Prayer for Enemies

No command of Jesus has been found more difficult by His followers, nor more stubbornly insisted upon, than the instruction to pray for enemies. "But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you" (Matthew 5:44). In the Sermon on the Mount, this command is not offered as counsel for the spiritually advanced but as a baseline expectation of Kingdom citizenship — followed immediately by the reason: "That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." The command is all the more striking in its historical context. Jewish tradition encouraged prayers against enemies — the Psalms are full of them (see Psalms 69, 109, 137). The concept of praying for one's enemies, by contrast, was largely absent from contemporary Jewish piety. The Dead Sea Scrolls community at Qumran explicitly commanded hatred toward outsiders. Jesus stands this approach on its head entirely, rooting the command in the character of God Himself, who extends common grace to all regardless of their moral standing. Luke's parallel account (Luke 6:27-28) makes the command even more concrete: "Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you." The fourfold pattern — love, do good, bless, pray — moves from inward disposition to outward action, with prayer occupying the summit of the sequence. To pray genuinely for an enemy is to enact all the preceding commands at once. The theological grounding of enemy-prayer is the character of God. Romans 12:20, quoting Proverbs 25:21-22, instructs: "Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head." The phrase "coals of fire" has been interpreted variously as producing shame (leading to repentance) or as an Egyptian custom of bearing a pan of coals on the head as a public gesture of contrition. Paul's point in context (Romans 12:19-21) is clear: vengeance belongs to God; the Christian's role is not retaliation but the active, deliberate pursuit of the enemy's good, thereby leaving space for divine justice and opening the door to divine transformation. The supreme example of enemy-prayer is Christ on the cross: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34). This prayer, spoken from within the extremity of unjust suffering, has been the church's model for centuries. Its scope is remarkable — "them" encompasses not only the Roman soldiers driving the nails but, in the theological reading of many Fathers, the whole human race that crucified the Son of God through its sin. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, explicitly imitated this prayer at his own stoning: "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge" (Acts 7:60). The early church took the command seriously in ways that their surrounding culture found incomprehensible. Tertullian (c. 197 AD) wrote in his Apology: "We pray for our enemies, even those who persecute us." Justin Martyr distinguished Christians precisely by their practice of praying for their persecutors. To pagans accustomed to reciprocal obligation — favoring friends and harming enemies — this practice appeared not merely unusual but irrational. The church's history of martyrdom has been, in part, a history of enemy-prayer. Perpetua, Polycarp, Thomas More, and countless others faced their executioners with prayers on their lips — not imprecations but intercessions. This pattern has been interpreted as both obedience to Christ's command and testimony to the reality of the Kingdom: those who can pray for their killers have clearly drawn on a resource that the world does not possess. The psychology of enemy-prayer has received increasing attention in recent generations. Research in moral psychology and neuroscience has confirmed what spiritual directors have long observed: resentment and bitterness harm the person who carries them. Prayer for enemies is not primarily a kindness extended to the enemy (who may never know about it) but a discipline that reshapes the interior life of the one who prays, loosening the grip of grievance and opening the heart to healing. Augustine observed in his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount that praying for enemies is the most perfect expression of Christian love precisely because it costs the most. It is easy to love the lovable; it requires divine grace to love those who have wronged us. The prayer for enemies is thus always simultaneously a prayer for oneself — a petition for the grace that makes the command possible.

Prayer for enemies is one of the most demanding prayer practices in the Christian life, and most people find it requires both honesty and patience before it becomes genuine. Begin with honesty before God about your actual feelings. Do not pretend to have forgiven before you have forgiven. Name the person, name the harm, and name your own anger, hurt, or resentment. God already knows what is in your heart; bringing it explicitly into prayer is more profitable than suppressing it. Many Christians have found that the Psalms of lament and even imprecation — Psalms 69, 109 — provide a sanctioned language for naming the full force of their grievance before God, before moving toward intercession. When you are ready to pray for the person, begin with the smallest honest thing. You may not be able to pray for their flourishing yet — but can you pray that God would deal with them according to His mercy and not their faults? Can you pray that God would free them from whatever darkness drives their harmful behavior? These are real prayers, and they are a starting point. Over time, pray more specifically. Name the person before God. Ask for concrete blessings on their life — their family, their work, their spiritual condition. You do not need to feel warm toward them to pray this way; the act of praying is itself the practice, and feelings often follow obedience rather than preceding it. Be patient with yourself. The command to pray for enemies is not fulfilled once but continuously. Resentment can return after it seemed to have departed; old wounds can reopen. Return to the practice each time, without condemning yourself for the difficulty of it. If you are in an ongoing situation of conflict or harm, prayer for enemies does not require passivity. You may pray for a person sincerely while also protecting yourself, seeking justice, or maintaining appropriate distance. Enemy-prayer is an inward disposition and a spiritual practice; it does not require the pretense that wrongdoing has not occurred or that reconciliation is always possible. For especially deep wounds — abuse, betrayal, profound injustice — this prayer may require years and the help of a spiritual director, pastor, or counselor. There is no shame in this. The grace to pray for enemies is a gift; ask God for it, and ask the community of faith to support you in the pursuit of it.