Once again, it’s something most of us don’t really stop to think about as to what it truthfully means. 

We have no doubt heard it many times, and it certainly sounds poetic in a biblical sense. But the truth of the matter is, what exactly does it mean?

It would probably be fair to assume that for the most part, each of us really aren’t physically aggressive. At least we would hope that this is true, so hopefully there is not too much literal slapping going on these days.

So what exactly are we talking about when we hear the famous passage of Matthew 5:38-48 New King James Version, “But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.”

Most of us have probably heard the paraphrased version, “When your enemy hits you on the right cheek, offer them the left.”

Have we actually stopped to think about it? Have we ever done it when the moment arrived? Did we just let someone strike us without retaliating?

Maybe this would be a good time to go back just a little bit.

How many of us may have found ourselves in a schoolyard scuffle a long time ago? Chances are there probably were a few of us that once or twice found ourselves in a physical altercation at some point.

Nobody was hurt, it was just in the heat of the moment, everyone moved on and all is lost and forgiven.

Those were different times than now of course, and that probably is a good thing if we look at things in the long run.

That being said however, if someone was to all of a sudden throw rationale talking right out the window and choose to use physical harm as means of problem solving, how in fact would we respond?

If we are being completely honest, there’s a really good chance we would probably fight back or return the favor just out of our fight or flight instinct. Once again, we are talking about human nature.

So if the Bible clearly says don’t do that, why is it that we are so quick to return physical violence, or at least become so vengeful or vindictive when we feel we have been wronged?

We’ve reached that point where it might be time for a short story, just to put all of this into proper context.

There was a young man who was coming of age in the middle of Wyoming in the 90’s and early 2000’s.

Times of course were changing, and some things that used to be normal were starting to be looked at differently. Mainly the fact that any sort of physical violence or harassment at schools were creating zero-tolerance policies, and were starting to become a thing of the past. Of course there were still incidents of it, and obviously and very unfortunately physical and emotional bullying was still a cruel reality for more vulnerable students.

But this particular young man was faced with it nearly every, single day for about two years. Some days were better than others, but at some point the young man became almost desensitized to the harassment and tried as hard as he could to focus on the good things in his life.

He had wonderful loving parents, had a clean and safe house to go to every night and for the most part did okay with his academic work.

There were plenty of days however where he knew headed into that school he was going to get socially crushed, one way or another. Whether it was bruises on his shoulders from getting hit, marks on his head from getting pushed into lockers or just emotionally drained from cruel nicknames, it truly was something he learned to just deal with.

For this particular adolescent, it became an everyday reality.

Sure he always thought about fighting back, but always found every reason in the book to not do so. He was undersized and always outnumbered, but what if someone got hurt? What if I get into really big trouble? What if I get expelled from school for fighting? How will it affect Mom and Dad?

He asked himself all these questions during this time, so he never physically fought back. He always felt like the repercussions would only come back on him if he did something.

When it came to the emotional part, he was never much of an insulter or name-caller because his parents always told him to be kind and good to others. They instilled in him the golden rule of, if you can’t say something nice, then don’t say it at all. That being said, snappy comebacks were out too.

No doubt going to a teacher would only make matters worse in the long run. It never even crossed his mind to do that.

In this young man’s mind and from everything he was taught by his parents (who weren’t really religious or read the Bible per say), the only thing he could do was simply smile back, brush himself off and pretend in public like it didn’t bother him at all. This was all an act of course.

As hard as this was to do, that was all he felt he could do throughout the entire time of being a target for severe physical and emotional bullying for two years straight.

He often found peace and solace by reading such books as The Catcher in the Rye, and Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul. For some reason he felt like these books reached out to him a bit, and let him know he was not alone.

He tried to avoid telling his parents about what was happening, as he didn’t want them to know truthfully what he was facing every day. In his mind he felt like he would just be burdening them, as the bullies had now ingrained in him to think so negatively about himself.

Something strange started happening though. As he started his junior year of high school, he began to notice that the individuals who seemed to have taken such pleasure in tormenting him for so long were giving up.

They stopped targeting him. Who knows truthfully why they stopped. Boredom? Maturity? Compassion? The only ones who would truly know is them, and at some point they chose to relinquish. They no longer got any sort of joy from it.

The young man never fought back once, but he never stopped marching right back to school to work toward what he wanted in the first place. He wanted his High School Diploma, and in retrospect wasn’t going to let these cruel human beings take that from him in any way.

In the end, he had truly won what always seemed like a one-sided war that he had no hope of winning. 

This couldn’t have been further from the truth.

Little did he know, he innocently and unknowingly had adopted a very effective, non-violent confrontational tactic established by a very famous Hindu from India long ago. This man had used these same tactics to help his country gain independence from a tyrannical foreign empire without ever using violence.

Some of you probably already know who we are now referring to. For those who do not, go on a little scavenger hunt and learn more about who we are talking about.

That same man once famously said, “Doesn’t the New Testament say if your enemy strikes you on the right cheek offer him the left? I have thought about it a great deal, and I suspect it means you must show courage. You must be willing to take a blow, several blows to show you will not strike back, nor will you be turned aside. And when you do that it calls on something in human nature, something that makes his hatred for you decrease and his respect increase. I think Christ grasped that, and I have seen it work.”

That is precisely what this weak and scrawny teen from Wyoming had inadvertently accomplished. He had conquered his enemies, and earned the respect of his peers by never engaging in verbal or physical violence; not once. It took years and it wasn’t always easy, but he had won. He at last realized that when you “offer them the left,” you can’t ever lose.

In retrospect, that same celebrated Indian Hindu also appropriately added, “When I despair, I remember through history that the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible. But in the end, they always fail. Think of it – always. An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”