Did Jesus actually mean we have to love ISIS, school shooters, and child abusers — or is 'love your enemies' the most ignored command in all of Christianity?

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  Taylor1mo ago

  I was molested by my uncle for four years. My pastor told me I had to forgive him and love him or I was sinning. That destroyed me for a decade. So forgive me if I don't think this command is as simple as you people debating it on the internet make it sound.

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  Reese1mo ago

  Yes. He meant it. ALL of it. The discomfort you feel reading that command is exactly the point. If it only applied to people who were mildly rude to you at the office, Jesus wouldn't have needed to say it. He said it because it costs something enormous. That's the whole gospel. We don't get to vote on which commands apply.

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  Zara4w ago

  I've been a prison chaplain for 22 years. I've sat across from murderers, rapists, men who did things I can't describe. And I'm telling you — the only people I've seen truly transform behind those walls were the ones who encountered someone who looked at them and didn't flinch. Love is not weakness. It is the most terrifying thing a guilty man can face.

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• C9

  Casey 924w ago

  my grandmother survived the holocaust. she lost her parents her siblings her entire village. and she spent the last 30 years of her life praying for the souls of the men who did that. she said it was the only thing that kept HER free. i used to think she was broken. now i think she was the most spiritually advanced person i ever met.

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• HT

  Hana T.3w ago

  I'm a skeptic browsing this site and I want to say — that Amish story is literally the only time in recent memory that Christian witness made me stop and reconsider something. Not a political argument, not a billboard, not a debate. Just people doing the impossible thing. If that's what this command produces, it's worth taking seriously.

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  Diego3w ago

  I've been a Christian for 41 years. Tried to take this seriously the whole time. I'm still not good at it. I fail regularly. But I think the goal is to fail while still facing the command honestly, not to redefine the command until your failure disappears. Keep the bar where Jesus put it. Confess when you can't reach it. Try again.

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  Drew4w ago

  okay real talk — when Jesus was on the cross and said 'Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing' — he was praying for his killers in real time while being executed. I don't know another religion whose founder did that. I don't know another religion that even asks this of its people. That fact alone should make us take it seriously instead of immediately looking for loopholes.

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• N

  Nina3w ago

  I used to think this command was unreasonable until I read about the Amish community that forgave the man who shot their children the same day it happened. I'm talking hours later they were at the killer's family's home offering comfort. I watched a documentary about it and I wept because I realized I had never actually believed this was possible. They showed me it was.

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  Noah1mo ago

  okay but loving someone doesn't mean letting them keep hurting people. i can genuinely love a predator and still want them locked up for life. love and justice aren't opposites. i think we've set up a false choice here

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  Theo4w ago

  I think the church has also massively confused forgiveness with reconciliation. You can forgive someone — release them from the debt, stop rehearsing the wound — without ever being in the same room with them again. Jesus didn't say restore every relationship. He said love. Those are not identical.

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  Avery4w ago

  The person above me just openly admitted they pick and choose which commands to follow based on how they feel about it. Which is fine, but at least be honest that you're not actually a disciple in the sense Jesus defined it. You're a fan. Fans cheer from a distance. Disciples do the hard stuff.

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  Drew3w ago

  ^ and THAT is exactly why this command matters for evangelism. Not the debate, not the argument, not the clever apologetics. The actual practice of enemy-love. That skeptic's comment should be printed on the wall of every church in America.

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  Jamie3w ago

  What nobody wants to admit is that loving your enemies is actually GOOD for you. Not just them. The bitterness and hatred you carry toward an enemy does physical damage to your body, documented by actual medical research now. Jesus wasn't just being idealistic. He was describing the path to psychological and physical freedom. Hate is a toxin you drink hoping it kills someone else.

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• LK

  Leo K.4w ago

  Four minutes lmaooo that tracks for most evangelical churches. The sermons about money are always 45 minutes though.

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• RR

  Ravi R.4w ago

  Cool that you all can sit here and quote CS Lewis. Meanwhile real people are trying to survive real trauma and you're handing them book recommendations. Theology is easy when your enemy is theoretical.

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• RS

  Reese S.3w ago

  The Amish response to that shooting remains one of the most powerful public witnesses to the truth of the gospel I have ever encountered. The secular press didn't know what to do with it. There's no category for that in a world that runs on outrage and retaliation. It was genuinely alien. And that's exactly what Jesus said his followers would look like.

