If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink: For thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head, and the Lord shall reward thee. Proverbs 25:21-22
In our human thinking, we read this verse and we imagine that the reference to heaping coals of fire on someone’s head as something painful, we imagine making them look bad, and maybe feel bad, for being “good” to them, despite the fact that they are our enemy.
I was driving the other day and thinking about this passage, when the Lord gave me a completely new insight into it. He reminded me of the passage in Isaiah 6 when the seraphim took tongs and removed a live coal from the altar and touched it to Isaiah’s lips, telling him that his sin was thereby taken away.
Source of image
The word “coals” appears 26 times in the King James, “burning coals” 11 times, “hot coals” 1 time, and “coals of fire” turned up 53. Coals and fire are associated with or symbolize judgment or purification.
Is it possible that when we do good to those who hate us, we may be doing something to help alleviate the blindness of a mind darkened by sin, by demonstrating a way of responding to evil that is superior to the worlds way? Hot coals purify things. Do these theoretical hot coals purify the offender’s thinking, perhaps burning off the dross of the natural man’s fleshly way of returning evil for evil, and replacing it, if only for a moment of brief consideration, with a superior alternative: God’s righteous ways?
When evil humans do evil and sinful things, they store up wrath (of God) against themselves, and another way of looking at that passage, is that a Christ-like response of returning good for evil, may literally add some additional “heat” to the eventual punishment for their sin, in that for every time we forego the temptation to steal vengeance from the Lord’s hand, it allows for the maximum sentence to be applied in eternity. Perhaps we actually buy the offender some lesser degree of punishment when we presume to administer “justice” ourselves. After all, Almighty God is certainly capable of much fiercer retribution than we are. It’s something to think about. Particularly as it may relate to extremely painful and damaging personal offenses. While you are heaping hot coals on your enemies head, you are simultaneously earning a promised reward for yourself, according to the “hot coals passage”. Sounds like a no-brainer, and yet it is so tempting, isn’t it, to “give as good as we get” in situations where we are wounded.
Serve Him in the Waiting 