Romans 12:20

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Romans 12:20
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”

Heap burning coals on his head. This means get your enemy that you help mad? Is this right?
 
From HERE

Thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head, is a metaphor taken from smelting metals. The ore is put into the furnace, and fire put both under and over, that the metal may be liquefied, and, leaving the scoriae and dross, may fall down pure to the bottom of the furnace.

And From HERE

Thou shalt heap … - Coals of fire are doubtless emblematical of “pain.” But the idea here is not that in so doing we shall call down divine vengeance on the man; but the apostle is speaking of the natural effect or result of showing him kindness. Burning coals heaped on a man‘s head would be expressive of intense agony. So the apostle says that the “effect” of doing good to an enemy would be to produce pain. But the pain will result from shame, remorse of conscience, a conviction of the evil of his conduct, and an apprehension of divine displeasure that may lead to repentance. To do this, is not only perfectly right, but it is desirable. If a man can be brought to reflection and true repentance, it should be done

These are not Catholic sources…but I hope they help…

Peace
James
 
souldiver said:
Romans 12:20
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”

Heap burning coals on his head. This means get your enemy that you help mad? Is this right?
Click to expand...
Hardly! 😃
Here is the Douay-Rheims Bible /
Haydock Commentary on Romans 12

“Thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head”
" This figurative way of speaking is differently expounded. Some say, inasmuch as by this means thou shalt make him liable to greater punishments from God. Others, as S. Jer. and S. Aug. by coals of fire, understand kindnesses and benefits, which shall touch the heart, and inflame the affections even of thy enemies, which shall make them sorry for what they have done, and become thy friends."
 
souldiver said:
Romans 12:20
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”

Heap burning coals on his head. This means get your enemy that you help mad? Is this right?
Click to expand...
St. Paul seems to be using an allusion to smelting.

Precious metals and ores like copper, iron and gold aren’t naturally pure or free of other substances when you find them. Because of this a precious metal must be extracted from the impurities that may lie within through the process of smelting.

While today a chemical process exists, in Biblical times smelting involved heating up the precious metal by placing it on a heaping pile of burning coals. These were added until the metal liquefied and the impurities separated themselves into identifiable globs called “dross.” The dross could easily be sifted out, and in this way the precious metal was refined.

St. Paul is actually paraphrasing parts of Proverbs 25 and making reference to its comments on “smelting out” bad qualities from people.

Remove the dross from silver,
and it comes forth perfectly purified;
Remove the wicked from the presence of the king,
and his throne is made firm through justice.

And…

If your enemies are hungry, give them food to eat,
if thirsty, give something to drink;
For live coals you will heap on their heads,
and the Lord will vindicate you.–Proverbs 25:4-5 and 21-22.

What Paul is saying in Romans is that you can often embarrass an enemy or someone who treats you poorly by treating them with kindness and goodness. The kindness can soften their heart and move them to imitate your kindness and become better people themselves. Sometimes people are mean or acting wickedly because they themselves have been treated badly. Whatever the case, by good actions bad people can be won over.
 
To answer the long going question of why every time some terrible thing strikes, you have to have a idea how God has some sort of system in place, the problem is the Old Testament is not literal but a method to make people understand the meaning of what God wants us to know, it has to be simple so everybody gets the message, the message of Adam and Eve is you pay now for your sins, when Moses gave the ten commandments he said let these be for you a Blessing or a curse, now we know God does no harm, it was set up for Satan to hate us and he has authority to harm us when we commit sin, the Bible has interpreted the Greek word as exorcism when it should read deliverance. The woman who was suffering for 18 years because of Satan was because he had authority because of some sin she committed or someone related to her committed, there are actually many ways this could happen. Your mistaken if you think this changed with the New Testament, I was delivered from a curse from taking lava rock from a cursed volcano in Hawaii, this can be easily checked out. Releasing those in bondage is not about prison its about sin. A child still in the womb can acquire problems from what the mother does.
Code: 
The problem is if you commit a sin after baptism and before conformation God can not hear you, which is why the Blessed Mother and the Saints have the ability to hear us and intercede.  I believe God is trying every which way to help us which is why some people receive healing and other miracles which sometimes makes it confusing.  It is said that God does not see evil, I gather he can not hear evil people either, I know you say God knows all things, but you have to know the facts and not try to figure how or why, His system is bigger that we can understand.  The reason Jesus healed everyone who asked is because he had a human side which was cable of hearing us and the Divine side did the healing, this is just my theory, I may not be accurate but I had a full deliverance which is the removal of the effects of sin which the devil does because we are in a war and the enemy cuts off our communication line to God.  You would not believe what happen next, it appeared communication was restored as it was like is was for people in the first century.  I have absolutely no one to help me figure out what to do next as no one has heard of the things that happened to me.

You must read up on Spiritual Warfare to know how sin effects us and how to remove it, Spirit Daily has many books on this subject.  Most books are written by non-Catholics with direct experience.

There is an excellent video on youtube by Derek Prince called how to be delivered from demons / evil spirits, Prince is not Catholic so watch with caution his other sermons. 

When you understand how it all works everything falls in to place, everyone is suffering because of our sins.  I understand if you are not baptized and do not intend to Satan does not bother you, this is just my idea and I might be wrong.  I'm sure I am not correct on every thing, but I know what works.
 
The explanation that I was given was that in days before matches and lighters it was necessary to keep a source of fire burning for the home. If a neighbour’s fire went out, they might take a thick fireproof basin to their nearby neighbour who would kindly heap some coals in it from their fire. The recipient would then rush home and relight using this gift.
So the expression referred to an act of neighbourly kindness.
 
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