#STRask - How Do We Love Those Who Hate Us?

Episode Date: April 16, 2026

Question about how to love those who hate us.   How would you answer the question my former professor says is the most pressing question his students are asking right now: How do we love those who hate us?

This is Amy Hall and Greg Kokel. Welcome back to the hashtag S-ER-Ask podcast. Morning, Amy. Good morning. We're going to start with a question from Eric today. All right. Hi there, Greg and Amy. So my former professor and mentor at my alma mater, Covenant College, said that the most pressing question his students are asking right now is, how do we love those who hate us? Do you believe the tactics approach helps us answer this question?

and if so, in what ways? Well, what's curious about this from a tactical perspective is that it's a question. So the question is being asked about Christian life. I'm not sure what question we would ask in return, you know, except for maybe our understanding the definition of love, but this is a different set of circumstances than like a tactical, a circumstance that requires a tactical approach. because this is a question about the nature of Christian behavior, Christian living, and how do we accomplish this most effectively? So I guess the only question that I would ask is, what do you mean by love?

So there are two options here, and the first option is love is, and it's the way that we use the language. So I'm not inventing this. This is just standard. when we say we love someone, we are off or I'm just pausing because I'm just wondering if there's a third variation. But when we say we love someone or something, we are saying we are having an emotional response or an attitude of favor regarding that. So favoritism or whatever. Or I love Hagenas, but a bacon or whatever. Don't send me any Hockiness butter, buttockin ice cream.

I don't eat that anymore. But I'm just using that. I don't need it anymore because people would bring it to me in events. And at the end of the end of the end, I'd have a Hagenas milkshake, you know, and it'll melt. That's actually happened. So I could say, I love that. I love the Cotswolds in England. I love, so we mean that that brings us pleasure, or I might say I love my wife.

And I'm saying I'm expressing an emotional attachment to her. I'm experiencing an emotional feeling regarding my wife. Now, the other way we use the word love is not an emotion. It's an action. And when we are told to love one another, or by the way, that's in the upper room discourse. Jesus says, I give you a new commandment that you love each other. And that's a commandment for specifically being applied within the body of Christ, within that community of Christian disciples. And Jesus gave an example of that by, washing their feet there in John 13 right at the outset of that meal. So he's giving an example of servanthood, and that's an action. It's not related to how we feel. And this is a very important point. If we are told to love one another, we are not told to have an emotion towards one another. I don't think largely we can control our emotions, even the emotion of love. And that's why we talk about falling in love. This is something that happens to us. But we can control how we deal with our

emotions, and many times our actions create emotions sometimes. I mean, so you could act in a loving way. Think of all the marriages in history and many in the world now that were arranged marriages. There's not an emotional love there. It's a marriage of convenience of a sort, cultural convenience, that ends up growing into a union that has emotional elements to it. So C.S. Lewis put this, I think, the best, and I can't remember where. Maybe it's in mere Christianity. But he was talking about the command that we have to love one another, and this should include loving our enemies, can't be a command to have a certain emotion.

Because it's amazing how much, given our present, isn't, you know, Zichy, Spirit of the Age, that people think of it that way. I'm supposed to have a certain feeling towards those people who are nasty to me. And I don't have that feeling, so I'm failing there. No, that's not what's being required. When Jesus gave the parable of the Good Samaritan, he described the Samaritan's actions towards his cultural foe, the Jew, when he was injured. He never said anything about how the guy felt. He treated him with grace and kindness and care. This is the point that Lewis is making. God is not commanding that we have a feeling towards someone else any more than he's commanding we have a feeling for ourselves when he says love others

as yourself. Well, I don't feel good about myself yet, so I don't have to help love anybody else until I feel good about myself. And once they feel really great about myself, then I can start feeling great about other people. I've heard people talk that way. No, Lewis points out, the way we love ourselves is we care for ourselves. We look out for our best interests. And Rich read Ephesians 5 last week, talking about husbands, loving their wives, and he said, look, no man hates his own body. She's your body, man. So you take care of her like you take care of yourself.

I mean, I think that's a good example of this concept in person. play. And so we are to be loving towards in our actions towards those people who don't deserve. We don't return evil for evil. That's action again, but rather we return evil, good for evil, all right? We return good for evil. Now, something happens, though, when we get in the habit of doing that, and this is especially true in close relationships, when we commit ourselves to act in a loving way towards people we're having trouble with. That is, we seek their good, we seek their benefit, we care for them. That oftentimes begins to have an impact on the way we feel about them.

And so that's one of the curious things here. It is actions that precede feelings, not the other way around. I mean, feelings come and go and whatever, but the actions precede the feelings. And the obligation we have is to act in a certain way, not feel a certain way. I was at a wedding once. It was a Catholic wedding. And the priest gave this fabulous piece of advice. As he's doing his little sermon there with the bride and groom, he says, you are here today.

