Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth: Proverbs 24:17 Here are some more goodies from the Old Testament: If the king of Israel had killed the Syrians, there would have been retaliation and revenge on the minds of any remaining Syrians. Guess what the results are when you hate your enemy? You got it. What is the result of this loving gesture to the enemy? “The bands of Syria came no more into the land of Israel.” So the result of loving the enemy was peace. And their sight is restored in the process. Elisha says absolutely not but give them something to eat and drink and send them home to their king. The king is so flabbergasted he doesn’t know what to do and asks Elisha if he should kill this enemy army. Then he leads them to the king of Israel. Elisha causes the soldiers to be temporarily smitten with blindness. So, the Syrian king does the obvious thing to do from his perspective he finds Elisha, surrounds his town with a great army and plans to capture him and who knows what else. The King of Syria thinks one of his people is betraying his battle plans to the Israelites, but he finds out that Elisha is telling the King of Israel. This is the story where the King of Syria is fighting with the King of Israel and Elisha the prophet tells the latter where the former is going to be with his army over and over. There are several accounts of expressing love to enemies in the older Scriptures. Surprise, surprise! Jesus learned everything he knew from God and from the Scriptures (which in his case was what we call the Old Testament). Now you may be thinking: Hey the Old Testament was all about killing your enemies and the idea of loving your enemies was a new idea that Jesus preached. What a contrast between the way King David and the Son of David (the Messiah, Christ Jesus) dealt with their enemies. 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,” Matt 5:43,44 Jesus declared in the Sermon on the Mount, “Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. If you are going to claim to follow Christ, maybe you should actually obey Jesus’ teachings about the best way to deal with enemies. Sometimes they take it to the extreme and even pray for the death of their opponents simply because of differences on political, moral, or theological issues. Recently I was flipping through the book of Psalms looking for inspiration and came across the verse, “Thou hast also given me the necks of mine enemies that I might destroy them that hate me.” (Ps 18:40) In Psalm 18, David is giving thanks to God for delivering him from his enemies, but he goes further and delights in the fact that he was able to destroy his enemies.Ī lot of people who claim to be Christians, sometimes even church leaders, take this verse, and others like it, as justification for using whatever means possible to defeat their enemies.
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