Youth Group Connect - Love Your Enemies
Context for Verse
- "Love your neighbour" comes from Leviticus 19:18, but "hate your enemy" is nowhere in the Old Testament. It is the bit people added on the end.
- Jesus was talking to people with a real enemy. Rome was occupying their country, taxing them hard and stationing soldiers in their towns, so enemy love was never hypothetical.
- His argument is not that enemies deserve it, it's that this is simply what the Father is like, because sun and rain land on everybody, including people who want nothing to do with Him.
- "Perfect" in verse 48 is teleios, which means complete or whole rather than flawless. It echoes Leviticus 19:2, where God tells his people to be holy because he is holy.
- This is where the whole sermon on the mount has been heading, and it's the last thing Jesus says before he moves on to prayer and giving.
- The tension: loving people who love you back is completely ordinary. Jesus says that is the standard everybody else already hits, so it can't be ours.
Verse
Try and get multiple people to read a few verses at a time.
43. "You have heard the law that says, 'Love your neighbor' and hate your enemy.
44. But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!
45. In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.
46. If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much.
47. If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that.
48. But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect."
Questions
Pick 3 or 4. Spend the most time on Q2 and Q3.
Q1. Jesus quotes something the Old Testament never actually says. Why do you think "hate your enemy" got stuck onto "love your neighbour", and what does that say about how we handle commands we don't like?
Q2. Jesus never argues that enemies deserve to be loved. He argues from what God is like in verse 45. Why does he ground it there instead of in the other person's behaviour?
Q3. What is the difference between loving an enemy and being fine with what they did? Can you honestly do the first without doing the second?
Q4. Verses 46 and 47 say loving people who love you back is nothing special, because everybody manages that. Is that fair, and what would be different about a group who actually did this?
Q5. Name the person already in your head, although you don't have to say who it is. What is one thing you could do this week that they would not see coming?
Pray
- Pray for the people named in Q5, by name wherever somebody is willing
- Pray that this term would change how we treat people, not just what we know
- Thank God that he loved us while we were still his enemies
The heart of this passage is verse 45. Enemy love is grounded in the Father's character rather than in the enemy's worth, and that is the only reason it is possible at all.
Dont' turn love into a feeling, when Jesus commands love and prayer, and you can do both long before your feelings catch up. The feelings often follow the doing.
Also, dont read verse 48 as a demand to be sinless, when teleios means completeness and the sermon has just spent forty-eight verses proving nobody clears the bar alone.
Does loving my enemy mean I have to be their friend? No, because Jesus asks for love and prayer rather than open access to your life.
Does it mean what they did was okay? No, because love and justice are not opposites, and God holds both at once.
What if I feel nothing towards them? Jesus commands actions here, so start by praying for them and let the feelings turn up later.
Does verse 48 mean I have to be sinless? Teleios means complete or mature, and it echoes Leviticus 19:2. It describes the direction of a life, not a bar you clear this week.
Where does "hate your enemy" come from then? Not the Old Testament. It looks like a popular saying, and something close to it turns up in the Qumran writings. So, people just added it.
If God sends sun and rain on everybody, does following him matter? God's kindness to everybody is not the same as belonging to him, and it is exactly why his children can afford to be that generous.