1. Introduction. Overview; why we are looking at this; how I will teach it; some key understandings; guidelines for discussion.
- Handout: Confessions of faith
2. The context of Matthew 5. Introduction to the Sermon on the Mount; overview of Matthew 5:17-48; brief overview of Jesus’ teaching on nonresistance.
- Handout: Outline of Matthew 5:38-42
- Handout: Overview of nonresistance
3. Love your enemies. Matthew 5:43-48 (pt. 1) Our focus text.
- Handout: Outline of Matthew 5:43-48
4. ‘What love?’ & ‘Which enemies?’ Matthew 5:43-48 (pt. 2)
- Handout: Love in the New Testament
- Handout: Jesus only means love your personal enemies?
5. Enemy love in the rest of the New Testament
6. What if . . . ? A practical look at what love allows when confronted by an enemy.
7. Overcoming evil with good. An overview of the what and how of returning good for evil; the trust in God that this requires; the example of Jesus.
8. Can God’s mind change? Can God say one thing in the Old Testament about hating enemies and war, and another in the New – love your enemies?
- Handout: Does God’s will for us ever change?
9. What about soldiers and rulers in the New Testament? The principles of Paul in 1 Corinthians 7 on ‘stations of life’ and the early church’s answer to the question of soldiers and rulers in their midst.
- Handout: Thoughts on honoring soldiers
10. Can we be good citizens while loving our enemies? Ways to ‘seek the welfare’ of our country, while being true to our citizenship in the kingdom of God.
11. What about Hitler? The resources that we have as Christians to fight evil in the world.
- Handout: Jesus on the sword
