The Revolutionary Act Behind “Turn the Other Cheek”
Picture this: a Roman soldier backhands a Jewish peasant on the right cheek, asserting dominance through humiliation. Most people today think Jesus told his followers to just take more abuse. Multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount, parenthetically, in their preaching – ‘turn the other cheek’ – to have someone come up after to say, ‘Where did you get those liberal talking points?’ But here’s what biblical scholars have discovered: Jesus wasn’t teaching passive submission at all.
At the time of Jesus, says Wink, striking backhand a person deemed to be of lower socioeconomic class was a means of asserting authority and dominance. When someone offers their left cheek after being struck on the right, they’re actually performing an act of defiance. Second, it challenged the aggressor to repeat the offense, while requiring that they now strike with the palm of their hand, something done not to a lesser but to an equal. In other words, turning the other cheek strongly declares that the opposer holds no power for condescending shame because the victim’s honor is not dependent on human approval – it comes from somewhere else. This kind of action reshapes the relationship, pushing the adversary to either back down or to treat them as an equal.
This wasn’t about being a doormat. Jesus’ instruction to turn the other cheek is a challenge to resist systems of domination and oppression without the use of violence. It was creative resistance that forced oppressors to confront their own cruelty while maintaining dignity.
The Radical Nature of Enemy Love That Most Christians Reject
In 2024, something shocking happened in American Christianity. An evangelical leader is warning that conservative Christians are now rejecting the teachings of Jesus as “liberal talking points.” Russell Moore, former top official for the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) who is now the editor-in-chief of Christianity Today, said during an interview aired on NPR’s All Things Considered this week that Christianity is in a “crisis” due to the current state of right-wing politics. This reveals how misunderstood Jesus’s command to love enemies has become.
The teaching itself was already revolutionary in the first century. Scholars used to wonder who Jesus was quoting when he said “Love your neighbour and hate your enemy”, because it’s not actually found in the scriptures or in normative Jewish teaching. When the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1946, they revealed that the Essenes (an ancient Jewish sect) actually did teach this. Jesus deliberately countered this sectarian hatred with something unprecedented.
And this is what Jesus means, I think, in this very passage when he says, “Love your enemy.” And it’s significant that he does not say, “Like your enemy.” Like is a sentimental something, an affectionate something. There are a lot of people that I find it difficult to like. But Jesus says love them. And love is greater than like. Love is understanding, redemptive goodwill for all men, so that you love everybody, because God loves them. Martin Luther King Jr. understood this distinction perfectly when he applied Jesus’s teaching to the civil rights movement.
The Hidden Meaning Behind Jesus’s Hardest Sayings
Recent biblical scholarship has revealed that many of Jesus’s most challenging statements were actually forms of resistance training for oppressed people. The teachings of Jesus introduce a complex ethical framework grounded in the transformative truth of radical love. Even when it may seem counterintuitive, the command to love even our enemies is the theological foundation for the biblical teachings on hate. At its core, this overarching call to love presupposes the transformative movement of God, compelling us to pray for those perceived as adversaries and to reach out in love by meeting their physical needs.
Consider the “go the extra mile” teaching that follows “turn the other cheek.” Under Roman law, soldiers could force civilians to carry their packs for one mile. By going two miles, the civilian actually put the soldier in legal jeopardy for exceeding the limit. This wasn’t submission – it was subversive compliance that exposed the injustice of the system.
These teachings weren’t abstract theology but practical survival techniques for maintaining dignity under oppression. Jesus’ instruction to turn the other cheek, found in Matthew 5:39, actually means to turn the tables on those who seek to harm us and to overcome evil through creative acts of nonviolent resistance. Jesus is not claiming we should never resist those who seek to harm us. Modern people completely miss this revolutionary aspect.
Why Contemporary Christians Struggle With Jesus’s Teachings
But even among those who worship and adore Christ, there remains a great deal of ignorance, misunderstanding, and error concerning his identity. Today, many have less-than-precise views of who Jesus is, always (to varying degrees) to their spiritual detriment. All true knowledge of the Savior is both necessary and useful for our enjoyment of God. This theological confusion extends to understanding his teachings.
