<p>5:39&nbsp;<em>But I say to you: Do not resist him that is evil</em>- The Greek term for resisting evil occurs only in Eph. 6:13. We are in this life to arm ourselves spiritually, so that we may be able to resist in the evil day. If Paul is alluding to this part of the Sermon, the point would be that we are not to resist evil in this life, because our time to ultimately resist it will be in the last day. Then, along with the Lord Himself, we will resist and overcome evil through the establishment of the Kingdom on earth. Rom. 13:2 is likely another allusion to &quot;resist not evil&quot;- if we &quot;resist&quot; [s.w.] Governments whom God has put in power, then we are resisting God. This means that Paul fully understood that the 'powers that be' are indeed &quot;evil&quot;, but they are not to be proactively 'resisted' by those in Christ. The time for that will come, but is not now. We are, however, to &quot;resist the devil&quot; (James 4:7; 1 Pet. 5:9). Surely &quot;resist not evil&quot; is in view. We are to resist sin within us, but not evil in its political form around us. Again, as so often in the Bible, we see that the focus for our spiritual struggle is within rather than without. As always in the Sermon, the example of Jesus was the making of the word into flesh. James 5:6 seems to make this point, by pointing out that Jesus did not and in a sense does not resist evil done against Him: &ldquo;You have condemned, you have murdered the righteous one. He doesn&rsquo;t resist you&rdquo;. And yet He will judge this behaviour- not now, but at the last day.</p>
<p><em>But whoever hits you on your right cheek</em>- You singular. Time and again the Sermon on the Mount / Plain seems to take a broad sweep in its record of the Lord&rsquo;s teaching to us all; and then He suddenly focuses in on the individual. The AV brings this out well through the use of &ldquo;you&rdquo; (plural) and &ldquo;thee&rdquo; (singular): &ldquo;Blessed are you poor&hellip; love your enemies&hellip; to him who strikes thee on the cheek&hellip;&rdquo;. Note how many times there is this change of pronoun in Luke 6. Clearly the Lord wants us to see our collective standing before Him, and yet not to overlook the purely personal nature of His appeal to us individually.&nbsp;</p>
<p><em>Turn to him the other also</em>- The Lord was smitten on the cheek but enquired why He was being smitten, rather than literally turning the other cheek. But to do this would be so humiliating for the aggressor that it would be a far more effective resistance of evil than anything else. The power in the confrontation is now with the one who turns the other cheek. S/he is calling the shots, not the beater. The idea of not resisting evil and offering the other cheek (Mt. 5:39) we normally apply to suffering loss from the world without fighting for our rights. Yet Paul took this as referring to the need to not retaliate to the harmful things done to us by members of the ecclesia (Rom. 12:16,17; 1 Cor. 6:7; 1 Thess. 5:15). When struck on the right cheek- which was a Semitic insult to a heretic- they were to not respond and open themselves up for further insult [surely a lesson for those brethren who are falsely accused of wrong beliefs]. And yet the compassion of Jesus shines through both His parables and the records of His words; as does His acceptance of people for who they were. People were relaxed with Him because they could see He had no hidden agenda. He wasn't going to use them for His own power trip.</p>