“Offer no violent resistance to one who does evil” (Mt. 5:39)–the most revolutionary—and most disobeyed—teaching in the Gospels, says John Dear

This week, I take a deep dive into Jesus’ specific commandment on nonviolent resistance in the Sermon on the Mount, Mt. 5:39-43. I tell how Leo Tolstoy learned the power of this verse from the Abolitionists, and then wrote his classic text, “The Kingdom of God Is Within You, or Christianity not as a mystical teaching but as a new concept of life.”

There, on the first page, Tolstoy declares that Christianity has totally failed Christ because it ignores and disobeys Matthew 5:39. He asks: Did Christ want us to put this teaching into practice or not? Tolstoy hoped to disarm the Russian Orthodox Church. Instead, he inspired Gandhi to launch national movements of nonviolent resistance, and bring the power of organized nonviolence to the world.

This one verse of scripture opens a new way to understand Jesus’ life and teachings. These words launch a permanent nonviolent revolution, because they forbid all violence. This new commandment holds the key to a new way of life and the disarmament of the world. As Dr. King explained and Gandhi demonstrated, this teaching was intended not just for individuals, but for nations and the whole world. We are commanded to figure out creative nonviolent alternatives to violence.

Jesus throws out the old teaching, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” and calls for an immediate end to the downward cycle of violence, John Dear says. But he does not advocate meek submission to violence, or using the same means of violence as one’s opponent and then becoming as violent as everyone else.

Instead, Jesus commands “a Third Way”–active, courageous, fearless, nonviolent resistance to evil and he insists that this is God’s will for humanity.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus leads a nonviolence training session just Dr. King did, Jesus says, ‘I want you to be bold, daring and creative in your nonviolence, to claim your power, confront all systemic violence and injustice, and disarm your oppressor–not kill them.’

The good news is that today millions of people around the world are taking Jesus at his word and engaging in grassroots campaigns of nonviolent resistance to oppression, war, and empire.

Listen in and be inspired to experiment in Sermon on the Mount nonviolence in your own life!

For further reading, get John Dear’s latest book, The Gospel of Peace: A Commentary on Matthew, Mark, and Luke from the Perspective of Nonviolence (Orbis)

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