Matthew 5:43-48
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor[i] and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Matthew 5:43-48
ReplyDeleteQuestions:
- If God causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good . . . , does God bless the faithful here on this earth?
- If we love our enemies, what reward to we get?
- Is it a realistic command that we should be perfect as God is perfect?
http://www.trinitystudycenter.com/mount/matthew_5-43-48.php says:
ReplyDeleteThis section is closely connected to the one right before it. These verses are also dealing with the freedom of true righteousness to love another without reference to whether or not they love or care for you. The truly righteous one relies on God's overflowing love and therefore can even move towards his/her enemy in loving service.
His intent for us is to give us this same capacity to refuse to treat our enemies as enemies, but instead to extend God's love to them, to bring them before the Father in prayer with the hope that from their own side as well, we will not remain enemies.
God pours out blessing on all, regardless of their present state of goodness or evil. God does not look to us to decide how to behave towards us. His love is not dependent on our behavior or our attitude towards him. He acts first, moving to love us, to bless us.
This hope extends really to all of our relationships. Who we recognize as our enemies can change. I don't think Jesus is just talking about national, political, family or clan enemies. Who we perceive to be our enemy can be any one who at this moment is opposing us, or not caring for us as we want and who we are tempted to treat us with anger and hurt. Sometimes when I am angry at someone I am close to, I don't see him/her clearly anymore. For that moment, he/she is my "enemy." Our enemies might be those we are supposed to get along with, someone in our extended family, our church, or at work, that we have great difficulty dealing well with.
http://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/16220/what-does-it-mean-to-be-perfect says on the subject of being perfect:
ReplyDeleteThe key word here is telos, which is often translated as 'perfect' but can equally well be translated "goal, end, or purpose." The telos of a thing is that point to which a thing yearns to be, the purpose for which a thing was built. . . It does not imply that perfection has been attained, but it is the trajectory towards which the essence of a thing strives. . . In the case of "Be ye perfect," it is completely legitimate to translate telos in the sense of "Be that which God has designed you to be." . . . places in which telos is used. The ESV likes to use the word 'mature' to capture this sense.
One more thing it says: "Here, the fullness of the text probably does the best job of conveying that perfection is a process, begun by suffering, strengthened into steadfastness, and made complete in the perfection - the end state towards which all of this is pointing."
DeleteFinally, my two cents:
ReplyDeleteWhen Jesus was talking to the crowd, He was addressing people who thought in terms of "who is on my side and who is not." Most of us are that way. Anyone who threatens us or our honor or our feelings is our enemy. Jesus is trying to get us to move beyond the concept of friend and enemy. Jesus wants us to see the world as people that God wants to reach. No one should be our enemy. Even those who oppose us - our attitudes towards them should be, "God, please save them." If we pray for our "enemies", we will have no enemies.
So, God rains on the good and the evil. I think that this is tongue in cheek - Jesus is making fun of our labeling of people as good and evil and trying to get us to look at people in another way. ("For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world . . .".
The reward for looking at people in the way that God does is that we are now able to participate in His kingdom battles.
Making the shift from being us, to being like Christ is the gist of the command to be perfect as God is perfect. We need to have His attitude and live according to His values and Spirit. It's His grace and Spirit that allows us to be perfect. There will be many times when we leave His will and will not be perfect. But if we are walking perfectly in His will we will be perfect through His grace. We mistake this command the same way the pharisees did. Jesus is not commanding us to live according to a perfect moral code - but much more than that - He is commanding us to have God completely in us and letting go of everything that is not God.