LOVE your ENEMIES: where Jesus goes wrong

by Terry 127 Replies latest watchtower bible

Terry

My answer is ...
Jesus is not wrong, but your interpretation is wrong.
So, it is wrong to say "Think about that" on the basis of your interpretation.
For me, Seemingly your interpretation is "fundamentalism."
Although enemies may be in your surroundings, there are real enemies in your heart.
Therefore, when you continue having "worry", "fear", "anger", and "hate" to those enemies, your health and family may be damaged soon.
So, the word "Love your enemies" does not mean "Invite the persons who rape you, and your murderer and terrorists, and make friends with them."
And I said that probably such explanation was told 100 years before at the New Thought churches.
I'm trying really hard to figure out what you are trying to communicate here. I'm trying to be fair and neutral.
1. An "ENEMY" may be your surroundings.
What does that mean, exactly? A home intruder who breaks into your house and kills your family either IS or is NOT your enemy. What do the "surroundings" have to do with it?
2. Real ENEMIES in your heart.
I've said before that using the metaphor "heart" to refer to the brain just clouds communication. Are you saying it is healthy and justifiable to simply not acknowledge the FACT of a deliberate harm inflicted on you or your loved ones? And further, that it is fair, constructive and mentally balanced to generate LOVE toward those who are guilty of acts of mayhem?
Words have meaning. Changing Jesus' words into complicated adjustments that address every side issue except the direct and clear ones hardly seems honest. I'm not saying YOU are dishonest. I'm saying your argument doesn't honor the fair consideration that JESUS MAY HAVE MEANT WHAT HE SAID directly, clearly and unequivocally.
How is YOUR interpretation more accurate than mine? I'm calling for the words to mean what they mean.
Terry

Just to sum up and clarify.
LOVE is the strongest positive emotion which flows from the strongest values one can hold.
LOVE flows toward the object one admires, cherishs, esteems and values.
And ENEMY is that which seeks to deliberately harm you or what you hold dear. An ENEMY is conscious, malevolent and determined.
If we HATE what is bad and LOVE what is good there is no middle ground.
If JESUS told us to " ENDURE your enemies and try not to be discouraged or destroyed by your natural bad feelings toward them" I think we would all agree there is nothing ridiculous or unjust about such admonition.
But, no! The scripture says a ridiculous thing: LOVE your ENEMIES!
There is no justice in this statement. There is no fairness. There is no understanding of the devastation a malevolent enemy can wreak.
What do I think, personally?
I think this (and many other scriptures purporting to tell us what Jesus taught) is a ridiculous example of oral teachings made up by somebody without anybody questioning the source authority. It got written down and passed into "canon" and we are stuck with it---no matter how impossibly wrong it is from every consideration.
We HAVE A BRAIN--if we don't use it we are able to be programmed to accept and try to live by IMPOSSIBLY ridiculous values without merit!
Just look at the crazy things we believed while we were Jehovah's Witnesses!
IF THE WATCHTOWER PRINTED IT---WE BELIEVED IT-----NO MATTER HOW WRONG IT WAS!
possible-san

Terry.
Thank you for your reply.
Well, I do not speak English.
And most of the books (materials) which I have is the Japanese language.
Therefore, when I wanna quote them, I have to translate them.
What I have stated, most is written in the following book.
"How to use the laws of mind", (c) 1980 by Joseph Murphy, The JMW Group Inc., White Plains, New York.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Laws-Mind-Joseph-Murphy/dp/0875164269/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_9
I learned "the Laws of the Mind" from Dr. Joseph Murphy's books.
He is a pastor of a New Thought church, and the home of the "New Thought" is your country (United States) in which you live.
In Japan, such churches do not exist at all.
According to him, most of the Bible description are symbols and figurative, and that is telling about "the Laws of the Mind."
Therefore, we should not interpret those description literally.
If from this point of view, the "enemies" whom Jesus has stated is not literal(actual) meanings.
And if it says simply, the word "Love your enemies" means "Kick out your Negative Thinker residents (enemies) out of your head."
For instance, "hate", "hatred", "anger", "worry", "fear", etc.

Why should we do so?
It is because "God's kingdom" is in/within us.
And the KING of your "God's kingdom" is you.

The king of your kingdom is not other people (especially actual enemies).
possible
http://godpresencewithin.web.fc2.com/
not a captive

I think Jesus understood what he was saying. He suffered the effects of malevolence. Why would those who came after,of which there is ample testimony from secular writers(Pliny for one)that fairly simple folk suffered the same effects because they tried to simply live in a loving way.
So of Jesus we can even say that with screwed up gospels and rotten councils that followed he got his point across. Love God with your whole heart, mind, soul and strength and your neighbor as your self. I don't even have to be literate to get it. Most of his followers weren't (aren't??).
The WTS wasn't where I learned about Jesus anyway--their Jesus is a manicured lawn--no, an astro turf. Impervious and perfect in a disturbing way.
The love I grew up with was more fearful and not as generous as Jesus. He washed Judas' feet and was able to eat and swallow his food next to that man. That is a different love. Our definition of love probably doesn't fit here.
Thomas Merton is who I read before the WTS got me. He fought the Catholic Church over this kind of love during Vietnam.
Terry

