Matthew 5:43-48 – Loving even those who are not our own

There is a necessity for us to know what the terms “neighbor and enemy” in verse 43 constitute. For knowing what constitute a neighbor and an enemy will help us to understand the Lord’s intention. A neighbor should be seen as anyone within the community that loves God, and keeps His commandment. An enemy is one that doesn’t belong to that community of lovers of God, and thus consider a hater of God. In the Lord’s situation, the Romans that occupied Israel was considered their national enemy. Their enemy also included other religious groups and even one’s personal enemy. 

The call of Christ here is for Kingdom people not only to love those within the believer’s community, but also those outside of it. Yes, and even our oppressors. One concrete way to demonstrate that love is to pray for them. This call to love is not based on any humanitarian ideals but on the very loving nature of God, who loves everyone without partiality. It is also based on the promise of a future reward. The Lord tells us that we will not be applauded for loving those who love us. But we will be applauded if we will love those who don’t love us. 

We are called to be people with a difference. To prove His point the Lord illustrates it with the tax collectors. They are the cronies of the Romans. They would betray their fellow Israelites by collecting more tax than they were supposed to do. Hence, they were seen as dishonest and were greatly despised, and considered as scums by their own people. Even those scums knew how to love their very own and would greet each other cordially. How different would we be from them, if we could only love people of our own mold? When we only treat those of our own kindly, we are truly no different from anyone of them.  

What's tough in this passage is that we are called to be like our Heavenly Father who is  perfect. He had left us an example. We can see from how He causes His sun to rise on  the  evil and  the  good, and sends rain on  the righteous and the unrighteous. Our Heavenly Father did not call Israel to Himself in order to play favorite. As a nation, Israel was not called so that they could feel special. They were called so that they could represent God. Like them, we are also called to represent God and our role is to be salt of the earth and light of the world. How else can we fulfill our role effectively unless we emulate our perfect Father who shows no partiality?