This verse is of particular interest, especially in an age where people receive all kinds of abuse. If we ourselves are not in a position to receive some kind of abuse, we certainly know of others who are. What can be done? Turn the other cheek? That's sounds like an invitation for a beating. How much is enough? How far do we go?

The command to turn the other check leads off a list of four commands you'll find in Jesus' great Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:38-42). This first one, which concerns us now, has to do not so much with physical abuse in general, but gross insult in particular. How do we know that?

In the first place, a literal interpretation of this, and the other three commands, would not make sense. What happens after I have run out of cheeks? Am I to go that extra mile with someone and not one inch further? Jesus is speaking figuratively.

In the second place, being hit in the right cheek (v. 39) implies a back-hand slap to the face from a right handed person, of whom most are in the world. A back-hand slap in the face was the supreme insult in first-century Judaism. It was an attack on one's dignity. There are certainly places other than the cheek to hit a person and inflict great physical pain, but no better place to hit than the face to insult him. This has held down through the centuries and found its way into our own culture. While we might not physically slap someone to insult them, we speak as though it happened to us when we have been insulted. For example: "Your comment to others about me was a real slap in the face."

There are many times in the Christian life when our dignity will be attacked because of our stand for Christ in the office, gym, home or maybe even at church. It is bound to happen if we are model employees, godly parents and spouses, don't cheat, steal or take advantage of people, and make others who do these kinds of things without the least bit of thought look bad. What are we to do when we are dealt severe verbal blows that attack our dignity and insult us? If we act like the world, we will consider our dignity an inalienable right that has been violated and we will lash out in defense of ourselves. We should bless our enemies as Christ, who "when they hurled their insults at him did not retaliate, and when he suffered made no threats", but rather "entrusted himself to Him who judges justly".

This kind of treatment can seem worse than being physically assaulted because our pride gets hurt, but it cannot hurt someone who has no pride. Such a one will respond like Christ and love sacrificially. The more we realize that nothing can be worse than that from which God saved us, that we deserve far worse than what people could ever throw at us, that we can't really expect our depraved assailants to treat us any differently, then the easier it will be to imitate the Master.