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• PB

  Priya B.1mo ago

  Honestly? I think most of the American church has just decided this verse is decorative. Stick it on a coffee mug, put it in the bulletin, never actually talk about what it means when you're watching the news and the face of someone who murdered children appears on the screen. We are spiritual cowards on this one.

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  Quinn4w ago

  If you disagree with this command applying universally, explain to me how you're okay with essentially carving your own exceptions into the words of Jesus. Because that road goes somewhere very dark very fast. Today it's ISIS. Tomorrow it's your political opponents. Then it's your ex-wife. Then it's anyone who makes you uncomfortable. Where does your list of exceptions stop?

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• SS

  Sam S.3w ago

  The command is real and absolute. But I also think God meets us in our inability. I have prayed 'Lord I cannot love this person but I am willing to be made willing' and that has been enough to start. He doesn't demand the finished product immediately. He asks for the turned will.

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• MR

  Maya R.4w ago

  I think the honest answer is that almost no Christian actually does this consistently, including me, and instead of sitting with that uncomfortable truth we write 1500-word blog posts explaining why Jesus didn't really mean what He said. At least be honest about the gap between where you are and where He's calling you.

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  Drew3w ago

  The most ignored command in Christianity. Correct. Full stop. Everything else — tithing, sabbath, worship style, women in leadership, whatever — we fight about endlessly. This one we just quietly agreed to skip. That tells you everything about what the church actually values.

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• KM

  Kofi M.4w ago

  And Jesus still let Judas go do the thing. He didn't prevent it. He loved him and let it happen. Love doesn't always mean stopping consequences. Sometimes it means you look someone in the eyes with full knowledge of what they're doing and you don't stop loving them anyway. That's terrifying and I don't know if I'm capable of it.

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  Ravi4w ago

  ^^ Genuinely this. The people most eager to tell abuse survivors they MUST love their abusers are almost always people who have never experienced serious evil directed at themselves or their children. Sit down and listen before you lecture.

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  Jamie3w ago

  This is actually the most important point in this whole thread. Virtue is formed incrementally. If you can't love the coworker who humiliates you, you're definitely not going to be able to love the person who kills your child. This is why discipleship has to be serious and daily, not just Sunday attendance.

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• MR

  Maya R.4w ago

  Someone always brings up the Psalms of imprecation to get out of Luke 6. Jesus was aware of the Psalms when he said what he said. He was literally giving a NEW command that raised the bar beyond the old one. That's kind of His whole thing in the Sermon on the Mount. 'You have heard it was said... but I say to you.' It's almost like He's recontextualizing things.

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  Maya4w ago

  I think the reason this command gets ignored every single Sunday is that if churches actually preached it — really preached it — a huge chunk of the congregation would walk out. Especially during wartime. Especially during an election year. The command is financially inconvenient for institutions that depend on keeping people comfortable.

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  Liam4w ago

  Can someone explain how Stephen loving the people stoning him to death (Acts 7) is anything other than the literal fulfillment of this command? Like he looked up while DYING and prayed for them. That's not metaphorical. That's not nuanced. That's just the thing Jesus said, being done by a person.

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  Iris4w ago

  to the person above — the command isn't 'feel warm feelings.' It's love as in ACT. Do good. Pray for. You don't have to feel it first. You act your way into it. Every serious Christian tradition from Aquinas to Wesley to Lewis has said this. The feelings may follow the obedience, not the other way around.

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  Noah3w ago

  Yeah, we'll split a denomination over whether to use grape juice or wine in communion but we will not have ONE uncomfortable conversation about whether we're supposed to love the people we've decided are our enemies. The selective outrage is unreal.

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  Marco4w ago

  I'm Catholic and we have the same problem. We celebrate the martyrs but we never actually train anyone in the spirituality that made martyrdom possible. You don't accidentally end up able to love your murderers. That's formed over years of practice in loving small enemies first. We skip the formation and then wonder why nobody can handle the hard teaching.

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  Ravi4w ago

  nobody in this thread has talked about how Jesus loved Judas all the way to the end. called him friend in the garden RIGHT WHEN he was betraying him. if that isnt the definition of loving your enemy i dont know what is

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• RB

  Riley B.3w ago

  Well said. There's a huge difference between 'forgive because it liberates you' and 'love your enemy because they bear the image of God.' One is therapeutic. The other is theological. Both may be true but they are not the same thing.

