To understand this gospel passage we may classify all the people into three groups – Friends, Strangers and Enemies. Friends have a wider meaning today since the people have so many unseen friends through social networking systems such as face book and twitter. Strangers are those who do have any contact with us. Enemies can be those whom we know, may be our old friends, but did something harm to us and we do not like them anymore.
During the time of Jesus they had friends and neighbors, who belong to the same clan or family and were Jews. The strangers and enemies were the foreigners, outcast people whom they had hatred in their mind. Jesus tells them to love these strangers and enemies more than their friends.
The purpose of Jesus’ love for enemy is to eliminate them. The way of the world to eliminate enemies are to destroy them or conquer them by force. But the way of Jesus to eliminate our enemies is to love them and convert them into our friends. The way of Jesus gives us a lasting solution to our problem of enemies.
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