The problem isn’t just intellectual – it’s cultural. In general, highly religious Americans tend to identify with or lean toward the Republican Party and express conservative views on a variety of social, political and economic questions at much higher rates than do the least religious Americans. Meanwhile, Americans with lower levels of religious engagement tend to identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party and express liberal views on the same gamut of social, political and economic issues. This political polarization makes Jesus’s radical middle way seem threatening to both sides.
Despite two-thirds of Americans identifying as Christians, the majority of adults now reject core biblical teachings about God’s nature, embracing instead an eclectic mix of beliefs drawn from competing worldviews. This phenomenon, known as Syncretism, is now the dominant worldview of 92% of American adults, while only 4% hold to a biblical worldview. When Christians don’t even agree on who God is, understanding Jesus’s radical teachings becomes nearly impossible.
The Misunderstood Message of the Sermon on the Mount
Understanding the history and context of this Scripture gives insight into the Lord’s statement to “turn the other cheek.” Matthew 5-7, known as “The Sermon on the Mount,” are powerful chapters for Christian living. Matthew 5 begins with Jesus teaching the Beatitudes, identifying those who are “blessed,” and continues with lessons for righteous disciples – short concepts about influence, obedience, murder, adultery, divorce, taking oaths, revenge, and love. These lessons continue in chapters 6 and 7 with Jesus teaching about giving, prayer, fasting, lasting treasures, worry, judging others, true and false prophets and disciples, and wise investments in the Kingdom. Jesus promoted conformity to the spirit of the law, not mere obedience to the letter of the law, and some of His teaching likely rattled those who listened.
Modern Christians often treat the Sermon on the Mount as impossible idealism rather than practical wisdom. The Sermon on the Mount, which began early in chapter 5, contains difficult concepts for human nature to accept. Jesus is setting a seemingly impossible standard for those who would enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:20). His larger point is that none are righteous enough to enter heaven, based on their own good deeds (Matthew 5:48). Everyone, no matter how “holy” they may seem, must receive forgiveness of sins and righteousness through faith in Christ.
But Jesus wasn’t just making theological points – he was providing a survival manual for living as God’s people in a hostile world. The teachings work together as a coherent strategy for maintaining spiritual integrity while facing persecution and oppression.
The Cultural Context That Changes Everything
Jesus lived in a right-handed world where left hands were reserved only for unclean tasks. Therefore, we can assume that the person doing the hitting would have used their right hand. The only way to strike someone on the right cheek with your right hand is a backhanded slap. Understanding this cultural detail completely transforms how we read Jesus’s instructions.
Here is what he says: “To be struck on the right cheek, in that world, almost certainly meant being hit with the back of the right hand. That’s not just violence, but an insult; it implies that you’re an inferior, perhaps a slave, a child, or (in that world, and sometimes even today), a woman. Hitting back only keeps the evil in circulation. Turning the other cheek is not a way of saying, “just keep hurting me.” Rather, it’s a way of standing firm in the face of abuse and mistreatment from a position of strength.
This context reveals that Jesus wasn’t teaching passivity but strategic nonviolent resistance. It’s a similar tactic Martin Luther King, Jr. would use in his non-violent protests. Instead of fighting back – which escalates vitriol – he simply stood his ground in brave acts of defiance, daring his enemies to show even more of their true colors. It’s the opposite of being a doormat. The civil rights movement actually applied Jesus’s teachings more accurately than most churches do today.
How Modern Scholarship Corrects Ancient Misunderstandings
Biblical scholars have spent decades uncovering the revolutionary nature of Jesus’s teachings that got lost in centuries of interpretation. Wink starts his exegesis by looking at the phrase, “do not resist an evildoer.” He explains that a more accurate translation of this sentence is “do not retaliate against violence with violence” or “don’t react violently against the one who is evil.” This subtle yet powerful shift in language sets a whole new tone for what follows: rather than being told not to resist, the people gathered to hear Jesus are told not to resist violently.
