Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. [Romans 12:17-19 NIV]
The text quoted above is a prime example of why I think that we as humans are upside down with respect to the morals and ethics of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Jesus started it all with the “turn the other cheek”, “if compelled to go a mile, go two”, “if a man asks for your tunic, give him your coat, too”, “repay evil with good”, “the last shall be first”, “to be a master, be a servant” teachings he is famous for. Paul, writing to the church at Rome is elaborating on this same theme, but guided by the Holy Spirit, we get some other insights into heavenly thinking.
We sometimes forget that apart from the Gospels, Acts and Revelation, all the “books” in the New Testament are letters. They are from real people to real people. It’s as if we are listening to one side of a telephone conversation between the apostle and the people on the other end to whom the letters are addressed. And in the same way we can deduce from the context some of the issues on the “other end” being addressed.
Obviously here Paul is addressing a “tit-for-tat” mentality in the Roman church. We don’t know if this was an internal problem between and among the worshippers or directed at unbelievers outside the church. In either case, Paul is telling them (us?), “cut it out, guys!”
It seems obvious that repaying evil with evil directly leads to increasingly bad outcomes, but in our society today people justify this kind of behavior with what I call “whataboutism”. It’s a form of deflection which says, “I know I shouldn’t, but what about what he did?” You see it in politics all the time when the poor behavior or hypocrisy of a leader of the opposite party is used as justification or absolution for reprehensible behavior on the other’s part. It happens in the church too, the moral failings of another do not justify laxity on our part. Paul might say, “cut that out!”
Paul’s advice is to “be careful” to do right.
“Be careful” here is a legal term very similar to what we have today in business law as “due diligence”. It means to “exhaustively explore”, or to “leave no stone unturned” to ensure that those who see our actions will unequivocally judge them as “righteous”. This requires action and effort on our part to examine proposed actions not some laissez-faire lazy attitude that says “like it or lump it”.
Paul is a realist, though. He knows that peace will not always be possible because of the attitudes, desires or intentions of others. What he advocates is that at the very least it can never be said that we “started it”, because we have explored every avenue and means available to us to avoid strife. Interestingly, the word for “peace” here is “shalom” which is a verb, that is we should aggressively be “peace-ing” everyone! Again, action is implied. It’s not enough to say, “he doesn’t want to live peaceably with me”, we have to be actively seeking peace at the same time and exploring every possible means to do so.
I have long been intrigued by the end of Paul's admonitions here, “…leave room for God’s wrath”.
The implication is that if we try to take revenge we limit God’s potential to enact true justice. To "enact justice" is another way of saying “obtaining a righteous outcome” and righteousness is a defining characteristic of God himself. We might feel that we have achieved some form of justice in revenge, but in doing so we will have strangled the fuller justice God already had in mind. I don’t look forward to that performance review in Heaven!
As I said, we are listening to one side of a dialog with the church at Rome in Paul’s letter, and we don’t really know whether the main problem there was external or internal to the church. It is certainly sadder if it was an internal problem because that flies in the face of Jesus’ command to “love one another as I have loved you”, but either way these are eternal principles for every Jesus follower.
If you, or your church is having this kind of problem, cheer up! - help is at hand! Remember, the Holy Spirit was given to come alongside us and help with precisely this kind of thing.
“If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.” [James 1:5 NIV]
Above all, actively seek peace, it’s what Jesus followers do!
Peace out! Blessings on you and yours, Jim Black
P.S. if you’d like to read previous ruminations of mine they can be found at https://www.salvationarmyconcordca.org/chronicle/?category=Bible%20Study