Part 2: The Big Stumbling Block. Chapter 8: Love My Enemies? As I have said, Jesus' teachings on wealth, oaths, and divorce offend most people who hear them, and those are certainly among the harder teachings of Jesus. Yet even those three teachings aren't the main reason why the conventional churches have largely rejected the way of the Kingdom. No, the biggest stumbling block has been his teachings on turning the other cheek and loving our enemies.
And because these teachings are such a stumbling block, I've devoted an entire section of this book to them. Let's begin with what Jesus said about turning the other cheek. You have heard that it was said, "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth." But I tell you not to resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also. And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two.
Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you do not turn away. This was indeed revolutionary teaching. Not only did the Gentiles not live this way, neither did the Jews, and sadly neither have most professing Christians. The group of commandments we've just read call for passive conduct. Don't resist an evil person. Turn the other cheek. If someone sues you for your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone compels you to go one mile, go two instead. Give to him who asks.
Putting these commandments into practice is sometimes called non-resistance. But there is also a proactive part of Jesus' teaching. You have heard that it was said, "You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy." But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect. It's not enough just to be non-resistant. We Christians must also be proactive, reaching out in love to anyone we might have formerly thought of as an enemy. If someone hates us, we should find out why.
Perhaps we can clear the matter up so that the person who was our enemy becomes a friend. Jesus told us, "If you bring your gift to the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gifts." So, as Kingdom citizens, we must do all we can to make peace with others.
Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." In our everyday dealings, at work and with neighbors and friends, there are always hurts, arguments, and disputes. If we are a party to such a dispute, we should be the first to offer the olive branch and make peace, even if we're convinced we're right. And non-resistance absolutely goes against our fallen flesh. Non-resistance is something we have to learn. It's definitely not something we're born with.
I've realized this when watching toddlers at play. If one child has a toy, invariably the other child wants his toy. Does the first toddler say, "Yes, dear friend, you may play with my toy"? Hardly. The second child usually just grabs, and the first child resists with all his strength. Usually there's a lot of screaming and sometimes hitting and biting. I know that when I've been called on to turn the other cheek and not to resist evil, my flesh has objected mightily. I'm certainly not non-resistant by nature.
Fourteen years ago, my family and I moved to the house where we presently live. It sits out in the country on three and a half acres. Shortly after we moved in, we noticed that a number of coyotes and stray dogs roamed the woods and fields around us. We had a few goats, so we decided to build them a pen with a sturdy fence to protect them from the dogs and coyotes. We hired a professional fencing company to build a strong five-foot-high fence around the perimeter of our goat pen.
Despite this, early one morning we awoke to the sound of dogs barking and goats bleating. We rushed outside to discover that dogs had somehow slipped into the pen and were attacking the goats. We ran as fast as we could to the goat pen. Seeing us, the dogs slipped back out and disappeared into the neighboring field. One of our goats died from this savage attack, and the other one was in a state of serious shock for several days, barely eating.
In the dim light of dawn, we didn't get a good look at the dogs, but we assumed they were stray dogs. So we called the county animal control officers and asked for their help. They furnished us with several humane toothless traps that would clamp on a dog's foot and hold him, but would not damage his foot. The agency said it would pick up any dogs we caught. We put out the traps that night, and the next morning we were once again awakened by the sound of a commotion outside.
We hurriedly ran out and saw a pack of dogs outside the goat pen, but we soon realized that these were not stray dogs. These were our neighbor's dogs. The dogs quickly ran off when they saw us. That is, all the dogs but one. One of the dogs was caught in a trap and couldn't get away. The poor dog was scared to death, and he was shaking like a leaf when we approached him. Just then I saw a pickup truck turn into our drive. It came barreling down our country drive, kicking up a trail of dust behind it.
The driver jumped out and immediately sprinted toward the captured dog, which turned out to be his dog. "Oh, is this your dog?" I asked meekly. "Yes, it is," he replied sullenly as he helped me open the trap and free his dog. "You know," he continued, "this isn't going to do anything but cause hard feelings with your neighbors. I moved out to the country so that I could let my dogs roam free." My first thought was to retort, "Well, I moved to the country so our goats could run free." But I didn't.
I also thought about saying, "Look, I'll make a deal with you. You keep your dogs off my land, and I'll keep my goats off yours." However, I thought about Jesus' words to turn the other cheek. What would he do in a situation like this? There was no doubt in my mind, so I replied cheerfully, "Well, I'm open to any suggestions." The neighbor, whom I had not met before, seemed a bit surprised at my mild response.
He lost his sullen expression and replied calmly, "Well, what you could do is run an electric wire around the bottom and top of your fence. That will keep dogs out." "I'm willing to do that," I replied, feeling a bit surprised at myself. "I'll do what you've suggested, and I'll return the traps to the county." It seemed a bit unfair that I was having to incur extra expense so that his trespassing dogs wouldn't hurt my goats. But I knew that I had handled this minor crisis the way Jesus wanted me to.
Non-resistance and loving one's enemy are perhaps the most challenging and certainly the most revolutionary of Jesus' teachings. They are the exact opposite of the message that the world teaches. Don't resist an evil person. Our parents, schools, governments, and churches inculcate in us just the opposite. Fight for your rights. Stand up to bullies. Don't let anyone shove you around. The heroes we're urged to emulate are rarely non-resistant persons.