You are getting married because of your love for one another. Now, of course, he's speaking regarding their emotional attachment to each other. He said, today that order reverses. Today, you love each other because you're married. Now he's talking about something else. He's talking about a behavior. And you are committed to behave, to love, to cherish, to have, to hold until death to us part. Those are apart from the word love, which at this point is ambiguous, all the rest of those are actions.

So you act in a cherishing way. You hold and you cherish, these are the things that are actions that you do as an expression of your commitment to be loving towards. And when couples pursue that unilaterally, not only if he does it for me or if she does it for me, but unilaterally, that actually has a salutary effect of their feelings. And this is actions precede feelings. Actions proceed feelings. And this is what we're commanded to do. So with regards, having said that, with regards to this question, how do we do this, we act in a charitable way towards people.

We seek after their best interests of Philippians chapter 2, have this in your mind the way Jesus was that we consider others' needs as more important than our own. And there are lots of places scripture talks about this kind of thing, But Philippians two is an example of that, pointing once again to Jesus as an example of servitude and considering others first, et cetera, et cetera. So it's interesting in 1st Peter chapter three, it talks about relationships between husbands and wives, you know, and all of the instruction there are behavioral instructions. doesn't say anything about how you feel. Act this way. Wives act this way.

Husbands regarding wives act this way, you know. And that's what we have at our disposal. That's what's within our control, is actually what I mean. We can't control how we feel. We can control. I mean, we can't directly control how we feel. And Paul says put aside anger and wrath and malice and the like, about Ephesians 4, but there's the way to do that is by acting differently, and then that has

an impact on our feelings. Makes sense? Yes. So I have kind of three points that they might want to consider in addition to what you've already said, Greg, and I'll kind of build on what you said. The first thing is, and this goes right along with what you're saying, in order to love those who hate us, you have to know what love is. That's the very first thing. And here's what 1 John 5 says about that. By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and observe His commandments. So this is just one place. That's a very clear place explaining that love is observing the commandments. And you see this in Romans also. I think it's Romans 13, I think. I'm not sure, 12 or 13. So that's the first thing,

because a culture has a completely different view of what love means. Love for our culture means affirming people, agreeing with anything that they say and telling them whatever's right for them is good and not contradicting them and that. So if you fall for that version of love, then you're not going to be loving your neighbor if that's what you're doing. Now, the catch is, when you're loving them the way God wants you to love them, they will hate you because they will not interpret that as love. And that's what makes real love and real compassion very, very difficult. It means you continue to do what is best for them, even if they don't think that's what's best for them. That is a very hard thing to do. You have to be ready for them to hate you for that.

And you have to be willing to put up with that, I mean, kind of absorb that, hate that, into yourself and not return it back to them. That is not an easy thing to do, but you follow there, this goes to the whole behavior thing you were talking about, Greg. You follow God's commandments. You understand that love means not rejoicing in unrighteousness, but rejoicing with the truth. It means telling them about the bad news of their guilt and the good news of God's grace. It involves all of those things. It involves not retaliating. against them. It involves sacrificing for them. It involves seeking their good in all sorts of ways. So you have to know, you have to know what love is. So that's the first thing. Now, there are two other things I think

that we see in the Bible that the Bible connects with. Can I pause you for just saying, how would you summarize an answer to that question or that point? What love is this? How would you put that? I would say. In light of what you just said. Just the way you did. Love is seeking. their good. But that's defined by following God's commandments because he's told us what it means to seek others good. And he says, for this reason, you don't steal, you don't covet, you don't murder, it's because we are loving our neighbor. All these commandments are showing us what that means. So seeking their good, even at our own expense. So the second thing I would say is if you want

to know how to love or you want to become someone who loves the people who hate you, the Bible connects our response to those who hate us to the gospel. So listen to what Titus 3 says. Remind them to be subject to rulers, to authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good deed, to malign no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing every consideration for all men. And now he's going to explain why. For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. But when the kindness of God our Savior and his love for mankind appeared, he saved us.

Not on the basis of deeds, which we have done in righteousness, but according to his mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ, our Savior, so that being justified by His grace, we would be made errors according to the hope of eternal life. So he's connecting our response to those who are aligning us directly to the fact that we acted the same way towards God and look how he treated us. That's great. He gave himself for us.

So what we need to do is we really need to be shaped by the gospel. I mean, that's what it comes down to. And I can remember when I was moderating comments on our blog many years ago, when we still had comments. You poor thing. I had to figure this out because it was very stressful. And I wanted to have a response to people that reflected Jesus. And so one of the things I did is I spent a long time reading the Gospels over and over. In fact, I read, I don't think I made it.

