Kill Them With Kindness - What the Bible Really Says

18AUG2024@GNBC

Introduction

In one more week we will be finished with chapter 5 of the Sermon on the Mount! I had hoped to finish it by the beginning of this month, but just was not able to fit what I believe to be nec1essary and crucial instruction into the time we have had, nor was I willing to skip over them. So today, we will look at the last few verses of Matthew chapter 5, but before we do that, I would like to introduce this section with another set of verses found in Romans. So let's goa ahead and jump right into it this morning.

Kill Them with Kindness

Romans 12:19-20 Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. 20 Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.

This verse is quoted or referenced very often, and I think we all can understand why. The thought of people that have wronged us having coals of fire heaped on their heads is pretty satisfying, right? When we look at these verses and our reaction may go up and down as we read, but when we get to the end, people usually are pretty satisfied.

Let me illustrate:

______1______ and _____2______ have had a heated argument about something and he hauls off and _____1____ hauls off and punches _______2_____square in the jaw and knocks out one of his teeth.

______2_______ does nothing, because he's been going to church on Sunday mornings and remembers the sermon just a few weeks ago about not repaying an "eye for a eye or a tooth for a tooth." But he's angry, and he knows that it is justified anger, so he goes and tells a friend about this. However, his friend only replies that he should read Romans 12:19-20, so he does. And as he reads it, he goes from sad to happy, to sad and back to happy again, all within the space of about 50 words.

Let's read it again and see if we can't understand ______2's________ predicament.

Romans 12:19-20

19 - Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves.

Well, that goes against everything that he wants to do. He wants to go and get some revenge! He's mad! He wants there to be something he can resort to to serve justice to the man that knocked out his tooth. But he continues reading...

But rather give place to wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, sayeth the Lord.

Well now, that is exciting! _____2_____ is only human, after all, and in his humanity, he understands that God can exact revenge a whole lot better than he ever could. His mind immediately goes to the story of the 42 young men that got killed by 2 bears after these young men had made fund of the prophet Elisha, and he had simply cursed them in the name of God. So this is great! Maybe he will get to send a pack of stray dogs at _____1____... But he continues reading, now a little more excited. And he reads...

20 Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink:

What a turn! This doesn't sound satisfying at all. In fact, it is the complete opposite of what he wants to do to his enemy! He wants him to be punished, not fed and watered! "There is no way I am sharing my lunch with this guy," he thinks. "In fact, I hope he forgets his lunch tomorrow so that I can eat my amazing sandwich and drink my Mexican Coca-Cola right in front of him! But he continues reading and finds something that lifts his little vengeful spirits a little...

For in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.

Well, coals of fire sounds amazing!!! This is exactly what this guy deserves - coals of fire right on top of his head! And this verse clearly means that if I am nice to him, God, who is going to avenge me, is going to burn his head off!!!

"In that case," he thinks to himself, "I am not only going to share my sandwich with my enemy, but I'm going to take him out to Texas Roadhouse and get him the prime rib and anything else his heart desires! Because, well, the nicer I am, the worse God is going to burn his head off!!!!"

How many of y'all have heard the phrase "kill them with kindness"?

When we have a similar situation where someone has offended or hurt us, or we know someone going through a hurt or suffering an offence, we often use or hear use the phrase, "Just kill them with kindness." Some people use this verse to back that logic up. "Just be nice to your enemies, and one day God will burn their heads off." And if we are honest, it sure sounds nice to think that the nicer we are to someone, the more God will get revenge on them, or at the very least they will feel miserable for being mean to us.

I was had the opportunity twice in 2006 to visit a town in Germany named Rothenburg. The city of Rothenburg exists since the year 1170, and visible still today are the city walls and many other structures that have stood since the medieval time period. One of these structures, built in 1393, now houses the Medieval Kriminal Museum, or the Medieval Museum of Crime and Justice.

During one of our visits to Rothenburg, Tahsha and I were able to take a tour of this museum and saw many interesting artefacts. There was a whole section dedicated to the evolution of executioner's swords. There were different areas dedicated to different types of instruments used for various levels of criminal punishment.

One of the devices on display was made of iron and was fashioned in such a way that it made a kind of cage around the wearer's head. At the top there was an iron basket that was used to hold hot coals. The basket would then heat up and cause torturous burns on the victims head.

This was not the first time that I had heard of this particular type of torture helmet. I had seen pictures of similar devices from the time that I was a kid. And every time I heard or read Romans 12:20, "...in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head," this is what I imagined. Be nice to your enemies, and God will torture them for you. I was expecting, like many of you have probably expected, that while I keep my hands clean, God gets His hands dirty in the revenge business.

