Luke 6:27-28: Praying for Those Who Spitefully Use You
Short answer: Praying for those who spitefully use you means asking God to bless, convict, and redeem the person who has harmed you, rather than asking God to crush them. In Luke 6:27-28 Jesus says, "But I tell you who hear: love your enemies, do good to those who hate you," and the sentence continues with blessing and prayer. This is not denial of the wrong done to you, and it is not a command to stay in harm's way. It is a command to hand the person over to God in prayer instead of taking vengeance into your own hands. The prayer is honest about the pain, specific about the offender, and trusting that God is the righteous judge who sees what no one else saw.
What Luke 6:27-28 actually commands
Luke 6:27-28 sits inside the Sermon on the Plain, addressed to disciples who have just been pronounced blessed and woeful. Jesus is not addressing a crowd of strangers; he is addressing people who have chosen to follow him and who will therefore face opposition. The command is not merely to feel differently about enemies but to act differently toward them: love, do good, bless, pray. Each verb is an active choice, not a passing emotion.
The command is undeniably counterintuitive. Every instinct in us says that a person who spitefully uses us has forfeited any claim on our kindness. Jesus says the opposite. He does not explain the offender's motives or suggest that the offense was minor. He simply redirects the disciple's response. The person who has power over you in that moment is not the one who harmed you; it is God, to whom you bring the matter in prayer.
It is worth noticing that the command is addressed to those who hear. Jesus assumes that his listeners will actually receive this teaching and put it into practice. He does not present it as advice for the especially saintly. It is the ordinary shape of discipleship, which means it is meant for ordinary people in ordinary conflicts: a coworker who takes credit, a relative who belittles, a former friend who spreads a story.
Prayer is not the same as pretending nothing happened
Some Christians hear the command to pray for an abuser and assume it means minimizing the abuse. That is a serious misreading. Praying for someone who has wronged you is not the same as saying the wrong did not matter. God himself calls injustice injustice throughout Scripture, and the psalms are full of raw honesty about enemies. Honest lament and enemy-love are not opposites; they are companions.
Praying for the person who spitefully used you can include asking God to bring the truth to light, to stop the harm, to protect others from the same treatment, and to bring the offender to repentance. That is not vengeance; it is a request for justice placed in the hands of the only perfectly just judge. Vengeance belongs to God, not to us, and prayer is one of the ways we hand it over to him rather than taking it ourselves.
Nor does praying for someone require you to remain in a situation where you are being harmed. Jesus does not command his followers to be passive in the face of evil. Wisdom, boundaries, and, in some cases, lawful protection are compatible with love. Forgiving a person does not obligate you to trust them again, and praying for an offender does not require ongoing access to you. The command deals with your heart before God, not with a naïve policy toward danger.
Why Jesus links prayer to love and blessing
In Luke 6:27-28 the four commands stand together as one posture. Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who spitefully use you. The word translated bless in related passages means to speak well of, to ask God's favor on. This is not a vague warm feeling; it is a deliberate act of the will, often repeated against the grain of your feelings until the feelings begin to follow.
Matthew 5:44 records the same teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, adding prayer for those who persecute. Romans 12:14 echoes it: bless those who persecute you; bless, and don't curse. First Peter 3:9 gives the same instruction and adds a reason: you were called to this, that you may inherit a blessing. The New Testament does not treat enemy-love as a rare spiritual gift; it treats it as the family resemblance of God's children.
Why does God insist on this? Because vengeance, resentment, and cursing poison the one who holds them. The person who spitefully used you may never know or care that you are carrying bitterness. You will know. You will feel it every time the memory surfaces. Praying for the offender is one of the few things that can pry that bitterness loose without denying that the wrong was real.
Praying specifically for someone who spitefully used you
Vague prayers rarely help. Try naming the person before God and naming the harm. Then pray in three directions. First, pray for yourself: ask God to guard your heart from bitterness, to give you honest words instead of cursing, and to make you willing to be made willing. Second, pray for the offender: ask God to convict them, to bring them to repentance, to bless them in ways that lead them toward him, and to stop any ongoing harm. Third, pray for the situation: ask God for justice, for protection, for the truth to come out, and for peace.
Sometimes the most honest prayer you can manage is a short one: Lord, I cannot bless this person yet; make me willing. That prayer is not unbelief. It is the truth, offered to a God who already knows it, and it is a step in the right direction. Over time, many believers find that the repeating of a simple intercession gradually softens the ground of their own heart, even before anything changes in the other person.
It also helps to pray Scripture back to God. Plead Romans 12:14 as a request: teach me to bless and not curse. Plead 1 Peter 3:9 and ask for the promised inheritance. Pray the Lord's Prayer, which teaches us to ask forgiveness as we forgive, and which names the reality of temptation and evil. The psalms give words for the anger; the commands of Jesus give direction for the will. Both belong in the same prayer life.
What about imprecatory psalms and anger at injustice
Some readers wonder how the command to bless fits with psalms that call down judgment on enemies. The honest answer is that Scripture holds both together without embarrassment. The psalmists bring their rage to God instead of acting on it. That is itself a form of obedience. The difference between cursing an enemy and handing an enemy over to God is not always loud, but it is real: one takes the seat of the judge, the other leaves the seat occupied.
Faithful Christians differ on how directly the imprecatory psalms should be prayed today. Some read them as prayers for God's justice in a world where evil is real, and pray them in that spirit. Others, emphasizing the teaching of Jesus, prefer to pray them only through the lens of Christ and the final judgment. Both positions can be held by people who take the Bible seriously, and this article does not pretend to settle the question. What is clear is that the New Testament commands blessing, not cursing, as the disciple's habitual posture.
