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Key Bible Verses: "You have heard that the law of Moses says, 'Love your neighbor' and hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemies!" (Matthew 5:43-44). Bonus Reading:Galatians 5:13-15

While living in Somalia, I sipped cardamom-spiced tea one evening in a tea shop with Muslim student friends. They began comparing our two faiths. "You've told us that Jesus taught that people should forgive their enemies. That's not practical," they expounded. "Islam is practical. The way we strike our enemy teaches him to respect us."

"But when you hit back," I countered, "your enemy will crouch in the bushes sometime, and get you. Jesus offers another way. Forgive. Show kindness to your enemy. Even die at his hands. If you don't hit back, the cycle stops."

Somali society as a whole has never known the invitation of Jesus to another way. Its wonderful people have experienced self-destruction as the cycle of revenge between clans goes on and on.

About the same time as that tea shop conversation, Kenya was on the brink of intertribal war because of a political assassination. During that crisis, some 10,000 Christians from across the nation met and proclaimed that they were a reconciled people from the very tribes teetering toward conflict. Come what may, they announced, they'd never kill one another.

—David Shenk in Surprises of the Christian Way

My Response: Do I consider "turning the other cheek" to show weakness or strength?

Thought to Apply: I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him.

—Booker T. Washington

Adapted from Surprises of the Christian Way (Herald Press, 2000) by permission.

Copyright © 2003 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity.

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Prayer for the Week

I'm tired, Lord, of being governed by grievances. Please show me how to break loose from vindictiveness.

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