It took about two months for each one, but I would read. half of it for every day of the month and then go to the second half. And it took me quite a while to half every day. Every day for a month. The same half. Oh, I see. Over and over and over because I wanted to be shaped by who Jesus is. So this is something we need to do. Another thing you can do is memorize First Peter because he focuses so much on this idea connecting how Jesus treated us to how we are supposed to treat others. So we need to first be shaped by who Jesus is and what he's done for us, and then we need to respond to people the same way. So this is, so that's First Peter. And ironically, Greg, because you mentioned people saying, I need to feel good about myself,

and then I can treat others, then I can love others. Well, ironically, I think it's the opposite. I think when we have an understanding of our own sin, that is what enables us to show more grace to others because we realize the grace that has been shown to us. So don't get that backwards. I think what happens is it's those who think they're self-justified that end up looking down on others and treating them with contempt. So you don't want that to happen. So connecting with the gospel is the first thing. And I think there's another thing that the Bible connects with. our ability to treat others well, even when they hate us. And that is trusting in God's justice.

So here is what Romans 12, 14 through 21 says, and I beat this drum all the time, but I'm going to read it again. Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. Be of the same mind toward one another. Do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation. pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the side of all men. If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. Never take your own revenge, beloved. So he's going through all these ways of saying, the people who hate you, don't treat them badly. But then he says why. But leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the

Lord. But if your enemy is hungry, feed him. And if he is thirsty, give him a drink. For in so doing, you will heat burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. So what you see here is that the reason why we are free to love those who hate us is because God will show his justice. Justice will be done. We are not short-changing justice. I think the reason why we feel like we have to retaliate is because we know it's unjust and we want to extract that justice from them. We have to make them understand that they're wrong and we have to punish them.

I mean, that's a natural thing because justice is good. There's nothing wrong with justice. So that's a natural and good response, except this is not what God's called us to do. He's called us to put that justice in his hands. So, again, just to summarize here, know what love is. And secondly, be shaped by the gospel and respond to them as Jesus responded so that we show them who Jesus is. And third, trust in God's justice. You have to rest in that and let go of your desire to bring about justice, personal justice.

I'm not talking about justice from the government in terms of crimes and things. But you have to be willing to put that justice in his hands. And when we do that, then when your enemy is hungry, you can feed him. And when he's thirsty, you can give him a drink. So all of these things, I think they take time. God has to shape us in these ways. We have to learn to trust him, and we have to respond as Jesus responded. And this takes work of the Holy Spirit over time. I'm glad you mentioned that. It's a matter of maturation. I think back in my earlier years,

things that I was much more of a loose canon, and it's so much easier now, after all these years of being taught and discipline and all the things that God does to kind of bring us up to speed in this area. It's much easier to do what it says in Proverbs, a man's integrity, makes him slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook a transgression. I think it's chapter 19, verse 3 or something like that, but I know this proverb because I've thought about it a lot in the circumstances that I find myself where I need to be reminded of that. It's almost as if God is saying to me when I face a conflict situation, it's almost as if through that word, he's saying, okay, Greg, it's okay to let it go. It's all right. It is your glory to overlook,

glory in an inappropriate sense, to overlook that transgression. Just let it go. Just let it go. And so that's gotten easier over the years, but early on it was really hard. Sometimes it is really hard. Yeah, yeah. It still can be hard. It depends what's at stake. There's a sense, I think, Amy, I don't know what you're thinking about it is about this, but it's a sense that it's like a spiral staircase where we're moving up in virtue. But every time we go around past something that we've learned, we face the same thing at a higher level, a more demanding level, you know.

So it isn't like, obviously, these troubles don't go away. but we face similar kinds of challenges at a much more challenging level as we kind of move up in spiritual growth, which is parallel with moving up that spiral staircase. But God's grace is there to help us to deal with a more demanding circumstance so that we grow in a deeper way in virtue. And I just want to say, again, it's a good impulse to desire justice. That's a good thing. So this is especially hard for people who really care about justice. but you don't have to let that go. In fact, we shouldn't let it go.

It's part of God's character that he's just. This is a beautiful thing. So you don't have to feel bad about that. You just have to set it aside and put it into God's hands. That's why I like Jason's death in movies. He's like the angel of death, you know, and he's delivering justice. I don't even know who that is. Well, that's probably good.

Okay. Well, thank you, Eric, for such a great question. And we'd love to hear your question also. You can just go to our website at STR.org, or you can go to X and use the hashtag STR Ask. We look forward to hearing from you. Thank you so much for listening to the show. This is Amy Hall and Greg Kokel for Stand to Reason.