What Does It Mean to Love One’s Enemies?

It is hard enough to love one’s friends and even harder to love others as we love ourselves. But how can we love our enemies? In both the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:43) and the Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6:27), Jesus plainly says, “love your enemies.” 

Why do we have enemies? Are enemies people we harbor enmity against? Probably not in most cases. Why would Jesus’ first followers have had an “enemies list” so that he would have felt the need to urge them to love those on that list?

The answer is clear: our “enemies” are not primarily those we have enmity toward; rather, they are those who have enmity toward us for whatever reason. Note Jesus’ full statement: “pray for those who persecute you.” Those early followers of Jesus were persecuted, but they certainly were not persecutors.

Consider some notable examples of people who loved their enemies. First, of course, is Jesus himself. As he was being executed by the extremely painful means of crucifixion, Jesus uttered this prayer: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).

Anabaptists (with whom I have long identified) have great respect for Dirk Willems, the Dutch Anabaptist martyr in 1569. He escaped from prison and was chased by a guard who fell through thin ice during the chase. But Willems turned back and rescued his pursuer—and then was recaptured, tortured, and killed.

Four hundred years later, Martin Luther King, Jr., steadfastly called upon Black people to show love for their enemies, the White people who had often lynched their ancestors for centuries and were still mistreating them in the present. His most well-known book is titled Strength to Love (1963).

I was certainly not a supporter of Charlie Kirk, although I grieved that he was killed. But I remain impressed by what Erika Kirk, Charlie’s wife, said at his memorial service. She forgave the shooter. Unlike the President, she expressed love and forgiveness toward him rather than hatred.

These are widely known examples of people who showed love for their enemies. Most of us, though, will likely never be in such dramatic situations. What does it mean for us to love our enemies?

“Love is more an attitude and action than a feeling.” That is the title of #25 in my book Thirty True Things Everyone Needs to Know Now (2018). In that chapter, I cite John Hick’s explanation regarding the type of love Jesus meant when he commanded us to love our enemies.

The British philosopher writes that love is “to value a person in such ways as actively to seek his or her deepest welfare and fulfillment” (Philosophy of Religion, 1963). Or, as we might say today, love actively seeks the flourishing of all people, including our enemies.

In my above-mentioned book, I also cite how MLK importantly distinguished between liking and loving. King noted in Strength to Love that Jesus did not say, “Like your enemies,” admitting that it is “almost impossible to like some people.” But Jesus’ command was for us to love people whom we don’t like.

So, love of enemies is not sentimental affection, but deliberate goodwill and moral commitment. That is the attitude Jesus calls us to have for those who say hurtful things to/about us or do harmful things to us.

Loving in that way certainly doesn’t mean condoning injurious things that are said or done, to us or to others. We can’t be neutral concerning right and wrong, good and evil. Often, we must “hate” what people do, but love them for who they are, persons created in the image of God.

We could make a long list of people who do things we strongly disapprove of. Many of us have deep dislike for the things the POTUS and his henchmen such as Steven Miller and Russell Vought say and do, and we have the right (and responsibility?) to speak out against them.

But if we are serious about following Jesus’ command that we love our “enemies,” whether they are government officials we dislike, cantankerous neighbors, or whoever, we still must seek their “deepest welfare” and their flourishing. That is both for the well-being of others as well as for ourselves.

Remember, "hate is more harmful to the vessel in which it is stored than to the people on whom it is poured."