“Continue to Love Your Enemies”

A PRINCIPLE that Jesus Christ enunciated, and which is recorded at Luke 6:27, 28, reads: “Continue to love your enemies, to do good to those hating you, to bless those cursing you, to pray for those who do you injury.” True Christians seek to apply this principle in their lives. Here is what happened in Greece to one of Jehovah’s witnesses who did:

“In one village there is a lone Witness who was constantly harassed by the village priest. This priest threatened the Witness with imprisonment because of his Christian work, but the Witness always replied with kindness befitting a Christian. The priest was determined to put this Witness behind bars. He found some who were willing to testify falsely against him, and they did so. The judge found the Witness guilty and sentenced him to two months in prison. When the two months were over, the Witness was released, and he returned to his village and resumed his previous activities.

“One day as the Witness was walking along he saw the priest sprawled on the street bleeding profusely and nearly dying from the injury he had suffered in a fall. The Witness rushed to the priest’s aid, and when the priest recognized him he cried, ‘You, of all people! Can anyone else be found?’ The Witness told him that he was in great need of medical attention and that they had to go quickly to a doctor. So the Witness kindly took the injured priest to the nearest clinic and paid for seven days’ hospitalization for him.

“When the priest recovered and was released from the clinic he returned to the village and resumed his duties there. Late one evening the priest visited the Witness, who hospitably welcomed him into his home. The priest was remorseful for what he had done and asked the Witness to forgive him for his deplorable conduct. He said, ‘The Devil put me up to this.’

“The priest continued, ‘Go! Do your work freely, and if anyone interferes with you, tell him that he has to deal with me.’”