We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
Enemy Love
Zack Hunt over at The American Jesus shared the story of Paul Keane who offered his own burial plot to Tamerlan Tsarnaev if his family could not find a cemetery that would accept his body. You’ll remember that Tsarnaev was one of the men who carried out the Boston Marathon bombings and was killed in a shootout later in the week. Paul Keane is taking Jesus’ command to love our enemies very seriously. I wonder how the world would be different if in the wake of such hateful acts more of us could find it in ourselves to reach for love, against our more natural instincts.
From Zack’s blog:
In many ways it seems this path to perfection is a much more difficult path to tread than simply not doing certain things. After all, I don’t know about you, but my first, second, and third reactions to the Oklahoma City bombing, 9/11, the Boston Marathon bombing and every other event like that was not – “I know you destroyed lives out of hate, but I choose to love you anyway.”
I kind of doubt that was Paul Keane’s first reaction either. But unlike me, Paul decided to actually take Jesus at his word and live out this most difficult of callings in one of the most difficult of situations.
Category: General
Tags: Boston Bombings, Enemy Love, Kingdom Living, Love, Paul Keane, The American Jesus, Zack Hunt
Related Reading
Quotes to Chew On: Desires
Marcos de Madariaga via Compfight Here’s a quote that comes to us via Andrew Sullivan’s blog: “We are rarely presented with an authentically fulfilling trajectory for our desires… If we are created for infinite satisfaction, we really only have three choices about what to do with our desire in this life: We will become either…
The All-or-Nothing of Kingdom Living
Nothing is more central to the kingdom of God than agreeing with God about every person’s unsurpassable worth and reflecting this in how we act toward them. Nothing is more important that living in Christlike love for all people at all times. In fact, compared to love, nothing else really matters in the kingdom. In…
The Kingdom, Just War Theory, and Ukraine
History textbooks often read like surveys of how countries handled war with other nations. The stuff between the conflicts reads like precursors and aftermath to the history-making actions of war. Now we observe the rising tension between Russia and Ukraine along with other world leaders as they try to determine how to respond. Sadly, church history…
Sermon Clip: Extravagant Forgiveness, Extravagant Love
Greg Boyd had the wonderful opportunity to guest speak at a great church in Carlisle, PA called Carlisle BIC. He spoke on the topic of forgiveness and love. In this short clip, Greg describes how a prostitute was being judged by the Pharisees, but Jesus came to her rescue. You can listen to the full…
5 Distinctions of God’s Kingdom
Jesus said that his kingdom was “not from this world,” for it contrasts with the kingdom of the world in every possible way. This is not a simple contrast between good and evil. The contrast is rather between two fundamentally different ways of doing life, two fundamentally different mindsets and belief systems, two fundamentally different…