No, usually they're people who stood up to their enemies and resisted them. Non-resistance is not simply a theological doctrine. It's a way of life. It touches all kinds of everyday interactions with people and companies. However, being non-resistant doesn't mean being a doormat or a Casper Milquetoast. Jesus and Paul were non-resistant. Yet, neither of them was a doormat. Neither of them was a wimp. They were both quite assertive and outspoken.
But they both chose to receive injuries rather than to injure someone else. They both spoke out against evil, but they did not resist evil with physical force. Look at how many times Paul was beaten and stoned. Paul could have armed himself and traveled with a group of hefty bodyguards, but he didn't. Paul was one of the bravest men who ever lived, but he didn't resist evil with physical force.
As he later said, "Though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds." Paul was a different type of warrior, a warrior of a Kingdom with upside-down values. It was often lawless mobs that beat or stoned Paul. As a Roman citizen, he could have pressed charges against those who unlawfully beat or stoned him, but he didn't. He turned the other cheek.
Jesus said that if someone wanted to sue us to take our tunics, we should give him our cloaks as well. It follows that if someone simply seizes our tunics, we don't go to court to get them back. As Jesus said, "Give to him who asks." At the same time, Paul demonstrated that it's proper for Christians to avail themselves of governmental protections when they're persecuted.
For example, Paul escaped a flogging by asking the Roman centurion, "Is it lawful for you to scourge a man who is a Roman and uncondemned?" Paul reiterated Jesus' teaching in his letter to the Corinthians. "Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unrighteous and not before the saints? I say this to your shame. Is it so that there is not a wise man among you, not even one who will be able to judge between his brethren?
But brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers. Now therefore, it is already an utter failure for you that you go to law against one another. Why do you not rather accept wrong? Why do you not rather let yourselves be cheated?" Nearly twenty years ago, I saw the conflict between Jesus' teachings and the practice of trial law.
If it's wrong for me as an individual Christian to take my brother to court, how can it be right for me as a lawyer to represent some other Christian who has taken his brother to court? The right course was quite clear. On the other hand, this was my livelihood. If I eliminated lawsuits from my practice, what would be left? Nothing but drafting wills and deeds and examining land titles. And these are not exactly the most exciting or financially rewarding areas of law.
Due to my own limited faith, this was a hard decision for me. But in the end, I knew I had to obey Jesus, so I refused to handle any more lawsuits or any other areas of law that conflicted with Jesus' teaching. It's important that we understand that Jesus' instructions on non-resistance make sense only to those who have accepted his other teachings, such as, "Whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be my disciple." When we have forsaken everything, there is little left to fight for, is there?
Even when it comes down to our very lives, Jesus told us, "He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it." Jesus told Pilate, "If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight." By deduction, then if we have a Kingdom that is capable of being defended by physical fighting, then our Kingdom is of the world, isn't it? Whether we're talking about personal possessions, a house, or a nation, the situation is the same.
If we have a stake in this world, we're going to be sorely tempted to fight to protect it. When we try to reconcile Jesus' teachings with holding on to possessions, earthly power, and national pride, we find it's impossible. We're trying to reconcile two things that are ultimately irreconcilable. The 19th-century Christian author, Adin Ballou, wrote the following satirical piece to demonstrate the absurdity of trying to reconcile Jesus' Kingdom commandments with the military laws of human governments.
"Jesus Christ forbids me to resist evildoers and to take from them an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, bloodshed for bloodshed, and life for life. My government demands from me quite the opposite and bases a system of self-defense on gallows, musket, and sword to be used against its foreign and domestic foes, and the land is filled accordingly with gibbets, prisons, arsenals, ships of war, and soldiers.
In the maintenance and use of these expensive appliances for murder, we can very suitably exercise to the full the virtues of forgiveness to those who injure us, love toward our enemies, blessings to those who curse us, and doing good to those who hate us. For this, we have a succession of Christian priests to pray for us and beseech the blessing of heaven on the holy work of slaughter.
I see all this, and I continue to profess religion and take part in government and pride myself on being at the same time a devout Christian and a devoted servant of the governments. I do not want to agree with these senseless notions of non-resistance. I cannot renounce my authority and leave only immoral men in control of the governments. The Constitution says the government has the right to declare war, and I assent to this and support it and swear that I will support it.
And because of that, I do not cease to be a Christian. War, too, is a Christian duty. Is it not a Christian duty to kill hundreds of thousands of one's fellow men, to outrage women, to raze and burn towns, and to practice every possible cruelty? It is time to dismiss all these false sentimentalities. It is the truest means of forgiving injuries and loving enemies.
If we only do it in the spirit of love, nothing can be more Christian than such murder." In the last chapter, we saw that so-called Bible-believing Christians have a higher divorce rate than does the world. The pattern is the same when it comes to non-resistance. Bible-believing Christians are actually more militant than the world when it comes to resisting evil with force.
When the United States ponders going to war, nowadays Bible-believing Christians are invariably the ones who are the most adamantly in favor of military action. While I was writing this book, the United States entered into war with Iraq to remove from power its dictator, Saddam Hussein. Immediately, the local churches began placing American flags on the church lawns.
Church billboards carried slogans such as "God bless America" and "Pray for our troops." But I didn't see even one billboard that said, "Pray for the people of Iraq." Even though the purpose of the war was to remove Hussein from power, it was going to be the ordinary Iraqi people: men, women, children, and babies who were going to die in the invasion. But apparently, no church thought about reminding us to pray for them.