Adult Christian Life. R.H. Boyd Publishing Corporation

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       1. Kingdom Requirements (Luke 6:27–31)

       Know It

      You might notice our lesson mirrors Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount. It does, and while we know the Gospel writers borrowed from the same sources and experiences, it is God’s omniscience that these lessons are echoed in two Gospels simply because we need to hear them twice.

      As the lesson begins today, Jesus was laying out His house rules or Kingdom requirements. Simply stated, we are to love even enemies who hate us. We are to bless the people who curse us. And finally, we are to pray for the people who mistreat us. Nothing difficult here, right?

      Jesus expects His followers to love the unlovable. This isn’t a suggestion. It’s an expectation. It’s a house rule. Loving enemies proves we have home training. Jesus taught that His followers are to be thermostats, not thermometers.

      Jesus’ followers shouldn’t be blown about by every whim. Instead, Jesus says we should love. We impact our surroundings by allowing our preconditioned setting of love to change the environment around us. This is made explicit in the next section of our lesson.

      In each of the scenarios above (being hated, cursed, abused, slapped, stolen from), a form of mistreatment and oppression is listed. In each case, Jesus told His believers to respond with loving action. It should be noted Jesus did not speak of His followers as perpetrators of these abuses. This suggests domination, oppression, and hostility are inherently non-Kingdom behaviors.

      While Jesus’ teaching precludes His followers from being oppressors, it doesn’t alleviate the reality that we may be oppressed and experience the pangs of ill-treatment. However, it is clear we are never to succumb to the ill-treatment of persecution nor sully our hands with destructive retributive behaviors. If we engage in the activities Jesus commanded, we will eradicate the lines of hostility. We may not necessarily remove acts of hostility toward us by those who want to be our enemies, but we will remove the line drawn in the sand marking an enemy as an enemy.

      Can an enemy remain an enemy when they are loved? Can an enemy remain an enemy when we bless them or speak kindly about them? Can an enemy remain an enemy when we pray for them? Fortunately, no. While they may remain hostile, our loving, blessing, and most certainly praying will change us even if it does not change our offender, thus eradicating the line marking the offender as an enemy. In the end, they may prove to be an enemy to us but we will prove to be friends to them.

      We cannot enter the presence of God in prayer and remain unchanged. No wonder Jesus commanded us to pray for those who do us wrong. It keeps us from treating them poorly and acting as if we have no home training.

      Jesus’ examples of exemplary Kingdom behavior are countercultural. Jesus’ exampled behavior differed from the norm. Jesus expects His followers to be countercultural. The typical normal response to hostility is more hostility, the desire for retribution, or at the minimum, self-preservation. However, Jesus expects His followers to be out of this world, literally heads and shoulders above the norm. Jesus implores that we rise above such base behavior. Instead of trying to correct someone else’s bad behavior with might, stealth, or guile, we are called to be models, teachers, walking exhibitions of what is right. We are in this world but by no means of this world. We can conquer the act of oppression without stooping to the lows of the oppressor. We conquer it by doing good.

       2. Kingdom Rewards (Luke 6:32–34)

      In these three verses Jesus began to further challenge our motives as Kingdom members. He asked three rhetorical questions, all with the same aim. What makes us different? Jesus made it clear that anyone can be loving to people who love them. In fact, even people not yet walking in the truth of God nor filled with the Holy Spirit find it in their hearts to love those who love them.

      Jesus then extended His teaching to doing good deeds for the people who are good to us and lending to those from whom we can expect repayment. Jesus said even sinners can practice quid pro quo (Latin for “something for something”). Christ followers should be different, however, offering something for nothing. Jesus introduced the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37) to explain the concept of doing good or being neighborly when nothing is to be gained in return. Jews and the Samaritans did not associate with each other. In fact, Jews despised Samaritans because of their mixed heritage—the progeny of exiled Jews and their Assyrian and Babylonian captors. Yet, the Samaritan in Jesus’ story did not allow his race to blind him to the human bond he shared with an injured Hebrew man. While the Jewish priest and the Levite ignored the man who had been physically assaulted by robbers, the despised Samaritan went out of his way to provide loving and much-needed care. He also promised to take care of any additional medical expenses the injured man incurred. Jesus commended the Samaritan because he dared to see the Hebrew as a brother rather than as an enemy.