Anger & Conflict
People keep telling me to love my enemies. Does that mean letting someone who keeps hurting me straight back into my life? Where is the line?
“Make no friendship with an angry man; and with a furious man thou shalt not go: Lest thou learn his ways, and get a snare to thy soul.”
Proverbs assumes you get some say over your close company, and it is direct about the risk: keep company with a hot tempered man and you will learn his ways. This is not a licence to write people off. It is an observation about proximity, that character is caught rather than merely watched. The book that tells you to feed your enemy also tells you not to build your life next to a furnace.
“Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.”
Jesus said this while sending his followers into towns that would not all welcome them: sheep among wolves, wise as serpents, harmless as doves. Both halves are commanded. Harmlessness without shrewdness is not holiness, it is naivety, and he never asked anyone for it. Love in his teaching can hold a person at a distance and still want genuine good for them. Forgiving someone and giving them unlimited access are not the same act.
A path forward
Separate the two questions on paper: do I wish this person well, and do I trust them with access to me. The first is asked of you. The second is earned.
Decide one specific limit and say it plainly once, describing what you will do rather than what they must do.
Talk it through with a pastor or a wise friend before you act, especially if you have been told that any limit at all is unforgiving. That advice is common and it is wrong.
Closing verse
“Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.”
- Proverbs 4:23
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