Jesus expects His followers to love the unlovable. This isn’t a suggestion. It’s an expectation. It’s a house rule. Loving enemies proves we have home training. Jesus taught that His followers are to be thermostats, not thermometers.
Jesus’ followers shouldn’t be blown about by every whim. Instead, Jesus says we should love. We impact our surroundings by allowing our preconditioned setting of love to change the environment around us. This is made explicit in the next section of our lesson.
In each of the scenarios above (being hated, cursed, abused, slapped, stolen from), a form of mistreatment and oppression is listed. In each case, Jesus told His believers to respond with loving action. It should be noted Jesus did not speak of His followers as perpetrators of these abuses. This suggests domination, oppression, and hostility are inherently non-Kingdom behaviors.
While Jesus’ teaching precludes His followers from being oppressors, it doesn’t alleviate the reality that we may be oppressed and experience the pangs of ill-treatment. However, it is clear we are never to succumb to the ill-treatment of persecution nor sully our hands with destructive retributive behaviors. If we engage in the activities Jesus commanded, we will eradicate the lines of hostility. We may not necessarily remove acts of hostility toward us by those who want to be our enemies, but we will remove the line drawn in the sand marking an enemy as an enemy.
Can an enemy remain an enemy when they are loved? Can an enemy remain an enemy when we bless them or speak kindly about them? Can an enemy remain an enemy when we pray for them? Fortunately, no. While they may remain hostile, our loving, blessing, and most certainly praying will change us even if it does not change our offender, thus eradicating the line marking the offender as an enemy. In the end, they may prove to be an enemy to us but we will prove to be friends to them.
We cannot enter the presence of God in prayer and remain unchanged. No wonder Jesus commanded us to pray for those who do us wrong. It keeps us from treating them poorly and acting as if we have no home training.
Jesus’ examples of exemplary Kingdom behavior are countercultural. Jesus’ exampled behavior differed from the norm. Jesus expects His followers to be countercultural. The typical normal response to hostility is more hostility, the desire for retribution, or at the minimum, self-preservation. However, Jesus expects His followers to be out of this world, literally heads and shoulders above the norm. Jesus implores that we rise above such base behavior. Instead of trying to correct someone else’s bad behavior with might, stealth, or guile, we are called to be models, teachers, walking exhibitions of what is right. We are in this world but by no means of this world. We can conquer the act of oppression without stooping to the lows of the oppressor. We conquer it by doing good.
2. Kingdom Rewards (Luke 6:32–34)
| King James Version | New Revised Standard Version |
| 32 For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them. | 32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. |
| 33 And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same. | 33 If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. |
| 34 And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again. | 34 If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. |
In these three verses Jesus began to further challenge our motives as Kingdom members. He asked three rhetorical questions, all with the same aim. What makes us different? Jesus made it clear that anyone can be loving to people who love them. In fact, even people not yet walking in the truth of God nor filled with the Holy Spirit find it in their hearts to love those who love them.
Jesus then extended His teaching to doing good deeds for the people who are good to us and lending to those from whom we can expect repayment. Jesus said even sinners can practice quid pro quo (Latin for “something for something”). Christ followers should be different, however, offering something for nothing. Jesus introduced the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37) to explain the concept of doing good or being neighborly when nothing is to be gained in return. Jews and the Samaritans did not associate with each other. In fact, Jews despised Samaritans because of their mixed heritage—the progeny of exiled Jews and their Assyrian and Babylonian captors. Yet, the Samaritan in Jesus’ story did not allow his race to blind him to the human bond he shared with an injured Hebrew man. While the Jewish priest and the Levite ignored the man who had been physically assaulted by robbers, the despised Samaritan went out of his way to provide loving and much-needed care. He also promised to take care of any additional medical expenses the injured man incurred. Jesus commended the Samaritan because he dared to see the Hebrew as a brother rather than as an enemy.
3. Be Merciful (Luke 6:35–36)
| King James Version | New Revised Standard Version |
| 35 But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. | 35 But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. |
| 36 Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. | 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. |
In this last section is another of Jesus’ Kingdom rewards. As we have already seen, the first reward is that when we demonstrate our Kingdom training we are rewarded as being different. Here Jesus discussed a second reward.
Jesus began by giving us the mandate to love enemies, do good, and give with no strings attached. This tripartite command sums up the way we should love the unlovable. We must love them and do so by not withholding things needed, including our forgiveness, affection, and prayers (6:28–30).
However, to match this command, Jesus promised a blessing. Christ promised that when we act like we have home training even in the face of enemies and unjust treatment, we can expect a great reward! The shouting good news of this promise is that this is a great reward by Jesus’ standard.
The last reward doled out to us is the claim of being children of God. What a wonderful feeling to be loved and claimed by God as children, heirs to the Kingdom of God. Imagine God poking out His chest watching us as we love unlovable people and be merciful when it is unwarranted. Imagine Him bragging, “Check out My child!” What a reward!
Jesus told us why God will be so proud. When we behave as if we have home training in the face of adversity and mistreatment, we will be emulating our heavenly Father, who is “kind unto the unthankful and to the evil” (6:35, KJV). Children should look like their parents. As children of God, we should look like our Father. That means when we love our enemies, we look just like our Father, God! That may be the greatest miracle of all time, for us to look like Jesus!
Application & Review
Remember It
In today’s lesson, we learned the house rules of loving the unloving and unlovable. We are expected to love even when it appears to go unreturned, to bless those who curse us. We are to forgive and give. Regardless of how horrible our oppressors treat us, we are never to stoop to their level of depravity. Instead, we are to be teachers, teaching them the right way to be in the world, the Kingdom way. Beloved of God, we have something to help us. We have the abiding presence of the Spirit inside and the Word in this lesson today as a key.