They argue that since the Greek word used in Matthew 5:39 for ‘resist’ is ἀντιστῆναι (which usually refers to armed resistance or violent struggle) Jesus is offering to confront violence, maintain one’s honor, and shame the perpetrator, instead of escalating violence, or losing dignity. By offering the left cheek, the victim resists humiliation by inviting a right-handed jab which exposes the slap as a violent act that failed to reduce the humanity of the victim, thus challenging the perpetrator and shaming them for cruelty of treatment.
These scholarly insights reveal that translation choices over centuries gradually stripped Jesus’s teachings of their subversive power. What was meant to be empowering resistance became portrayed as weak submission. The original audiences would have understood the revolutionary implications immediately.
The Problem With Taking Jesus Out of Context
Psalm 139 reminds us we can’t proof text Jesus’s teachings. “Love your enemies” isn’t all Jesus said. We tend to elevate certain teachings of Jesus at the expense of others. Jesus says we’re to love our enemies, but Jesus also takes up imprecatory psalms on his lips. Modern Christians often cherry-pick Jesus’s gentler sayings while ignoring his harsher ones.
Jesus also cleansed the temple with a whip, called the Pharisees names like “whitewashed tombs,” and warned about eternal judgment. When Jesus says ‘love your enemies,’ he speaks more to personal relationships than political realities. Jesus says to love our enemies, but he also calls out for God to bring justice. The full picture shows that love doesn’t mean tolerating injustice.
It is a call to moral living for all that hear him. Christians often are looked upon as wimps because they use this verse as the justification for their actions. Most give Jesus’ words a literal translation and interpretation. That is where we miss the point Jesus was trying to make. Context is everything when interpreting revolutionary teachings.
Why These Teachings Matter More Than Ever Today
Prejudice, hate, racism, xenophobia, and intolerance seem to be on the rise. This upward trend is concerning, as it threatens social cohesion and widens divisions within our society. Addressing these issues requires a multifaceted approach incorporating psychological, theological, biblical, and social insights. Psychology reminds us that it is essential to recognize these attitudes’ emotional and cognitive foundations to develop a framework of intervention that promotes empathy and understanding.
Jesus’s actual teachings offer practical solutions for our polarized world. And so, in light of Wink’s insights, Jesus’ instruction not to resist evil and to turn the other cheek transforms from an instruction to accept injustice into a challenge to resist systems of domination and oppression without the use of violence. Rather than ignoring an evil situation and hoping it will go away, Jesus is telling his followers to find creative, active, and nonviolent ways to assert their humanity and God’s love in the world.
Far from being the pious injunction of a utopian dreamer, this command is an absolute necessity for the survival of our civilization. Yes, it is love that will save our world and our civilization, love even for enemies. Martin Luther King Jr. understood this when he wrote those words in 1957, and they remain urgently relevant today.
Recovering Jesus’s Revolutionary Vision
The reason “Christians” don’t understand, much less follow, Jesus’ teachings is because they don’t even recognize, much less appreciate, just how surpassingly spiritual they were. Sayings like “Love your enemies” and “turn the other cheek,” or “do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink” seem so utterly unrealistic and other-worldly because they are! These make perfect sense to anyone who truly believes that the purpose of this life is not about this life, but aspiring to a higher, more transcendent one.
The tragedy is that Jesus’s most powerful teachings have been domesticated into harmless platitudes. It’s important to note that Jesus’ command to “love your enemies” challenges conventional wisdom and is often seen as a counter-cultural and demanding ethical standard. It goes beyond natural inclinations and human tendencies for retaliation and is a fundamental principle of Christian ethics. The goal is to promote forgiveness, reconciliation, and extending God’s love to all, regardless of their actions or attitudes.
When we recover the subversive power of Jesus’s original teachings, we discover they’re not impossible ideals but practical strategies for transforming the world through love that refuses to be defeated by hatred. That’s the revolution Jesus actually started – and it’s still available to anyone brave enough to follow his true path.
The misunderstood teachings of Jesus weren’t meant to create passive followers but revolutionary agents of love who could stand firm against injustice while refusing to perpetuate cycles of violence. Perhaps it’s time we started taking him seriously again.
