“Late one summer evening in Broken Bow, Nebraska, a weary truck driver pulled his rig into an all-night truck stop. He was tired and hungry. The waitress had just served him when three tough looking, leather jacketed motorcyclist decided to give him a hard time. Not only did they verbally abuse him, one grabbed the hamburger off his plate, another took a handful of his french fries, and the third picked up his coffee and began to drink it. How did this trucker respond? How would you respond? Well, this trucker did not respond as one might expect. Instead, he calmly rose, picked up his check, walked to the front of the room, put the check and his money on the cash register, and went out the door. The waitress stood watching out the door as the big truck drove away into the night. One of the cyclists said to the waitress, ‘Well, he’s not much of a man, is he?” She replied, “I don’t know about that, but he sure isn’t much of a truck driver. He just ran over three motorcycles on his way out of the parking lot.’”

Are you thinking to yourselves, “Way to go truck driver?” Most people would share that point-of-view. We feel like we have a right to retaliate when we have been mistreated. People today, even those who do not particularly know what the Bible teaches, like the idea of “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.” The problem is the majority of people who are familiar with this statement do not know what application God meant for it to have. Most people view this principle the same way the scribes and the Pharisees did in the days of Jesus, which, of course, was, once again, totally wrong.

The law of retaliation is stated three times in the Old Testament (Exodus 21:23-25; Leviticus 24:20; Deuteronomy 19:21). Since this was God’s law, we know that it was a good law. Paul once said, “Wherefore the law is holy and the commandment holy, and just, and good” (Rom. 7:12). Yes, this would apply even to the law that said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

This law of retaliation was meant to protect society by dealing fairly with the criminal, and also by dealing with those against whom a crime was committed. It was a law that assured people that justice was fair, and that people would receive no more or no less than what they deserved when they committed a crime. However, (and this is what was perverted by the scribes and the Pharisees) the law of retaliation was completely judicial, not personal. This law did not give the one who was injured the right to personally injure the one who did so to him. The just recompense of reward was to be applied by the courts of the land, not by the victim or by the victim’s family.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gives us four examples of how this principle should govern our living; turning the other check (ver. 39), giving up our cloak (ver. 40), walking the second mile (vers. 41) and giving to those who would beg and borrow (ver. 42). While I do not have the space to deal with each of these individually, I encourage you to take a longer look at each of them and make the proper application. They are not hard to understand, but it can be a challenge to apply them. One thing that should be pointed out and kept in mind about these examples given by Jesus is that they are all relatively minor offenses. Jesus is not describing situations where our lives are in danger, but instead circumstances that would wound our pride or be inconvenient for us and would challenge us to demonstrate love and compassion at times when it would not come naturally.

Jesus is not asking us to do anything He was not willing to do. He suffered unfairly at the hands of others. Even when His enemies cruelly mistreated Him, He literally turned the other cheek. Let us strive to be more like Him when treated unfairly. The world will be a better place.

As you wind down for the night, think on these things.