I found myself treating God as a mafia enforcer because of this understanding that I had. You know what I mean. The mob boss meets with someone who has been working against "the family." By the end of the meeting, it seems as if everything has been resolved, because the mob boss has shared dinner with the man and laughed and seemingly cleared the air. As the man then rises from his chair and says his farewells, the mob boss subtly nods at one of his men who follows the man to the car and shoots him in the back.

The mob boss was kind and put the other man's mind at ease, only to order his execution with a nod of his head. That was how I viewed God for a long time.

But then something happened. I began at some point to truly want to know God's heart, not just be familiar with his words. In that quest, I came across Matthew 5 and the Sermon on the Mount. Here in this sermon, Jesus is exposing God's heart. He is not only exposing His own heart, but he is telling Christians what our hearts should be like. All of a sudden, Matthew 5:43-48 seems contradictory to Romans 12:20. Let's read it.

Matthew 5:43-48

Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.

Notice the phrase "You have heard," once again. Up until now we have seen some twisted interpretations of scripture. Up until now, Jesus has called out the Pharisees for misinterpreting actual scripture or twisting it a bit for their purposes, but this phrase, "love your neighbor and hate your enemy" is something that is not found anywhere in the Old Testament. This was just something that they taught to justify their hatred toward the Romans, the Samaritans, other Gentiles, and even Jews that worked for the Romans such as the publicans.

44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; 45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? 47 And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? 48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

I don't know about you, but I don't see God-the-mob-boss in these verses. So how do we reconcile them? What I had to do is let go of any prior understandings I had of the two passages of Scripture, and look to understand God's character as much as I could and then view the context of what was being said, to whom it was said, and what that would mean to them.

Go back with me to Romans 12, but this time we will start at verse 14.

Romans 12:14-21

14 Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not. 15 Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep. 16 Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits.

17 Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. 18 If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. 19 Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath [Ephesians 4:26 be angy and sin not; don't let the sun go down on your wrath. So in other words: the proper place for our anger or wrath is a temporary place]: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. 20 Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.

So we do all this so that God will burn their heads off, right? No. The next verse says:

21 Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.

Does the thought of someone suffering seem evil or good? Evil.

So we therefore cannot be overcome with those thoughts. They would be evil.

So then, what does it mean to heap coals of fire on someone's head? I am glad you asked!!

Remember that torture device I told y'all about? Remember the time period that it was used in? Yeah... the medieval times. Guess what, Paul was writing the Christians in Rome WAY before medieval times...

So, what does it mean?

The way houses were often set up in small villages in these times was in a circle. Often, in the center of the circle there would be a community fire. If you needed to have a fire in your house, you would take coals from the community fire and take them to your house, and start the fire there. As villages grew into cities, community fires ceased to be a thing, but areas of the house were used as kitchens and in these areas, a fire was always going, not only to prepare the families food, but to be able to prepare food for anyone that stopped by, as this was common hospitality. What would happen at night, however, would be that they would let the fire die down and then cover all the coals with ashes.

These ashes would insulate the coals, and when thy awoke in the morning, the coals could be stoked and fresh fuel added to create another fire. This method was preferred because in those days, they didn't have Zippos or Bic lighters yet, and it was a hassle to make a fire out of just some wood or flint.

Sometime, however, you would wake up to coals that were not hot any longer. So instead of rubbing sticks together, you would take a clay pot and go to your neighbors house and ask if they had any hot coals they could give you. You would repeat this process with other neighbors until you had enough hot coals heaped upon your head to go back to your house and start your own fire back up.

So then, what does the phrase "in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head" mean? To be a blessing. To provide for their needs. Which lines up perfectly with the previous phrase: if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he's thirsty, give him something to drink.

The attitude of Jesus, the heart of God is that we are to be people who show grace to others. You might say, "But they don't deserve grace!" But that is the whole point of grace! It is undeserved favor in the same way that we are shown grace by the Father. Before we we \re saved, we were enemies of God. But God so loved the world that he gave his Son. Jesus showed us his love this way, in that while we were yet sinners, He died for us.

Let's go back to the Sermon on the Mount and look at Jesus' attitude there.

Matthew 5:43-48 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. 44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; 45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? 47 And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? 48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

God did all of these things for us: He loved us while we were enemies, he blessed us though we cursed him, he did good to us even when we did not deserve it, and he asks us to do the same.

So Jesus says, "Be perfect, even as your Father is perfect." Wow!

How is that perfection measured in this context? 44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; 45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven...

We've spoken in depth what love is according to the Bible; if you need a refresher, go to 1 Corinthians 13. We are to love those that we would consider our enemies.

