{"id":1367,"date":"2006-09-22T02:10:12","date_gmt":"2006-09-22T02:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2006\/09\/regarding-your-enemies.html"},"modified":"2006-09-22T02:10:12","modified_gmt":"2006-09-22T02:10:12","slug":"regarding-your-enemies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/09\/regarding-your-enemies.html","title":{"rendered":"Regarding your enemies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Wright agrees with the majority: Romans 12:14-21 shifts to a concern with outsiders, and evidently to a kind of outsider that has an impact inside. He now addresses how the community of faith should respond to its opponents and persecutors.<font size=\"2\" color=\"#000000\"><!--more|inline--><\/font><br \/>\nThe answer in one crisp clause: &#8220;Bless those who persecute you.&#8221; Which is from Jesus (Matt 5:43-48). And which is not heard enough in the Church today and which is vital for following Jesus. We are to learn to respond to our enemies &#8212; however defined here &#8212; with charity and grace and hope, and not with vituperative and vitriolic cursings. Nothing embarrasses me more as a Christian than how I see some respond to those with whom they disagree.<br \/>\nMake every effort to live at peace with everyone; not always possible, but at least try.<br \/>\nVengeance is not a personal matter; it is from God. Wright implies the courts can take care of this, too. Just don&#8217;t take the law into your own hands. Instead, feed a hungry foe, give drink to a thirsty one.<br \/>\nThe implication in all this is that love unleashes a cycle of embracing grace in our world. Do it, Paul says.<br \/>\nThe critical factor is this: try this &#8212; see what happens when you meet opposition with grace and goodness instead of retaliation and vengeance.<br \/>\nTom can write, and I love this: &#8220;if someone in the next street dies, they should be prepared to sympathize and join the funeral procession, and if someone is celebrating, they should throw their hats in the air as well&#8221; (714).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wright agrees with the majority: Romans 12:14-21 shifts to a concern with outsiders, and evidently to a kind of outsider that has an impact inside. He now addresses how the community of faith should respond to its opponents and persecutors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":298,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-romans"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Regarding your enemies - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/09\/regarding-your-enemies.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Regarding your enemies - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Wright agrees with the majority: Romans 12:14-21 shifts to a concern with outsiders, and evidently to a kind of outsider that has an impact inside. He now addresses how the community of faith should respond to its opponents and persecutors.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/09\/regarding-your-enemies.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-09-22T02:10:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"xscot mcknight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Regarding your enemies - Jesus Creed","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/09\/regarding-your-enemies.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Regarding your enemies - Jesus Creed","og_description":"Wright agrees with the majority: Romans 12:14-21 shifts to a concern with outsiders, and evidently to a kind of outsider that has an impact inside. 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