It can be overly simplistic to do a word search on the Bible and simply presume that because a word appears fairly often, it's an important one. A quick search reveals 44 mentions of boats, 10 mentions of pomegranates and 37 mentions of horses – none of which seem to me to be indispensible biblical themes.
However, a search can still be instructive. So I decided to find out how many times the word 'enemy' features in scripture. 'Enemies' seems to be a common theme in our news cycle right now. Trump verses Clinton (and their supporters), Assad verses Syrian rebels, Sunni verses Shia Muslims, Brexiteers verses Remainers and so on...
There are 112 references to enemies in the New International Version, 96 in the NRSV and 106 in the King James. A few of these references refer to Satan – that ominous presence in both Old and New Testaments. Yet many of them refer to either generic or specific human enemies.
In Esther 3:10 we read, "So the king took his signet ring from his hand and gave it to Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite, the enemy of the Jews." The Psalms are rammed with references to enemies, such as this from Psalm 64:1, "Hear my voice, O God, in my complaint; preserve my life from the dread enemy."
Into the Gospels, Jesus doesn't shy away from speaking about enemies. In the Sermon on the Mount, he says, "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you."
What are we to make of this? Should Christians who are loving, forgiving and showing grace shouldn't have any enemies? Scripture seems to suggest so. In fact, it even seems that we may well have enemies because we are Christians.
Take another section of that famous sermon. In the Beatitudes Jesus says, "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." In other words, we should expect that as we live the Christian life, we are going to make enemies.
Any true Christian witness is going to disrupt the world as it is, to discomfort those with power and those who stand to lose from a kingdom where God has "scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts... brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate... filled the hungry with good things and the rich... sent away empty."
That kind of Kingdom will always make enemies. The first Christians declared that Jesus was Lord, which was a repudiation of the Roman belief that Caesar was divine. Some were put to death for this insurrectionist cocktail of treason and heresy.
This pattern has been repeated throughout history. Martin Luther King was killed because his enemies couldn't cope with the tide of justice he was creating. Kayla Mueller, a Christian aid worker who selflessly ran toward the carnage in Syria was killed because her actions and her faith had made ISIS her enemy. Shahbaz Bhatti, a minister in the Pakistani government was gunned down in cold blood because of his fearless protection of his fellow Christians and other persecuted minorities. The list could go on...
These are just the paradigm examples, but most of us will have our own stories to tell from normal life about having enemies simply by living as Christians. It may be your refusal to go along with a scam at work, your desire to challenge unjust treatment of a friend or colleague, or simply not joining in with a bullying and victimising culture.
Jesus didn't say, "If you have enemies, love them and pray for them." Instead He simply presumed that we would have them – "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you". To be a Christian means we will have enemies.
Having said that, it's important that we don't seek enemies out and create them where they don't really exist. Last week I wrote a piece about Donald Trump. Some of the comments after the piece was posted made for interesting reading for me:
"Hope the stones you are throwing don't come back on you."
"I can't believe how stupid you are."
"you are a Bible-iliterate [sic] leftist moron"
"Are you sure you a Christian Andy? Spouting that many lies at one setting [sic] is kind of suspect you know"
"Another idiotic article by the guy that doesn't even know why Jesus was crucified"
"Love the comments. The writer might think twice before posting an article like that again."
I'd become an enemy to some of these posters because of one article I'd written. To my knowledge I've never met any of them. Yet they seemed to know all about my motivations and my theology. I suspect some of the hatred for Hillary Clinton was being transferred to me (even though the piece didn't advocate voting for Hillary). Clinton has become the ultimate enemy for many on the right of politics – and sadly for many Christians.
Why have we created an enemy like this? Even if we disagree with her politics, surely we need to engage constructively, rather than spewing vitriol? Even if she is an enemy, Jesus' words above are enough to make it clear that we must love her. The same goes for those who have made Donald Trump. Even if he is our enemy, even if we feel he is divisive and dangerous, we're commanded to pray for him.
Having enemies is a good sign of living the Christian life. But there will be enough of them in our lives without seeking new ones out and especially without sitting at a laptop and making enemies of people we've never even met.
Follow Andy Walton on Twitter @waltonandy
