For a short time early in the life of our church, we put a yellow stress ball in each of the visitors’ welcome bags. Designed for squeezing as a way to relieve tension, they had the simple phrase Love Your Enemies written on them.
We envisioned the irony of people who were frustrated (likely with the behavior of someone else) squeezing bright yellow stress balls with the reminder on them of Jesus’ command (in Matt. 5:44) to love one’s enemies.
Love Your Enemies – Into Friends
One Sunday morning, a family describing themselves as Bible-believing Christians visited.
The kid argued with his Sunday school teacher about the Scripture teaching, and the dad made a fuss to the associate pastor on his way out of church. It wasn’t until the following day that we realized both circumstances involved the same family; at that point, one of the pastors called the family in an effort to disarm the situation and extend grace and care.
During the phone call, the dad got increasingly worked up and animated. He finally blurted out, “Then to top it all off, when we got in the car to drive away my son took a stress ball out of the welcome bag. Love your enemies!? What a ridiculous phrase—that even contradicts the Bible!”
We didn’t know whether to be shocked or amused by the absurdity of a so-called Bible believing family’s inability to recognize the command to love—even our enemies—as one that comes from the Bible.
RELATED: MLK on Loving Your Enemies
So adamant about his commitment to Scripture, this guy missed the very heart of Scripture. He was so committed to his idea of the Bible that he missed one of the things it mostly clearly commands us to observe.
We’re to love our enemies and pray for our enemies.
We have a King in Jesus who died for his enemies.
One of the saddest experiences I’ve had in ministry is that when people become legalistic—focused too much on sin management—they actually develop a blindness to the explicit and primary commands of the Scriptures, such as the command to love others.