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• R9

  Reese 924w ago

  Lewis literally wrote about this in Mere Christianity. He said he started by acting AS IF he loved the person he hated and eventually the feeling came. That's not fake. That's how virtue works. You don't wait to feel brave before you act bravely. You act bravely and courage catches up.

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  Alex1mo ago

  the greek word is agape not eros not phileo. its not warm fuzzy feelings its a commitment to willing the good of another person. even the good of a murderer. you can will someone's ultimate good and their redemption while still supporting their imprisonment. stop conflating emotional love with agape

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  Alex4w ago

  Using Bonhoeffer to justify not loving enemies is actually wild. The man was wracked with guilt about the assassination plot. He didn't think he was righteous for it. He thought he was taking on sin to potentially stop greater sin and trusted God's mercy on the other side. He was NOT giving you permission to hate your enemies with a clear conscience.

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• J9

  Jordan 923w ago

  We want the Sermon on the Mount to be a description of heaven or the millennium or something future. Anything to avoid it being a description of how we're supposed to live right now today in 2025. But it's not future. It's a present-tense imperative. That's terrifying and we have to stop running from it.

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  Alex4w ago

  my church did a whole series on the Sermon on the Mount last year. We spent two weeks on Beatitudes, one week on salt and light, and then kind of rushed through 'love your enemies' in about four minutes. I noticed. I think the pastor noticed I noticed. We never talked about it.

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• PT

  Priya T.4w ago

  Romans 12:20 says heap burning coals on their head by doing good to them. People always quote that as a gotcha — 'see, love your enemies IS a form of revenge!' That interpretation is so embarrassing. Paul is quoting Proverbs 25 about genuine generosity melting a hard heart. He is not giving you permission to fantasize about hurting someone while handing them a sandwich.

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• NR

  Noah R.3w ago

  Nobody is saying don't protect your children. Protecting the vulnerable is a form of love. But the question is whether you can protect AND still not carry hatred in your heart toward the attacker. Those are separate things. The action and the interior state. Jesus is primarily concerned with the interior state.

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  Feli4w ago

  Bonhoeffer loved his enemies and he still joined a plot to assassinate Hitler. So the idea that loving your enemy means passive non-resistance in every circumstance isn't as airtight as pacifists want it to be. Context and cost matter.

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• LB

  Liam B.4w ago

  I genuinely cannot love a man who beheads children on video. I'm sorry. I've tried to work through this theologically. I can't get there. Maybe that's my failure. But I refuse to perform an emotion I don't have and call it obedience.

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  Omar4w ago

  I appreciate the Greek lesson but Jesus also told Peter to put his sword away, told Pilate his kingdom was not of this world, and was executed by the state without calling down angels. The overall trajectory of His life and teaching leans heavily nonviolent. You can argue about individual Greek words all you want, that's what the Pharisees did too.

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  Hana3w ago

  I've heard the 'forgiveness is for YOU not them' line my entire Christian life and while there's truth in it I think we use it sometimes as a way to reduce the command to self-help therapy and strip out the actual radical neighbor-love Jesus was talking about. It becomes about my healing instead of their humanity.

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  Nina4w ago

  There's a difference between personal enemies and public/national enemies. Jesus was talking about interpersonal relationships. He wasn't giving foreign policy advice. Governments have a God-ordained role in restraining evil (Romans 13). Stop conflating personal ethics with statecraft.

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  Priya4w ago

  The Greek word for enemy in Luke 6:27 is 'echthros' which refers to a personal adversary, not necessarily a military enemy of the state. So the scope of the command as originally given is more personal/relational than people make it. That doesn't make it EASY but it does make the ISIS comparison a bit of a stretch exegetically.

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• ZS

  Zara S.4w ago

  What about Psalm 139:21-22 where David says he hates God's enemies with perfect hatred? Is that not Scripture too? You can't just cherry pick Luke 6 and pretend the Psalms don't exist. The Bible has a whole theology of righteous hatred of evil.

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  Casey3w ago

  Look I'm not a theologian I'm just a dad. Someone hurts my kids I'm not going to love them, I'm going to protect my children. I'll deal with God about that later. Some instincts aren't evil they're human and I think God understands.

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• A

  Alex3w ago

  That's actually beautiful and I needed to hear it today. Thank you.

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• NK

  Nina K.1mo ago

  Nope. Hard disagree. Some people have forfeited their right to my love by their actions and I'm not going to pretend otherwise because Jesus said something nice on a hillside.

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