What does this mean?

[DieAmartyr]

“If any man come to Me and hate not his father and mother, and wife and children, and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple."Luke 14:26

Why does Jesus say they must hate their father and mother and wife and children? Why are they to have hate in their hearts? This does not go along with Jesus other teaching about loving thy enemies and honoring your father and mother. Why does He want them to hate?

 

[MorningBirds]

“If any man come to Me and hate not his father and mother, and wife and children, and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple."Luke 14:26

Why does Jesus say they must hate their father and mother and wife and children? Why are they to have hate in their hearts? This does not go along with Jesus other teaching about loving thy enemies and honoring your father and mother. Why does He want them to hate?

It doesn't mean to spite them. It means that we must not love our biological family more than God or Jesus; such as if we were told by family not to follow after the truth of God, Jesus, and the word, we must stand firm to the end in our faith.

 

[DieAmartyr]

It doesn't mean to spite them. It means that we must not love our biological family more than God or Jesus; such as if we were told by family not to follow after the truth of God, Jesus, and the word, we must stand firm to the end in our faith.

But it says hate.

 

[Sue D.]

To put God first in our lives and Then others.

Hatred - in human terms is harmful to a person.

But in the Scriptural useage -- it means to love God More than our spouse or children, etc. .

 

[Andyindauk]

“If any man come to Me and hate not his father and mother, and wife and children, and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple."Luke 14:26

Why does Jesus say they must hate their father and mother and wife and children? Why are they to have hate in their hearts? This does not go along with Jesus other teaching about loving thy enemies and honoring your father and mother. Why does He want them to hate?

Hi Die,

I think the watch word here is 'relative'. In Matthew 19:18 Jesus lists honouring mum and dad in the top few commandments. Indeed Jesus castigates the Pharisees for encouraging poor treatment of parents Mark 7:11 and there's a raft of other verses that again exhorts us to love and respect in New Testament and Old. In this passage Jesus is telling us how important it is to get our priorities right, He has to be your top top priority, your imperative, your focus, almost to the exclusion of everything else. Another example, Luke 9:59 Jesus is not telling the guy to let his dad rot, no he's saying that there's no such thing as a good excuse for deferring His invitation to follow Him. If you can achieve that level of commitment to God, you may well find that that will improve your relationships with parents and others. Sadly that's not always the case, there's plenty in here who have parents with 'issues' and problems and Jesus becomes a focus of hatred by the parent towards the believing son or daughter, and again Jesus warned us about this Luke 12:52-53.

Hope that gives you some food for thought.

 

[Hekuran]

Remember that when we are reading the gospel accounts, we are travelling to another culture with different accepted ways of doing and saying things. Jesus is using a hyper-exaggerated way of expressing himself - it would have been easily recognised and understood by his original audience, but it looks odd from a c21 western perspective.

 

[Brad Huber]

The family would consider it hatred if you put Jesus before taking care of the family, hence the hatred by those seeing it.

 

[Sue D.]

When you're married -- God needs to be first in both husband/ wife's lives. Putting God first will put everything else in proper place.

We are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind and soul and our neighbor as ourselves.

 

[DieAmartyr]

When you're married -- God needs to be first in both husband/ wife's lives. Putting God first will put everything else in proper place.

We are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind and soul and our neighbor as ourselves.

Oh but I do whole heatedly but I don't have to hate my family in order to do so. If they told me I was wrong about Jesus and tried to ban me from reading His word I might but since those restrictions are not in place, I feel I can love Him with everything I have without hating or even disliking anyone. Maybe since it's so black and white in the Bible, if it's not love it's hate. I guess that makes sense, but I just found that sentence kind of shocking coming from Jesus.

 

[backNforth]

“If any man come to Me and hate not his father and mother, and wife and children, and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple."

Notice the context is about the testing of discipleship:

If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple....whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:26, 27, 33).

By extension, hate = to love less.