Can anyone explain the underlying principle in the admonition "Resist not evil"?

If you resist evil, in some ways you are acknowledging it. By thinking to resist evil, saying "no to evil", fighting evil. You are spending all this time and energy thinking about evil. Just the act of you thinking about evil, is going to put evil into the way that you perceive things. Its like when you look at a situation, there are as many ways to look at it as there are people looking. So what you perceive from a situation is going to depend on what sort of filter you have built overtime with all your thoughts. If you think about evilness all the time, you are going to see it in life.

So the idea is do not resist evil, work towards positivity. Focus on the good things. Focus on your goals, focus on solutions, focus on what you want in the world. Because the more positive energy you put out there, the more solutions you offers, the positive energy there will be in the universe. One more person thinking positively.

In the movie the secret, they say that a negative thought about something is the same as a positive thought, as far as attracting that energy to you.

This lays in the translation: root of "evil" in Greek is ponos which is or can be thought of as desire, pain or trouble.

Do not give into (thoughts) that cause trouble.

We can give into thoughts (temptations) that may cause great difficulty if we act upon them.

Pain can motivate a person to make bad choices - this can be thought of as a blinding pain - we are blind to options that may be a healthy choice.

Desire particularly when a person is without discipline can cause results that are unwanted.

Trouble comes from fear or anger - these thought processes to should be avoided or dealt with by not giving them life.

KJV is a fine translation but here, at this time, Jesus was teaching a lesson for the mind - not creating a theology of evil vs good.

A true Christian shuns all violence and hatred and will not support any faction that uses violence as a means of problem solving. Of course, most who claim to be Christian are actually the many Jesus told us would be false ones-- Matthew 7:13-23

Matthew 5:44-48

Matthew 26:52

Luke 6:27

1 Peter 2:23

1 Peter 3:9

Romans 12:17

agape!

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I'll give this one a shot! = D

Many of us love, let's say, chocolate! We see a big candy bar and devour it. Yum, GOOD! Uh, oh...the next day we see a big zit. Eeek, BAD!

It is this way with everything in life...the good...the bad...walk right next to each other. Think about it. Everything has it's opposite!

Herein lies the problem. We resist/bad/evil because we don't like it, but it is part of the living process...always has been, always will be. When we resist it, wring our hands over it, tear our hair out over it...we compound our suffering!!!

Sure, the initial happening of 'bad/evil' was awful, but we continue adding more angst to it with our ongoing inner dialog! We feed energy/thoughts into the already bad thing because we RESIST ACCEPTING...WHAT IS...AS IT IS. Even in nature, little bunnies are born...the hawk eats them...good/bad...is carried out in every form of life.

This doesn't mean we aren't sad about something, but we carry it far too long...creating unnecessary suffering!

The ancients realized this..thus, "Resist not evil".

Since this is a vibrational universe and we are vibrational beings, and that the law of attraction says that things of like vibrations attract other things of like vibrations, whatever we focus on attracts more of the same. The point is that everything vibrates at its own frequency. This includes thoughts. When we think of things we don't want and that we resist, what is attracted are those very things. When I use the word things what I mean is whatever is the subject. Examples: In sports, did you never wonder how it is possible for the top team in the league to be totally defeated by the lowest ranked. Yet this happens. I remember laying 2.5 points in such a game on the favorite only to see them beaten by 7 goals (hockey). How could that have happened? First of all the favorites are taking things kind of easy. Maybe they have some beers the night before their cakewalk. The old rabbit vs turtle race story. The underdogs get off to a lucky start and score first. The coach gets furious. He starts screaming at his players threatening them. Suddenly his team starts to think, " I sure as hell don't want to be embarassed by these guys." What is the subject? Being embarassed. Stir in a little more imagination, a little more over-reaction and Boing! goal #2. You get the idea. Now everything works in exactly this way. I know a married lady who got raped. How did she attract that? We live in a quiet basically crimeless town. She was harboring thought habits of vulnerability and particularily that she might be raped. Somewhere in her past this idea had been implanted. It became her focus point. So what happened to that point of focus after she was raped? It got stronger. Now she knew she was right to worry. Then in the same year came rapes 2, 3, and 4. By this time even her husband started to think that she actually enjoyed getting raped and even the cops started to check her over with sarcastic grins on their faces. I don't know how this poor lady's life continued, though it would be interesting to hear, but I moved away and lost touch. I have re-examined every major event in my 50+ years and the connection to this law of attraction figured in every one of them, positive or negative. That is the part that no one wants to believe, that we attract what we don't want. Obviously nobody wants to suffer from cancer, or heart disease. Now in my father's family of eight there was a well known fact. This family all knew that because of heredity none would live longer than 45 years. My paternal uncles and aunts followed along, thus reinforcing the belief, and their fears grew bigger every time. They drank to soften the blow. At his appointed time my father had his major heart attact in his car as he arrived after a night's drinking at about 3 a.m. By luck a neighbor happened to see him slouched over the wheel when he arrived at near the same time and being a fireman pulled him out of the car and rushed him to the hospital which happened to be only two blocks away. The doctor said that it was a matter of minutes, he recovered after a quadruple bypass. This was when open-heart surgery was still new. He lived another twenty years. Funny enough, when he did so, none of the next in line even had any health problems in their forties and fifties. The youngest one still looks like he is in his forties although he is near 70. There are thousands of my own verifications. Check your own out, SteddyEddy. Cheers!

per chance it really is because some religions base a conception on certain products,aspects or maybe animals being `a` God !?! like the elephant !?! or the Earth's sunlight !?! ;-c which is also seen as idolatry !?! you have to be very careful that you do'nt placed an idol,photo,man or woman,position or something earlier the purely real God !! For he's a jealous God !! exacting devotion/worship.,. `'R'`r.r`r,r',`,.

The only reason "evil" works at all...

Is that it "feeds" on resistance...

Unfortunately, this means that "evil" does pretty good in nature...

Our "natural" reflex is to not only "resist" evil, but to "assist" it as well...

And so on and on it goes...

It would be well worth your time to read the articles I have linked below. They should help to enlighten you on this subject.