LEARN WITH HIM / 07
Love beyond the familiar
Enemies, prayer & the Father’s generosity
Matthew 5:38–48It is easy to imagine love as something we offer to people who already make us feel safe, understood, or appreciated. Jesus presses the circle outward. In Matthew’s sermon, love reaches even toward enemies, and prayer is directed toward those who persecute.
FIRST, THE SETTING
The teaching follows examples about retaliation and generosity. It belongs to a sermon that also blesses peacemakers and those who hunger for righteousness. We should read the call to love alongside that concern for what is right.
The passage is challenging, and readers have interpreted its examples in different ways. It is not a command to remain available to violence, excuse exploitation, or abandon protection for someone being harmed.
Read Matthew 5:38–48+
38“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’
39But I tell you, don’t resist him who is evil; but whoever strikes you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also.
40If anyone sues you to take away your coat, let him have your cloak also.
41Whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two.
42Give to him who asks you, and don’t turn away him who desires to borrow from you.
43“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’
44But I tell you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat you and persecute you,
45that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.
46For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same?
47If you only greet your friends, what more do you do than others? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same?
48Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.
World English Bible · Public domain
Read the whole chapter ↗More than a return of favors
Jesus asks what is distinctive about loving only those who love us. Reciprocity can hold a community together, but it can also become a closed exchange in which the outsider has no claim.
The teaching questions that closure. It asks whether the other person’s humanity can remain visible even when the relationship is difficult. The answer may begin before affection is possible: refusing dehumanizing speech, telling the truth without delighting in humiliation, or declining to repay contempt with contempt.
Prayer as a different use of attention
To pray for an enemy is to place the relationship before God rather than letting hostility have the final authority over it. Such prayer can include a desire for harmful behavior to stop, for accountability, and for people in danger to be protected.
You do not have to invent warm feelings or deny what happened. An honest prayer might ask for the courage to act without hatred, or simply admit that you cannot yet see how to begin.
Sunlight and rain
Jesus points to the Father who gives sun and rain beyond the boundaries of moral approval. The image directs the listener toward a generosity larger than their own preferences.
This does not remove the difference between harm and goodness. It questions the assumption that our dislike can cancel another person’s creaturely worth. Care for the world includes people we do not know how to like.
A practice of peace with limits
A faithful response may involve distance, a boundary, a report of harm, mediation where appropriate, or organized work for justice. Love can seek the good of an enemy while opposing what they are doing.
Begin where your responsibility is real. Stop passing on one cruel story. Avoid language that turns a group into a single villain. Ask how you can protect someone without becoming attached to another person’s destruction. These are small practices, and they can be demanding.
ONE SMALL WAY TO BEGIN
Let it meet
your day.
You can choose one of these practices. This is an invitation, not a measure of your worth.
- Name one way hostility is shaping your speech or attention.
- Choose a truthful action that reduces harm without humiliating someone.
- Pray for protection, accountability, and a way forward beyond retaliation.
QUESTIONS TO STAY WITH
What would love seek here without denying the harm?
Where is a boundary necessary for care to remain truthful?
AN ORIGINAL PRAYER
Courage for a wider love
God, keep me truthful about harm and free from delight in another person’s suffering. Protect those in danger. Give me wise limits, courage to seek justice, and a heart that does not surrender itself to hatred.
A branch does not grow alone
Continue learning ↗Source: Matthew 5:38–48, World English Bible. Commentary and prayers are original reflections. Images are artistic reconstructions; parable scenes illustrate a story Jesus tells. Read the whole passage alongside the reflection.