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
The Longing of Advent
The Advent season is a time of anticipating the coming of God, in Christ, a time of turning our imagination toward the revelation of God’s love for us. This after all is the deepest longing of our heart, and our natural longings always point us to something real. We grow hungry only because there’s such…
The Gift of Smallness
ram reddy via Compfight Jonathan Martin wrote this piece entitled Feeling at home in my smallness a couple of weeks ago. If you’ve been feeling like the weight of the world is on your shoulders and it’s up to you to do something amazing or if you’ve been taking yourself a little too seriously, you…
Love OR Judgment – You Can’t Have Both
Image by Morgan Sessions We cannot judge others because it is not our place as humans to function as the center—because God is that center—and judge other people. In addition, we cannot judge others because we ourselves are sinners who deserve judgment. If we don’t want to be judged, Jesus says, we must not judge. The…
Why God Made You
The life God has for each one of us is a life of perfect love, one that eternally unites us with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is why God made us. It’s what we long for, to love and be loved. However, things like the love of the Trinity are not part of…
Guest Post: Culture War Neighbors by Bonnie Kristian
Matteo Parrini via Compfight The first time I was aware of meeting a gay person, I was 18. I took a summer job waiting tables, and it turned out two of my coworkers were attracted to people of the same sex. One, a waiter in his 40s, fit every stereotype on Will and Grace. The…
Have You Taken a Gospel Immunization Shot?
Why does being “Christian” in America make so little difference in so many people’s lives, when the kingdom movement revealed in the New Testament revolutionized people’s lives? This drastic difference is hardly surprising when you consider that the gospel that people are often given today is little more than a contract of acquittal that is…