Jesus dealt with the negative aspect before when he said, "Don't strike back when you are insulted, don't pay back an eye for an eye or tooth for tooth, don't hold anger against others." But now he gives us a positive instruction: "Do these things - love, bless, and do good to your enemies."

We are to bless them that curse us. Reply to bitter words with kind words.

We are to do good to those that hate us. This means that we are to exchange good actions for those that treat us with spite, with malice. When others are cruel to us, we must not be so toward them; we are to actively seek their good.

We are to pray for them that despitefully use us and persecute us. (Not imprecatory prayers, but pray for their blessing and their good).

The thing is, we need to realize what God realizes. It is sin within man that causes others to curse, hate, and persecute others. It is this horrible sinful nature that men are doomed to a lake of fire. In that thought, we as Christians should have the heart of the Father which is broken, sorry for the individuals so controlled and doomed by sin. In feeling sorry for them and their condition, we have little space to feel sorry for ourselves. This principle then piggy-backs off of the principle that we saw in the previous weeks, dying to self. We can only truly love others as God loves us if we die to our own selves.

How do I know if I have died to myself in this area of loving my enemies? You can test yourself. Do you pray for those that persecute you and use you? Do you ask God to have mercy on them? Does your soul pity their soul, or does it seek punishment? Do you feel a great concern about the relationship that your enemy has with God, or the lack of that relationship?

This was the mind of Jesus. It was this mind that brought him from heaven to the cross. It was this concern that he had for us that caused him to not be concerned for himself at all.

WHY ON EARTH WOULD WE DO THAT!!!

That we may be the children of our Father. That doesn't mean that if you don't do this you lose your salvation. What it means is that by doing these things, others will know we are God's children. My kids, they all look similar. The girls look like Tahsha, and the boys, especially when you compare our baby pictures, look a lot like me. People can usually pick our our kids. When I was a youth pastor at a Hispanic church in Fort Worth, TX, it was really easy to tell which ones were mine. But this is not what this verse is talking about. This is not about a visual resemblance, this is about character and personality.

At our house, this is a common saying: "Mia looks like Tahsha, but acts like me." And really, she does. She has a lot of my personality traits. She may look like Tahsha, but does not act like her very much at all. Mia is my kid through and through.

That is what Jesus is looking for for us in these passages. That our character and personality would so match God's that others would be able to say, "He/she is a child of God through and through, because only God would love those that hate in that manner."

Invitation

Next week we will conclude this portion of the Sermon on the Mount as we look at the meaning behind verses 46-48, but today I'd like to wrap this up with an invitation to action.

Are you loving your enemies?

Are you praying for those that have used you and persecuted you? Praying for their salvation, if they are lost; praying for them to return to the Lord, if they are saved?

Are you seeking the good of your enemies?

Does your treatment of those who are contrary to you show to the world that you are a child of God?

If you are here without Jesus as your savior, you are currently an enemy of God. But God loved you so much that He desires nothing more than for you to be his child.

Life Groups

Was there anything that stood out to you?

Jesus tells us to love our enemies. Is there a difference between loving and liking? Liking concerns itself with how we feel about someone. Love is active. This is concerned with the beneficial treatment of others regardless of how they make us feel.

How can we reconcile how God treated his enemies in the Bible (e.g.: the Amalekites, Amorites, Moabites, Midianites, etc.) with God's command to love our enemies? God's judgement on them was in a judicial sense. These nations had had many years to turn to God, but did not. They did, in fact, attack God's people. But it was a judicial, it was a legal consequence for their affront to God. These were judgements against whole nations or people groups, not against individuals. In fact, we know that there were many instances where Gentile individuals turned from their pagan ways to follow God (Ruth - Moabitess). She was not in danger of God's judgement on that nation, though being from that nation.

Even in the event where the Assyrians in Nineveh were to be destroyed, God spared them after they repented. They were enemies, but God's mercy extended to them, even though they deserved judicial, legal punishment under God's law.

How can we reconcile the imprecatory Psalms with this command to love our enemies? The imprecatory Psalms are not psalms concerning personal vengeance. They are prayers asking God to deal justly with evil in a legal sense. It would be as if a family member of ours were killed, and we were to ask God for that person to get caught and dealt with justly and legally. However, though our prayer is for that person to have his legal repercussions and for justice to be served, we would not be the ones on the manhunt to find and kill the person.

Even the harshest of the imprecatory Psalms (109) is a plea for justice, for righteous punishment. In the Psalm, we see that David, on a personal level, has loved this particular enemy and even so he is counted as an enemy and given evil treatment in exchange for his love (v.4-5).

How does understanding the cultural context of "heaping coals of fire" change your perspective on this passage?

What role does trusting God’s justice play in our ability to forgive and show kindness to others?