“If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him drink” (Rom. 12:20) – a beautiful precept full of spiritual wisdom, and serviceable both to the doer and the receiver. But the remainder of the passage causes much perplexity, and does not seem to correspond to the sentiment of him who uttered the former words. And what is the nature of this? The saying that “by so doing you shall heap coals of fire on his head.” For by these words he does a wrong both to the doer and the receiver: to the latter by setting his head on fire, and placing coals upon it; for what good will he get from receiving food and drink in proportion to the evil he will suffer from the heaping of coals on his head?

A Church Father takes a closer look at what this unlikely bit of biblical advice might mean.