Jesus talks to a Roman soldier. Image source unknown.

Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. – Jesus Christ

by Brian Shilhavy

When Jesus began his public ministry around the age of 30, he took up residence in the town of Capernaum, a fishing village on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee. This town became his home base, from which he traveled around Israel in his itinerant ministries.

Israel was an occupied territory during the days of Jesus, and part of the Roman Empire. Capernaum had a Roman tax collecting office in Capernaum, and the “tax collector” was a Jew named Matthew, who left his office as a tax collector and started following Jesus instead, as one of his disciples.

The Jews, in general, hated the Romans and saw them as their enemies, and therefore considered Jews who worked for them as tax collectors as “traitors” and as very evil people.

Matthew wrote the first book of the New Testament, and records his own decision to follow Jesus and leave his tax collecting profession working for the Roman military.

As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth.

“Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.

While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” came and ate with him and his disciples.

When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples,

“Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and “sinners’?”

On hearing this, Jesus said,

“It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Matthew 9:9-13)

There was also apparently a Roman military outpost in Capernaum, and Matthew records an interesting encounter between Jesus and a Roman Centurion living in Capernaum, who was a military commander of over 100 Roman troops.

If the chapters in Matthew’s gospel account are chronological, then this encounter between Jesus and the Roman military commander came just after Jesus had preached his famous “Sermon on the Mount”, which is recorded in Matthew chapters 5 through 7.

In Chapter 8, Matthew records that when Jesus left the mountainside, large crowds followed him:

When he came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. (Matthew 8:1)

The first thing recorded by Matthew after the completion of the Sermon on the Mount, was the healing of a Jewish leper by Jesus.

A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said,

“Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”

Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man.

“I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!”

Immediately he was cured of his leprosy.

Then Jesus said to him,

“See that you don’t tell anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.” (Matthew 8:2-4)

According to the Law of Moses, only a priest from the tribe of Levi could declare a leper “cleansed,” so Jesus was trying to avoid conflicts with the Satanic Jewish leaders as long as possible, because by healing people under his own authority, and not being from the tribe of Levi but of Judah, Jesus was challenging their authority.

Next, we have the record of Jesus’s encounter with a Roman military commander, who represented Israel’s enemy, the Roman occupying government.

Just before these two events after he came down from the mountainside, Jesus had preached this during his Sermon on the Mount:

You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’

But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.

He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?

And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? (Matthew 5:43-47)

Jesus was now going to put this teaching into practice with this Roman military commander who approached Jesus.

When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help.

“Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed and in terrible suffering.”

Jesus said to him,

“I will go and heal him.”

The centurion replied,

“Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him,

“I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.

I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.

But the sons of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Then Jesus said to the centurion,

“Go! It will be done just as you believed it would.”

And his servant was healed at that very hour. (Matthew 8:5-13)

One of the most remarkable parts of this story was that Jesus was actually willing to go to the home of this Roman military commander, who was a “Gentile” and non-Jew, which was forbidden in the Jewish religion during that time.

If Jesus had actually done this, it probably would have caused more controversy with the ruling religious Jews than anything else he had done up until that time. It would have literally been a scandal, as it was unheard of and forbidden for Jews to go into the homes of Gentiles, especially a Roman military leader.

It would not be until later, after Jesus’s death and resurrection, that something like this would happen, and it happened with Peter in Acts chapter 10, but only after God gave Peter a direct vision to confirm that he was supposed to go visit the home of another Centurion who was in Caesarea.

Read the story in Acts chapter 10, and see how significant this was.

This Roman soldier in Capernaum who approached Jesus most likely knew this, which is why he stated that he did not deserve to have Jesus come visit his home. In the eyes of the Jews he was an uncircumcised heathen.

But he had enough faith that Jesus could heal his servant without even coming to his home, because he understood the authority that Jesus had to heal.

Notice Jesus’s response: “I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.”

Jesus then goes on to state that there would be many people like this Roman soldier, who was an enemy of the nation of Israel, who would join the Hebrew Patriarchs in the Kingdom of Heaven, while many of the Jews would end up in Hell:

“I say to you that many will come from the east and the west (Gentiles), and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.

But the sons of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Jesus commanded us to love our enemies, and then he went out and demonstrated how to do just that.

Jesus still loves the so-called enemies of Israel and the Zionist United States, because he died for their sins. He loves the Muslims, the Arabs, the Palestinians, the Iranians, the Turks, the Chinese, the Russians, the Venezuelans, and everyone else that our government declares to be an “enemy” of the United States.

And many American Christians today are siding with our government, calling for the destruction and genocide of these people who are declared our “enemies”, disobeying the clear teaching of Jesus to love our enemies and pray for them.

As Jesus said, they “will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

You have been warned.

And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.

And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened.

And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many.

When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said,

“Truly this was the Son of God!”

(Matthew 27:50-54)