The Role of the Enemy

[Darris McNeely] We all know that Jesus said to love our enemies, to bless those who curse you, and to do good to those who hate us. Think about loving the role that an enemy, whether it's an outward competitor, someone who's against us, or maybe an inner weakness, might play in our lives.

The Romans had a very interesting approach to the people who oppose them in battle. In the Punic Wars, they were opposed by the great Carthaginian general, Hannibal. And Hannibal occupied whole parts of Italy, defeated the Roman army over a period of time until he too, was later defeated, but he created a great deal of problems as their enemy. But you know what they did? The Romans looked at Hannibal as a man who had virtue. He was their enemy. He was a hated Carthaginian, but they let that play to their weakness, so they were weak in terms of being defeated by him, they let that make them stronger. And they actually looked upon Hannibal as a man of virtue, even over some of their own successful generals, even the one who fought against Hannibal.

And so when we think about loving our enemy and following this along, there's a lot of depth of understanding there. And when it comes to letting something work against us and causing us to be better, to do better, to figure out where we might be weak. And if it is in through a relationship that we have with someone that is creating the strife, the tension, the problem, we correct ourselves. We recognize a weakness on our part or deficiency, we then become better. We're letting that phrase "to love your enemies" work in our favor to develop better habits, better character, virtue, as the Romans called it and referred to it. And when we do, we're getting to a deeper level of understanding of exactly what that means, to love your enemies because doing so makes us a better person.

That's BT Daily, join us next time.