Day 7 of 14
The Extraordinary: Enemy Love
The Command That Defies All Calculation
Scripture Readings
Today's Reading
Read Matthew 5:38-48: "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also... You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you... You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect."
Then read Romans 12:17-21: "Repay no one evil for evil... If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all... Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."
Reflection
Of all the commands of Jesus, none is more radical and none is more resisted than the command to love our enemies. Every natural instinct rebels against it. Every calculus of justice, fairness, and self-preservation says it is madness. And that, Bonhoeffer argues, is precisely the point.
"The love of our enemies takes us along the way of the cross and into fellowship with the Crucified," Bonhoeffer writes. Enemy love is not a technique for conflict resolution. It is not a strategy for shaming your opponents into submission. It is an act of participation in the cruciform love of Christ, who prayed for those who nailed Him to the cross.
Bonhoeffer's exposition of this passage is all the more powerful because of the context in which he lived. The Nazi regime was not an abstract enemy. It was a murderous system that was destroying his church, imprisoning his students, and exterminating his Jewish neighbors. To write about loving enemies in 1937 Germany was not sentimentality. It was an act of theological courage.
His argument is that evil is ultimately defeated not by counterforce but by absorption. "By willing endurance we cause suffering to pass. Evil becomes a spent force when we put up no resistance." This does not mean passive acquiescence to injustice — Bonhoeffer himself would join the resistance. But it does mean refusing to let the enemy's methods become your own. You overcome evil with good, or you do not overcome it at all.
Jesus grounds this command not in pragmatism but in theology: "so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven." God Himself loves His enemies. He sends rain on the just and the unjust. He loved us while we were still sinners. The command to love enemies is not an impossible ideal tacked onto the gospel. It is the gospel lived out — the cruciform shape of God's own love reproduced in His children.
Going Deeper
Paul echoes Jesus in Romans 12: "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." This is not naivety. It is the deepest realism. Evil thrives on the cycle of retaliation. When you repay evil with evil, you have already been conquered by it — you have adopted its logic, its methods, its spirit. Only love breaks the cycle. Only the cross defeats the power of darkness without becoming dark itself.
Who is your enemy? Not in the abstract — specifically. What would it look like to pray for them today?
Key Quotes
“The love of our enemies takes us along the way of the cross and into fellowship with the Crucified. The more we are driven along this road, the more certain is the victory of love over the enemy's hatred.”
“By willing endurance we cause suffering to pass. Evil becomes a spent force when we put up no resistance. By refusing to pay back the enemy in his own coin, and by preferring to suffer without resistance, the Christian exhibits the sinfulness of contumely and insult.”
Prayer Focus
Asking God to name the person you find hardest to love — and then asking Him for the specific grace to love that person as Christ has loved you
Meditation
Bonhoeffer wrote about loving enemies while living under a regime that was his mortal enemy. He eventually joined a plot to assassinate Hitler. How do you understand the relationship between loving enemies and resisting evil?
Question for Discussion
Jesus commands love of enemies, and Bonhoeffer wrote powerfully about it — yet he also joined the conspiracy to assassinate Hitler. Is there a contradiction here, or a deeper understanding of what enemy love requires? Where does loving your enemy end and resisting evil begin?