19 Don’t try to get revenge for yourselves, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath. It is written, Revenge belongs to me; I will pay it back, says the Lord. 20 Instead, If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink. By doing this, you will pile burning coals of fire upon his head. 21 Don’t be defeated by evil, but defeat evil with good.
Reflection
Ok, first things first – this Bible passage does NOT give you license to dump your Weber over your enemy’s head at your next backyard BBQ.
Notice how that particular part of the scripture is in italics. That’s because it’s actually a paraphrase of Proverbs 25:21-22:
21 If your enemies are starving, feed them some bread;
if they are thirsty, give them water to drink.
22 By doing this, you will heap burning coals on their heads,
and the Lord will reward you.
So Paul is really just quoting scripture that he knew. (Side note: we should assume he is quoting from memory here, as it’s unlikely he had any scrolls of scripture on hand as he crafted Romans. How I wish I knew the Bible that well!)
While there is a minority scholarly view that the bit with the burning coals refers to an ancient Egyptian penitential rite, to me that seems highly unlikely.
Instead, I think what this means is that you do good, trusting that God just might bring your enemy to repentance through your act of kindness. The “hot coals” might be a reference to the embarrassment (and hence warm/flushed cheeks) resulting from the uncomfortable realization that an enemy is treating you with unexpected grace.
It’s a sort of shame response that’s being described here.
Unfortunately, shame is a terrible motivator for change. In fact, it’s a de-motivator. Shame is more likely to lead us to anger and resentment, not transformation. Shame may convict, but only love converts. The end result may be that the truly unrepentant will get angry that you helped them – as though you were staking out some moral high ground in order to lord it over them. That’s how shame often works in that scenario.
So it’s really important, if you want to follow this scripture, that you don’t fall into that trap. If you feel led to help just so you can maintain a moral superiority, then maybe take a step back until your heart is right. Keep praying on it.
Alternatively, if the concern isn’t your heart but their expected response, then you might try to help indirectly or anonymously. Put in a good word on someone’s behalf. Give some money to assist them, but don’t let it be known it came from you. Do what you can to serve, while avoiding the shame pitfall. And then trust God to do what God is going to do through your loving action.
Claim for yourself neither the right of revenge nor the power of transformation. Both of those belong exclusively to God. Instead, trust in the example of Jesus, who loves us into a new way of being. As Martin Luther King Jr. preached in his 1957 sermon “Loving Your Enemies”:
“Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.”
Amen.
by Joe Monahan
For Pondering and Prayer
Is there a relationship in your life where a quiet kindness toward someone might just turn things around?
Prayer: Holy God, give me discernment to see how I might love an enemy into friendship today. Help me to do so not out of a sense of moral superiority, but obedience to the scripture and gratitude for your grace toward me. Grant me wisdom to know when and how to serve, so that together we might be transformed by grace rather than being trapped in shame. Amen.
