Last Sunday, I taught on Luke 14:25-35. Verse 26 is just a tricky one:
If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:26)
Honestly, if I wrote the Bible, I wouldn't have put that verse in there. At least I wouldn't have worded it like that. But, that's a different topic for a different post.
We drew out the Biblical fact that "hate" in this verse is best defined as "love less than". So, ultimately what Jesus was saying is that we need to love Him more than we do the people we are closest too in this world. That's something that's Biblical truth, and it's a little more palatable. But, just a little. I mean our spouses and our kids and our siblings evoke so much emotion from us, and they are right in front of us...in the flesh. Family relationships are good, but they shouldn't be ultimate.
However, one of the reasons why I love Scripture is because God's teachings aren't only theological and philosophical in nature, but also very practical. When we become idolators, making good things ultimate things, life starts to go off the rails a bit. If I put my wife in God's place, then I'd be asking of her what she couldn't give. If I put my kids in God's place, then my own identity would start to be molded by their successes and failures. TOO MUCH PRESSURE! I love them too much to love them too much.
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