Fw: Love your enemies

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> PATRICK

> Well, that's the problem-- if "hate your family" doesn't really mean "hate

> your family," then how do you know that "love your enemies" really means

> "love your enemies"?  Do you see my point? Once you start denying that the

> verses mean what they quite explicitly say, how are we to interpret anything

> in the bible?

> 

> Maybe Jesus was exaggerating?

> 

> Without a consistent way to interpret passages in the bible, there's no

> possible way to find out what it "really" says, in my view.

> Thanks for taking the time to answer,

> Patrick



CLAIRE
Dear Patrick:
The Catholic Church has had certain traditions about interpreting Jesus'
words. If some of these traditions developed close to the time at which
Jesus' words were recorded, then there would be a good chance that the
interpretation would capture the original meaning of Jesus' words. "Hate
your family" was understood by the early Church to mean "love God even
more than your family" while "love your enemies" was understood to mean
that we should treat our enemies with kindness and compassion.

I know that no answer I give will satisfy you, but this is the best I
can do for now.

~Claire O'Connor

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