We tend to elevate certain teachings of Jesus at the expense of others, but we must read Scripture as a whole.
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I recently preached on Jesus’s most revolutionary ethical teaching––love your enemies (Matt. 5:44). It stands as a Mount Everest among ethical instructions that both Christians and non-Christians respect. Yet, because we have a certain modern definition of love, it is easy to misunderstand Jesus’s teaching. What did Jesus actually mean by enemy love and how do we integrate it with Old Testament texts that seem to contradict it?
Incontext,Jesus’steachingaboutenemylovestandsincontrasttowhathisdiscipleshaveheard––thatthey’reto“love[their]neighborandhate[their]enemy”(v.43).Asmanycommentatorshavepointedout,theinstructiontohateyourenemyisn’tfoundinthesourcetext.Leviticus19:18says,“Donottakerevengeorbearagrudgeagainstmembersofyourcommunity,butloveyourneighborasyourself;IamtheLORD”(CSB).Thetextonlysaysto“loveyourneighbor,”notto“hateyourenemy.”Manythereforeaffirmthat“hateyourenemy”wasanoraltraditionthathaddevelopedbyJesus’stim
