Love your enemies? You gotta be kidding! Nope, he wasn't…

Sixth, a peace ethic converts enemies into neighbors. For some Israel’s scriptures led to a social love for one’s own and a social hatred for one’s enemies. To put it simpler, to love one’s own nation and to despise the nations of others as deplorables and shit-hole countries. Some in the Qumran community saw Rome as the enemy (1QM 1:9—11). The apostle Paul discovered a social hierarchy among Christians (Galatians; Romans 14:1-15:13). Jesus’ peace ethic subverts othering gentiles and women and the marginalized and Romans especially and in its place he calls kingdom people to love one’s enemies and to pray for one’s persecutors. His radical teaching from beyond our time zone does not derive from pragmatics, as if he's saying, ‘Hey guys, if we act this way things will go easier for us.’ No, he grounds it in the love of God for all humans, and God's love is as wide as the sunshine and as democratic as rain. Which is what he means by ‘perfect.’—Scot McKnight, The Audacity of Peace, 53–54