October 3, 2010
Matthew 5:43-48
Love your enemies . . . Be perfectDavid and I were in a training session last weekend, and we discussed the passage ourselves. One insight we shared was about being perfect. The context does not necessarily demand perfect actions. Instead, it is focused on perfect love.
With no notes from last week's session, I can't be certain what major points were made in the class itself. At the beginning of the October 10 session, I'll ask for the take-aways from this passage. I'll add a comment to this post that mentions the points that the class recalls.
These are the points the 10/10 class mentioned about the 10/3 discussion on becoming perfect in love:
ReplyDeleteAction is involved in love. The most dramatic action may be offering love when it isn't deserved.
Don't do harm. We certainly don't want to start something bad, but this passage says not to respond to evil with evil.
Boundaries are still appropriate. The passage is describing insults, not threats. Self-defense is allowed. The key is forgiveness. We may need to forgive from a distance in order to protect ourselves, but we still need to forgive. Forgive doesn't mean "let the other person trample you." It does mean "don't hold grudges inside, dwelling on the wrongs done."
This week, one person reported finding the following definition of love, which seemed appropriate to the discussion: Love is the act of endless forgiveness.
--Dale