Turning the Other Cheek: Nonviolence as Holy Defiance

Turning the Other Cheek: More Than Passive Peace

Few phrases in the New Testament are as familiar or as misunderstood as this one: turn the other cheek. You’ve probably heard it described as a call to meekness, or maybe as a metaphor for nonviolent resistance. In fact, some have suggested it’s a form of civil disobedience. And I think there’s something to that. But before we jump to conclusions, it helps to look at the context, the history, the scholarship, and the surprising social nuance buried in this famous line.

Beyond "An Eye for an Eye"

Before Jesus ever said these words, there was the lex talionis, the law of retaliation. An eye for an eye. Reasonable retribution. Measured justice. And for much of human history, that principle has been one of the most effective tools we’ve had to keep the peace we know.

So if Jesus is calling us to move beyond that, what exactly is he proposing? Surely he’s not advocating for open season on bad behaviour. No. He’s offering something deeper. But to see it, we need to step into the first-century world Jesus inhabited.

Walter Wink and the Power of Nonviolence

For this, we turn to the groundbreaking work of scholar Walter Wink. His trilogy Naming the Powers, Unmasking the Powers, and Engaging the Powers sparked a revolution in 20th-century understandings of nonviolent resistance. One of his most enduring insights centres right here, on this line from Jesus: If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other also.

Now, if you’ve ever paused over that verse, you might have noticed something strange. Why the right cheek? What happens if it’s the left? Is Jesus’ command meant only for attacks from our dominant side? Or is there something more happening here?

The Right Hand Rule

As it turns out, yes, it’s quite specific. In the ancient world, you only ever interacted with others using your right hand. The left hand was reserved for, well, less sanitary purposes. With no running water or toilet paper, cleanliness mattered deeply, and communities developed strict rules to maintain it.

We see this in the Community Rule found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, where even gesturing toward another person with your left hand could earn you a ten-day penance. Using your right hand wasn’t just etiquette; it was moral order.

The Slap That Defined Status

Here’s where it gets interesting. In that same cultural world, an open-handed slap and a backhanded slap weren’t the same thing. A backhanded slap wasn’t meant to injure; it was meant to humiliate. It was the gesture of a master to a slave, a Roman to a Jew, a man to a child. It reasserted hierarchy.

And since you couldn’t use your left hand, that backhanded slap could only land on the right cheek of the other person.

So when Jesus says, turn the other cheek, he’s not telling you to accept more abuse. He’s saying, refuse to accept the role of the inferior. Turn back toward your aggressor, not to retaliate, but to reassert your humanity. To face them eye-to-eye. To expose the injustice of the hierarchy itself.

Holy Defiance

This is not about passivity. It’s protest. It’s Jesus inviting his followers to disrupt cycles of domination through courage and dignity, not through violence. Because the kingdom he’s announcing doesn’t come by force; it comes through the quiet strength of those who refuse to return harm for harm.

Do Not Resist an Evil Person

There’s another phrase in this same passage that often trips us up: Do not resist an evil person. It sounds, at first, like Jesus is saying we should let people do whatever they want. But that’s not the idea at all.

The Greek word translated as resist is anthistēmi, a word that carries the connotation of violent opposition. Think eye for an eye. In Deuteronomy 9, for instance, the same word appears when describing the Anakites, a powerful people who stood against Israel in war. It’s military language.

Even in the New Testament, when Paul uses the word anthistēmi—as in Ephesians 6, when he talks about putting on the armour of God—it’s a subversion of violent imagery. He speaks of truth, righteousness, and the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. Even the sword, Paul says, is the Word, the self-giving love of Christ.

So when Jesus says, do not resist an evil person, he isn’t calling us to passive surrender. He’s rejecting the cycle of violence altogether. He’s saying, don’t meet their evil with more of the same.

To turn the other cheek, then, isn’t to invite another slap. It’s to stand tall in your dignity. To confront injustice without copying it. To show your aggressor that you will not be defined by their violence, nor reduced by their contempt.

You refuse to fight on their terms, but you do not disappear. You turn back toward them, unflinching, your very presence a witness to a different kind of power.

Giving Your Coat as Well

Then Jesus takes it further: If anyone wants to sue you for your shirt, hand over your coat as well. But even here, translation has softened the sting. The word for shirt is chiton, your undergarment. Your coat is your himation, your outer cloak. In the ancient world, your cloak was essential: your protection from the cold, your covering from the sun, even your blanket at night. Torah law forbade taking it permanently. In Exodus 22, if someone took a cloak as a pledge, they had to return it by sunset.

So what’s Jesus doing, describing someone suing you for your underwear? He’s creating a caricature, an absurd exaggeration. Imagine someone so consumed by greed, so intent on wringing every ounce from you, that they take you to court for the clothes off your back. Jesus says, fine, give them everything. Strip down. Hand it all over. As if to say, Which emperor has no clothes here?

It’s satire, a sacred parody that exposes the cruelty of greed disguised as justice. Jesus isn’t asking for literal nudity; he’s using humour and exaggeration to unmask systems of exploitation. Because once again, this is not about ignoring evil; it’s about refusing to answer evil on its own terms.

Instead of retaliation, it’s revelation. The act itself reveals injustice for what it really is, even when it hides behind legality.

Going the Second Mile

And then comes the third example: If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two.

Even Walter Wink admits his interpretation of this last teaching is built on the trajectory of the first two. There’s historical nuance here, but it’s consistent with the world Jesus inhabited. Roman soldiers, it seems, could compel non-citizens to carry their packs for roughly one mile, or a thousand paces. While no Roman law explicitly records this, the practice of forced impressment was well-known. The term comes from a Persian word, angaria, meaning “to press into service” and that’s where the limit originates from.

We see Josephus reference this loan word in his writings, and the Gospel of Matthew uses the same term when Simon of Cyrene is pressed into service to carry Jesus’ cross. The practice was real, and it was demeaning, a reminder of Rome’s power over the conquered.

So what does Jesus say? Go the second mile.

In other words, if someone uses unjust power to control your steps, don’t let them dictate your pace. Keep walking. Make them make you stop. Show them that, even under occupation, your dignity remains your own.

For a people living under the shadow of a global military superpower, this was radical. Turning the other cheek, handing over your cloak, walking the extra mile—none of these are about ignoring evil. They’re about choosing how you will respond to it.

Each act becomes an embodied parable of nonviolent resistance, a living refusal to return harm for harm, or as Paul might say, a way to wield the sword of truth in pursuit of the gospel of peace.

The Peace God Dreams Of

And that, I think, is the difference between keeping the peace we already have and participating in the making of the peace that God dreams for us.

Both reject violence, but one is content to preserve the status quo. The other dares to imagine what could be.

The kingdom of God will not come because we look away when someone slaps us. It begins to take hold when we turn back toward them, look them in the eye, and let them know that their violence holds no power to move us off the path of peace.

Likewise, peace in our relationships doesn’t come from avoiding conflict or endlessly repeating the same unhealed patterns. Real peace begins when we acknowledge that conflict has something to teach us, when we dig beneath the surface toward healthier soil. It asks for self-reflection and conscious choice, not instinctive reaction or misdirected anger.

And peace in the world? It will not come because we are pragmatic or partisan, comfortable or compliant. It begins when we have the courage to say that sometimes, what is legal is wrong, and must be challenged so that it can change. It begins when we recognize that suffering imposed by systems of strength that assume some lives are worth more than others is counter to the very heart of God.

This is what it means to follow Jesus on the path of peace: not to ignore injustice, but to confront it without becoming it. To meet power with dignity, to face violence with courage, and to dream with God about a better world still being born.