Matthew 5:43

[GreenMunchkin]

[bible]Matthew 5:43-47[/bible]

In the west, we aren't persecuted for our faith - we have the wonderful luxury of being free to worship the Lord in the open - but who of us hasn't experienced people being very, very mean to us. Either Christian or otherwise.

So my question is, how good are you at doing as Jesus commands us to?

Being uncomfortably honest, I suck at it, and it's one of the things I'm asking God to help me with.

 

[LivingLifeHisWay]

I also suck. lol Although I do get to the point of loving my enemy - or anyone who is rude or mean but I find it's not instinct. It's more of a slow and gradual process of love. I do get there but with much "prodding" from God or should I say - shoving. ::

That's one of the reasons why we're here - to learn, to grow, to become more like Jesus. It's all part of the training. ::

 

[GreenMunchkin]

I was talking about this with someone, actually, and the body of Christ is in many ways so incredibly fractured.

Many churches are cold, many Christians cold or cruel - we all have that ability - and it spreads inexorably. Because someone is hurt by another Christian, and it makes them angry or bitter towards Christians, and satan uses that bitterness to make them behave similarly to someone else. And it just spreads throughout the body of Christ, people feeling hurt and angry. It only takes a few people to *not* react that way to stem the tide, and to break the chain.

It's just really really *really* hard to do.

 

[Criada]

It's just really really *really* hard to do.

Yup!
We really can't do this - it's one of those where you just have to give it to God, and ask Him to give you His love for them.
Cos He will, and does.
And when I think about how very much He loves me - even at the times when I hurt Him, how can I not show love to others...
It's not easy - it's not even possible *naturally* - but is something the Holy Spirit will do through us, if we let Him.
It's the letting go that's hard, sometimes...

 

[JoeWill]

[bible]Matthew 5:43-47[/bible]

In the west, we aren't persecuted for our faith - we have the wonderful luxury of being free to worship the Lord in the open - but who of us hasn't experienced people being very, very mean to us. Either Christian or otherwise.

So my question is, how good are you at doing as Jesus commands us to?

Being uncomfortably honest, I suck at it, and it's one of the things I'm asking God to help me with.

I can give you a bit of background on that saying of Jesus. A religious group called the Essenes, who lived in a community near the Dead Sea, believed that you should love your friends and hate your enemies. That teaching found its way around the rest of Israel. Jesus was correcting it.

But yeah, it is real hard to be good all the time (I'm sure I'm starting to talk more like these Americans). If someone insults me, my first reaction is often to want to get a good one back.

I think part of the answer is to spend lots of time with the Lord, which helps his Holy Spirit gradually change you - but I don't do enough of that. There is a limit to how far we can change ourselves with regard to sin just by our own efforts. We are dependant on the Holy Spirit to do a lot of it as well. You sort of work in partnership with him.

(Hi Munchie, how ya doin'? )

 

[MrJim]

My mennonite friends are real good at this stuff

 

[JimfromOhio]

Often I get persecuted for the doctrines I believe much more than I am a Christian.

 

[JimfromOhio]

My mennonite friends are real good at this stuff

Yes.. because of the doctrines they believe in, not because they are Christians.

 

[JoeWill]

My mennonite friends are real good at this stuff

I'm not a pacifist though. Are you? If someone attacked me in a dark alley I'd deck 'em.

 

[MrJim]

Yes.. because of the doctrines they believe in, not because they are Christians.

 

[MrJim]

I'm not a pacifist though. Are you? If someone attacked me in a dark alley I'd deck 'em.

At one time I was nonresistant anabaptist, probably is the best way...

 

[GreenMunchkin]

I'm not a pacifist though. Are you? If someone attacked me in a dark alley I'd deck 'em.

Seriously? I'd sooner be beaten to a pulp than raise a hand against them.

(Hiya to you, too, by the way! )

 

[JoeWill]

Seriously? I'd sooner be beaten to a pulp than raise a hand against them.

(Hiya to you, too, by the way! )

Probably I'll get in trouble with loads of people for saying this, but you've got to respect yourself as something special that God made. Don't just let some guy beat you to a pulp.

 

[JimfromOhio]

What was I referring to is people view Anabaptists' doctrines as different like being a pacifist or their lifestyle.

 

[MrJim]

What was I referring to is people view Anabaptists' doctrines as different like being a pacifist or their lifestyle.

Well they are different....what makes them anabaptists instead of protestants or something else.

 

[JoeWill]

What was I referring to is people view Anabaptists' doctrines as different like being a pacifist or their lifestyle.

Do you get more unpleasant treatment for your beliefs from other Christians, or from people in the world?

 

[JimfromOhio]

Do you get more unpleasant treatment for your beliefs from other Christians, or from people in the world?

In my own experience, I have experienced more unpleasant treatments from other Christians more than unbelievers.

 

[porterross]

I'm not a pacifist though. Are you? If someone attacked me in a dark alley I'd deck 'em.

I admit, it would be my natural instinct to fight back as well. The circumstances would have a great deal to do with how most of us would react, methinks.

 

[GreenMunchkin]

Probably I'll get in trouble with loads of people for saying this, but you've got to respect yourself as something special that God made. Don't just let some guy beat you to a pulp.

Heh, naw, I don't think you'll get in any trouble

It's weird, because there's "eye for an eye", and there's "turn the other cheek"... so which do we follow?

I just know I could never fight back.

 

[JoeWill]

Heh, naw, I don't think you'll get in any trouble

It's weird, because there's "eye for an eye", and there's "turn the other cheek"... so which do we follow?

I just know I could never fight back.

If I remember right, the "eye for an eye" maxim was a rule of thumb for a magistrate to use. It was a way of ensuring that the punishment fit the crime. But by New Testament times, the Pharisees were teaching that ordinary people had the right to take the law into their own hands and whallop someone who had dissed them etc. Jesus corrected that teaching with "you have heard it said..."

I don't know how far the "turn the other cheek rule" should apply. Should we have turned the other cheek to Hitler? Or is Jesus using figurative speech to say we should be ready to forgive?

I dunno ... and maybe some encyclopaedic Christian will be giving me all the 'answers' in a minute. But my inner conviction is that Jesus would appreciate that I needed to defend myself if attacked.

I come from a working-class chapel background where the blokes all feel like that.