Chad got me thinking (dangerous, I know).
When Jesus says to love our enemies, who does he mean? Even “enemies” like Bin Laden? Or just our private, personal enemies?
If we saw Bin Laden on the street and had the power to take his life, should we? If not, what should the proper response of a follower of Jesus and his way be?
If we are called to love even the “Bin Ladens” of our world, what does that look like? What does it really mean to LOVE our enemies? What actions? What words? Who are some examples of people throughout history, or even in your personal circle, that demonstrated love for their enemies in real and tangible ways? Does love also entail forgiveness?
If we can’t love enemies like Bin Laden, then who can we love? Really?
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May 3, 2008 at 10:46 am
Chad
Jeromy,
What do you think you are doing, asking such tough questions?
I’ll never forget an Arab missionary I heard not too long after 9/11. He was a Muslim who became a Christian and now spends his life ministering to Muslims in Egypt and other parts of the Middle East. He challenged us (it was a chapel service in my undergrad school) that instead of spending our time hating Bin Laden perhaps we could better channel that energy and pray for him. He asked us to imagine what might happen to the world if instead of killing Bin Laden we sought to rescue him. He challenged us to imagine a world where the head terrorist and leader of thousands if not millions became a Christian. What might that look like?
I think you are asking the right questions. They have answers that radically alter our paradigms, however. As such, they are questions that often get rolled under the carpet and stay safely hidden away. Just let me go to church and forgive the waiter who messes up my dinner order - isn’t that enough already???
What might convince someone like Bin Laden that we serve the one true God of not only Israel but of “all nations” (Isa. 49:6)? Would meeting terror with terror do it? Or might love and forgiveness? The former has been tried, and tried, and tried since Eden. There was one person who tried (and DID) the latter and it turned the world upside down.
peace.
May 3, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Jeromy
Chad…I really believe that God has been trying to get us to ask these questions since creation. Then to make it really obvious, he asked us these questions when he put on flesh in Jesus. The questions have always been there but only a few people have acknowledged their answers—fewer still have lived them. I know I have a long way to go in living the grace and freedom these questions bring. But I sense that the more we wrestle with them together as people in community, the more we can live into them. I can’t do it alone. But perhaps together, we can.
By the way, it is your fault I began asking these questions so the blame belongs to you. Thanks a lot!
May 8, 2008 at 11:10 am
Matthew
Hey,
I wrote about this! Check out the post here!
Matty
May 8, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Seth
I think loving our enemies involves seeing how much we have in common with them.
Also, people are cast as our enemies because they would do us harm. We must remember that no one can really do us any harm. They can’t put us in a situation too dire or painful for God to deliver us.
Bin Laden, like all of us, has to account for the earthly laws he has broken. If I saw him on the street I’d do my part to bring him to justice–I’d call the cops. But I don’t feel an obligation to kill him. He is, at the end of the day, created and unconditionally loved by God, just like you and me.
May 8, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Jeromy
Seth, you bring up a good point. I fear we often focus on what seperates us from our enemies, and not what we have in common. Often we end up vilifying them rather than seeing them as a co-human.
Loved by God, he is. Indeed, he is.
May 8, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Jeromy
So Matty, I take it you would not nun-chuck him and rip out his heart?
May 9, 2008 at 11:16 am
Matthew
Jer-
Very true, brother… I would not. I would pray for him and for myself as well.