The Sermon on the Mount
If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Do not even tax collectors do the same? Matthew 5:46 · Berean Standard Bible
If you only love people who love you back, what's special about that? Even tax collectors, the people everyone despises, do that much. You're called to something higher.
Loving the people who are nice to you isn't hard. It's automatic. Jesus says the real test of your character is how you treat the people who aren't nice to you.
Jesus challenges reciprocal love.
Following Jesus means your love has to go further than what comes naturally. It has to reach the people you'd rather avoid.
Tax collectors (telonai) were among the most despised members of Jewish society, collaborating with Rome for personal profit. Jesus argues that reciprocal love (loving those who love you) requires no divine transformation and offers no heavenly reward (misthos).
By pointing to tax collectors as the baseline of natural love, Jesus uses the most stigmatized group to show that even the morally 'worst' people love their friends. Kingdom love must exceed this.
Jesus, using a rhetorical comparison.
Jesus challenges His followers to transcend the natural human tendency toward reciprocity and embrace the supernatural ethic of the kingdom.
44But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
45that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
46If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Do not even tax collectors do the same?
47And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even Gentiles do the same?
48Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Read all of Matthew 5 — Jesus turns the world's values upside down. The blessed aren't the powerful — they're the poor in spirit, the grieving, the meek.
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