The practical point is this: anger at injustice is not automatically sin. Anger that festers and takes charge is. Praying for the person who spitefully used you does not mean you stop being angry that the wrong happened. It means you keep bringing that anger to God, who can be trusted with it, rather than letting it dictate what you say and do.
Stephen and the pattern of praying in the moment of harm
Acts 7 gives the New Testament's clearest example of this prayer in action. As he was being stoned, Stephen called out, asking the Lord Jesus to receive his spirit, and then, in words that echo his master's, asked that the sin not be held against those who were killing him. Stephen did not wait until he felt forgiving. He prayed in the middle of the harm, while the stones were still falling.
The pattern is striking because Stephen's prayer was not abstract. He named the sin and asked God to forgive it, which is precisely what praying for those who mistreat you looks like at its most extreme. He did not pretend the stones were kindness. He asked God to be merciful to the men throwing them. The result was not immediate protection from harm; Stephen died. But the church gained a pattern of prayer that has shaped believers in persecution ever since.
We are not usually called to that extremity. We are called to smaller versions of it: the meeting where you are humiliated, the family gathering where the old wound is reopened, the online comment meant to sting. In those small moments, the same prayer is available. Lord, do not hold this against them. It can be prayed silently, in seconds, in the middle of the harm.
When the offense is serious: wisdom, safety, and counsel
There is a difference between an insult and abuse, and the command to pray does not flatten that difference. If you are being harmed, the biblical response includes seeking safety, telling trusted people, and, where appropriate, involving lawful authorities. Praying for an abuser and reporting an abuser are not contradictory acts. Churches have sometimes used the language of forgiveness to pressure victims into silence, and that misuse of Scripture has done real damage.
If the person who spitefully used you holds power over you, consider bringing the matter to mature believers who can help you think clearly. Prayer and wise counsel belong together. It is not a lack of faith to ask for help. It is not unforgiveness to protect yourself or others. The command of Jesus governs your heart toward the offender; it does not require you to place yourself or your family in ongoing danger.
If you have failed at this command, you are not alone; every honest disciple has. The point of the command is not to produce guilt that paralyzes you but to show you your need for grace. You can confess the resentment, receive forgiveness, and start again. Jesus gives this command to people who will need to be forgiven for breaking it, which is part of why he taught us to pray as we do.
How this changes the way you pray for enemies
Praying for those who spitefully use you changes the person praying before it changes the person prayed for. Resentment narrows you; intercession widens you. The person you pray for may never know, and the situation may never improve. But the command is given to you, and obedience to it is possible today, in a single prayer, whether or not you feel anything at all.
Over time this practice reshapes how you see people. You begin to recognize that the person who harmed you is also a person in need of mercy, and that you are too. You begin to notice that you are no longer rehearsing the offense as often. None of this happens automatically or instantly, and anyone who promises instant freedom from bitterness is promising something Scripture does not promise. What Scripture does promise is that those who seek God in this way will not be left unchanged.
The command ends with prayer, but it does not end there in the life of a disciple. Prayer becomes the ground from which doing good grows. You pray, and then you find yourself able to speak a kind word, to refuse to retaliate in the meeting, to let a cutting remark pass without returning it. The prayer and the practice feed each other, and both are grace.
Biblical fidelity check
Luke 6:27-28 establishes several things plainly: Jesus commands his followers to love enemies, to do good to those who hate them, to bless those who curse them, and to pray for those who mistreat them. It does not establish that the offender's actions were acceptable, that the disciple should feel affection on demand, that forgiveness requires restored trust, that harm should be tolerated indefinitely, or that justice should not be pursued. It also does not promise that the offender will change or that the situation will improve.
A common misreading treats this passage as a demand for passivity in the face of abuse. That reading is wrong because it confuses the command about the heart with permission for ongoing harm. Nowhere does Scripture require victims to remain in danger, and elsewhere Scripture commands the pursuit of justice and the protection of the vulnerable. Jesus' command governs how you pray and speak and choose; it does not cancel wisdom, safety, or counsel. Reading the command as an absolute ban on seeking help or protection goes beyond what the text says.
Other passages that speak to Luke 6:27-28
Several related studies help fill out the picture. The Lord’s Prayer Explained: Matthew 6:9–13 Meaning connects the prayer for forgiveness to our forgiving others. What Does 1 Peter 1:13 Mean? Context, Theology, and Application and What Does 1 Peter 1:15 Mean? Context, Theology, and Application set the call to holiness in the context of a living hope. What Does 1 Peter 1:18 Mean? Context, Theology, and Application reflects on the redemption that makes this kind of love possible.
Frequently asked questions
Does praying for someone who hurt me mean I have to trust them again?
No. Trust is rebuilt over time through repentance and changed behavior, and it may never be rebuilt in some cases. Praying for a person is a matter of your heart before God; trust is a matter of wisdom about a relationship. You can sincerely ask God to bless and convict someone while still keeping appropriate boundaries. Many faithful believers have forgiven someone they will never again allow close access to themselves or their families, and there is no contradiction in that.
What if I do not feel like praying for them?
Pray anyway, honestly. Feelings often follow obedience rather than leading it. Start with the truth: Lord, I do not want to bless this person, but you have told me to, so make me willing. That prayer is not hypocrisy; it is the beginning of obedience. Many believers have found that a simple prayer prayed daily for weeks gradually changes them, even when nothing changes in the other person. The command is not conditioned on your emotions.
Is it wrong to want justice against someone who abused me?
Wanting justice is not wrong; Scripture is full of it. The question is who carries it out and how it shapes you. You can pursue lawful justice, report crimes, and seek protection while refusing personal vengeance. Romans 12:14 and 1 Peter 3:9 call you to bless rather than curse, but they do not cancel the pursuit of legal recourse. Bring your desire for justice to God in prayer and let wise counselors help you act rightly.
