Description
Don’t Repay Evil for Evil
A short meditation on 1 Thessalonians 5:15 explores the pull of our internal sense of justice… (visit YouTube for more)
Transcript
Oh dear. Confession time. This one goes against the grain. We are meditating today on one Thessalonians five verse 15. See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone.
Now our internal sense of justice demands payment, doesn’t it for evil. But when we have this internal sense that we’ve personally been wronged and that needs to be made right, this can turn into a thirst for revenge.
I don’t know if it does for you, but it definitely can for me. And that, God says, is evil in itself. God says, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” God takes to himself all justice. He delegates authority to administer justice in this earth. But he doesn’t necessarily delegate it to me to get my own justice for wrongs against me.
No, he says, actually what you are to do is to do good to everyone, to one another, and to everyone. And that includes, of course, those people who have wounded and offended me. Now, this is not a mandate for us to get ourselves into trouble with people who are just going to continue to abuse us. That’s not what Paul’s saying here.
It’s merely that our internal reaction should be an overflowing of love towards everybody, not a demand that we get our rights. Do you see the difference?
Jesus Christ was well within his rights to smite everybody around him. But instead he died for us. And that’s the kind of attitude that he’s asking of us.
This is super, super challenging! And we need to make sure that we are applying this verse correctly and not twisting it to some other agenda.
Since we can’t cover all aspects of this verse in two minutes, I do recommend you take this one away and meditate on it further.
