God is determined to condemn even the notion of infidelity.

But that’s not what this passage is saying.

Your thought life is the place where things are processed and identified as either good or bad. There’s nothing sinful about the task of discerning right from wrong (2 Cor 10:5).

There’s a difference between discernment and intention, however. Once you’ve crossed into plans and action items, you’re no longer just “thinking about it,” and you’re well within the city limits with every intention of taking a tour of main street. Regardless of how things might appear on the surface, God sees your true intentions (aka your heart) and can rightfully declare you guilty given the way you’re already made up your mind.

Conclusion

When God says “don’t,” you want to process that, not so much as an obligation, but as an invitation to pursue something that’s far more rewarding than whatever is being offered by the sin God is telling you to avoid. Given the way natural cravings can be problematic when not tempered with a wise disposition, and an enemy that is only too happy to promote decadence as a good decision (1 Pet 5:8), increasing the distance between you and that line God has told you not to cross is a healthy exercise.

While you’ll always be able to see the skyline of that city God has told you not to visit, you can prevent it from becoming a toxic distraction by staying outside the city limits, as opposed to lingering just outside the city gates.