Hate
Anger
Worry
Fear
These do not exist in a vacuum.
These are emotions attached to ___-something-____
They are not cause-less emotions.
Our enemies violate our values, harm our loved ones, threaten our security and the emotions follow the threats and the assaults.
The hate,anger, worry, fear are CAUSED by the enemies.
To put hate, anger, worry, fear out of our minds and replace those WARNINGS with a positive emotion (LOVE) which is causeless and not attached to a CAUSE is to become irrational and helpless.
This would be like covering your speedometer in your car and stepping hard on the accelerator pedal and having no worries at all!
Self-destruction comes from separating causality from effect and failing to deal with reality.
NEGATIVE emotions are our warning lights, alarm bells and burglar protection devices. We disarm them at our own risk.
The things which have positive value should trigger LOVE when they are of the highest esteem.
To simply attach LOVE to an enemy AND replace our warnings with a smile is an invitation to irrational detachment from reality.
SixofNine

Terry, you keep defining "enemy" as "victimizer", or "criminal". This is obviously not what Jesus was talking about.
Your lecture sound as if you believe that you, or anyone reading your lectures, should just assume that in any situation where one has an "enemy", it is automatic that you are 100% in-the-right, and they are 100% in-the-wrong. Again, that would be a victimizer or a criminal, not an "enemy" in the classic sense of the word.
possible-san

Terry.
Thank you for your reply.

Well, I think that your opinion is reasonable.
When that is "real enemies."
(Like this, I define people who interpret the Bible literally as "fundamentalists.")
But I think that you should understand some of my explanation.
"Enemies" when I am explaining is symbolic and figurative meanings.
That is, to put it simply, those "enemies" is not actual enemies.
If that is actual enemies, you and I are unable to love those enemies.
And that instructions are impractical.
Well, your health and family will be damaged when you continue hating those enemies, even if those enemies mean actual enemies.
So, in this point, that instruction of Jesus is practical, IMO.
possible
Anti-Christ

Did not Jesus say that Satan was the number one enemy? So we should love Satan.
not a captive

I am going to talk about what we are calling an enemy.
It seems that Jesus spoke words for "enemy" that were rooted in the idea of hating another: Our hate makes the enemy.
The problems I deal with in daily living makes Jesus' teaching especially useful. Getting rid of hatred in a situation is useful. Throwing out fear is also useful and likewise difficult.
Jesus was giving us some really practical advice. Most of what we deal with is personal, more or less. We see the face of our enemy. We may know their name. That is what make us hate them. That is what causes trauma. What they do is personal.
War is not thought of as personal. Yet a book titled On Killing speaks of the greater difficulty war victims have overcoming the horror of injury the more personal it is. Psychologists surveyed war victims in two groups, those whose injuries and loss of family members were as results of say the fire bombing of Dresden and those who had attackers come at them face-to-face. It should not surprise us that those who actually faced the humans who hurt them suffered deeper horror and greater emotional damage than those whose attackers were distant and injured them less directly, almost incidently.
I know that of the physical assaults or threats I've been around, the best outcomes have followed if I can give a rational and peaceful response. If I can demonstrate that I have no intention to do an aggressor harm then they may become reasonable and peaceful. Extend that much consideration to a person and there is a better outcome. I may keep from cultivating ugly feelings about them.
Jesus didn't hate the hater and we don't have to hate and fear each other. But neither do we have to expose ourselves to blind violence by going where there is rampant violence. But if violence does come to us, try to personalize it with kindness and honesty instead of fear and hatred. Don't let hate and fear make you turn someone into an enemy.
not a captive

I have a question about loving yor enemy.
Do you think it is okay to run from someone you love because they only want to hurt you?
How about an abusive spouse or parent. Isn't it alright to run?
Jesus healed the servant of the Roman officer but didn't he tell his followers to run when the Roman armies came to injure and further dominate the Jews of Jerusalem?
If we are "wise as serpents and innocent as doves" we do use common sense.
If someone is simply aggressing us as part of a mob and only see us as a faceless mob it is our job to change that as much as possible. First we have to see them as an individual human being so we don't make them an enemy in our heart. Then we look for an opportunity for them to know us as an individual human being.
Jesus and the Samaritan woman was such a moment . He surprised her with basic human decency and interest. Not condescending to her.
That was a successful moment of Jesus lovingly reaching past the walls of prejudice and the woman reaching back.. But it doesn't always happen that way. And your individual actions do not change the whole world.
Later Jesus going to Jerusalem receives not even minimum hospitality from a Samaritan village that he desired to stay in overnight on his way to Jerusalem. The Samaritans take up their traditional stance as "enemies" just because Jesus doesn't intend to camp on them during the advent to Passover and they wanted evidence that he was now throwing over to "the Samaritan side" (People don't seem to want peace in a feud. They seem to want domination. That is a problem for me too). And Jesus' disciples likewise pick up their old "enemy" view of Samaritans and want to go "old testament" on them. James and John say: "Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to burn them up?" But Jesus turned and rebuked them, and they went off into another village.
I have found that Jesus was pretty real about what he expected for his followers. But there is no pleasing some. Christians who make the decision not to live by the sword are accused of cowardice or foolishness. But I find them to be the true pragmatists. Engage with people individually when you can but if you cannot-- leave the scene as Jesus advises (Matthew 10:23). One thing is certain--killing an enemy doesn't eliminate them. It only makes more.

LOVE your ENEMIES: where Jesus goes wrong

Share this