Tuesday; June 12
When Jesus was beginning to build a foundation upon which His church was going to be built, He made some pretty incredible statements, one of which was, “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.”. (Matthew 5:43-44) This cutting-edge teaching it would come to identify the true disciples of Jesus; yet, when we take a look at this passage a couple of things stand out. First, Jesus quotes both from the Law of Moses as well as human commentary. While the Law taught that the Jews should love their neighbors, it never gave them permission to hate their enemies – that was something that was added by traditional religion. I believe this is a good lesson for today. Just because something sounds religious or tends to make good sense doesn’t mean that it is biblical. Before accepting something as “gospel” we must do our research and find out if it really is what God said