This weekend marks the end of the message series we've been working through together here at Vineyard OP called The Complicated Art of Loving Your Enemies. You can listen to the message series here.

One person asked about where Jesus says that we need to turn the other cheek in Matthew 5:38, "Are you suggesting that we should just stand by and let someone break into our house and rob us?" When Jesus says to "turn the other (cheek) also", does he mean we are not allowed to defend ourselves and our loved ones?

The quick answer for this is "No". In Matthew 5:38, Jesus is talking about a slap on the cheek, which indicates an insult. In Jesus' day, slave owners could slap their slaves to assert authority. To the best of our understanding this many years later, if two people are equals and one slaps the other on the right cheek, then this is a serious insult effectively saying, "You are beneath me" to the person being slapped. Jesus is not talking about a life-threatening situation here. He is talking about dealing with an insult between two individuals.

Turning the other cheek does not indicate abstaining from self-defense. That's just not what Jesus is talking about here.

If someone breaks into your house, you have no idea what their intent is. Do they mean to rob you? Maybe they've come to kill or harm your loved ones in some other way. You may have to resort to lethal force to defend yourself, your roommates, your family. This doesn't happen that often, and I pray it doesn't happen to you - EVER.

What could be a more clear-cut enemy than someone breaking into your house? If you were forced to harm that person, possibly even kill them, does this mean you have failed in loving your enemies?

Here at Vineyard OP, we look to God to guide our response first. What does the Bible show us about what God has to say about self-defense?

In short, the Bible seems to indicate that self-defense is understood to be necessary. God even understands that lethal force is sometimes required to defend life. However, God takes the spilling of blood very seriously. He values human life and sees lethal force in self-defense as a last resort.

Here are just a few quick snapshots from Scripture (from among many) of God's attitude toward killing and the preservation of life:

In 1 Chronicles 28:3, God says to King David, "'You are not to build a house for my Name, because you are a warrior and have shed blood.'" David wants to build a house for the Lord. This is a good desire. But God says, "David, you are disqualified from doing this." Why? Not because of the murder of Uriah. Not because of his adultery with Bathsheba. It is because of the wars, and because David was "a warrior and have shed much blood." David had killed men in the sight of God, and that disqualified him from this spiritual service.

But wasn't David obeying God in engaging in these wars? Yes. Did David sin in shedding this blood? No. But shedding blood is so significant to God that David was unfit to for certain "ministries".

This shows us how seriously God takes killing - even when the killing is not sin.

In Exodus 22:2-3, we see another example of God's attitude toward self-defense: "If a thief is caught breaking in and is struck so that he dies, the defender is not guilty of bloodshed; but if it happens after sunrise, he is guilty of bloodshed." This passage indicates that if someone breaks in before sunrise (i.e. in the dark of the night) and you kill them, you have not sinned, because you didn't know they were a thief. They could have been breaking in for any number of evil reasons. However, if they break in after sunrise (i.e. you can see them) then you will be guilty of unjust murder. This again shows us how God wants you to be sober in the use of lethal force, even to defend yourself against a person unjustly invading your home. We see these types of distinctions carried forward into our justice system here in the U.S.A. today.

Finally, in the gospels of Matthew, Luke and John, we see Jesus telling his disciples to put away their swords when the mob came to arrest him in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus is not making a blanket statement of pacifism; it is a demonstration of Jesus' awareness of the situation. He knows he must go and die, and that being arrested is just part of the process. Here we see that Jesus understands sometimes you do need to defend yourself. He does not rebuke the disciples for having swords; he is letting them know that this is not the time to fight. In fact, in Luke 22:35-39, we see Jesus admonishing his disciples to make sure they have a sword to defend themselves (although interestingly enough, the two swords the disciples have among the eleven of them appears to be "enough").

The Bible makes it clear you are to defend yourself when life (yours or someone else's) is threatened. But some people take this very lightly - maybe because of all the action movies they've seen - I don't know. God cares about people, and the use of lethal force is a very serious thing to God. It's so serious that it was the primary reason King David was not allowed to build the Temple for God. We should never take the use of lethal force lightly. You need to be able to stand before the courts of men, and more importantly - before the Creator of the Universe - and say with all truth that you had no other choice but to kill.

What does this mean in the context of loving your enemies? This is where it gets interesting. Let's say someone breaks into your house, and you must harm them to defend your life and the lives of your family. When the conflict is over, the question remains the same as any example of loving your enemies: What will you do next?

Will you allow fear and anger to turn into hate toward this person? Will you lobby for the harshest punishment for this individual? Do you sit around and day-dream of the attacker rotting in prison? Do you relish the pain his punishment will cause him? These things are not loving your enemies.

To love this enemy, you begin by praying for him and yourself. Pray for the attacker to encounter the living God. Pray for God to show him the lies he has believed that Satan has sold him. Pray for God to show him what it is in his life that has led him down this path. Pray for restoration and recovery. Pray for God to show you how to behave toward this person. Pray for God to let you see the attacker the way God sees him.

Then direct your anger at the source. If you can see this attacker as part of God's creation trapped in bondage to evil, then you know your anger must be directed at the powers and principalities, because our fight is not with flesh and blood. You must direct your anger toward Satan and his demons.

Finally, you must forgive the attacker. You must determine in your heart before God that you will no longer judge this attacker based on the crime he committed against you and your family. This sets you free from the fear and anger caused by the grievance, and it sets the attacker free from all the horrible things you want to do to him in the flesh.

The attacker will still be tried by our justice system. He will likely go to jail. You will almost certainly need to give testimony concerning the crime committed, because the truth of the grievance must be dealt with in love. But you will do these things in the absence of hatred, with a desire to see this attacker's life changed through the power of the Holy Spirit. The grievance is acknowledged, and healing can begin.

This is loving your enemies.

David Andersen
Vineyard OP

Note: portions of this article were influenced by or borrowed from this article.