Christians, how according to the NEW TESTAMENT should I go about hating my family in order to follow Jesus ?

Question

"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple."
Luke 14:26

"And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death."
Matthew 10:21


I wonder who will be firt to defend such horrible instructions by going on about "context". It's a handy one that to defend biblical violence as is randomly deciding which bits are to be taken literally and those which are metaphors.

Answer 1

The first one is a comparison. Our love for Jesus should be so huge that it makes our love for our families seem like hate. And we should love Him so much we are willing to die for Him. (hating our own life)

The second one tells what will happen to Christians. The world will hate them so badly that even their own families will betray them. We've seen that happen in countries without freedom of religion. Christians are reported and persecuted in some countries even today. And in some cases, by their own families.

Answer 2

O boy. Nonono. Luke's just saying you need to put your priorities in check and put your faith in God before everything else. You don't need to aggressively hold something against your family, just understand how there are more important things than individual lives.

Matthew's saying that a family with unsettled internal strife will not get along. Manipulation is a big bad nono with the people you're supposed to be able to trust with anything and everything.

Lolz on the metaphorical/ literary arguement. Yea, I get what you mean. Here though we get a break. First off, these ideas are common sense. Everyone knows how family and God are supposed to be at the top of your everyday to do list. But if you look at Luke 14, you'll see that he's just focusing on how people need to be absolutely devoted to the Lord. It's not a matter of tearing it apart line by line; that's just the theme of the chapter.

Likewise, Matthew 10 is all about holding confidence in your own words and maintaining a strong character. It's all saying that if what YOU'RE saying is right and true, you'll be fine in the eyes of God and that's all that matters. The specific line is just an example of what people will do when they're panicking.

The biggest thing about biblical transcribing is to understand that first, the book was finished 2000 years ago. Vernacular and written language were no where close to as vibrant nor as developed as it is today, so certain things had to be written in certain ways for everyone's literary and personal understanding. Just take it with a grain of salt while looking at the bigger picture.

:-)

Answer 3

It doesn't mean you should hate your relatives and people close to you. In fact, Christianity urges that you ought to love the people around you. The meaning of these passages is that you should always place God's concerns above those of your family. So, for instance, if you have a feeling that God wants you to be a priest while your family wants you to marry someone, then you should follow God's command (depending on the strength of your conviction) and become a priest. This passage also helps families understand why their members do certain things such as become priests; they gradually realize that God's will has more weight than their own does. So, with the same faith that we have in God's existence, we ought to take faith in God's will as is presented in the Bible and in present situations.
Also, your translation of the Bible is weird in that it says "hate." That's why the English translations are so unclear: English is an unclear language. Consider how many times the Bible has been translated from the original manuscripts. Look to a different language Bible for a better feeling of what this is talking about. It all fits into a general Christian context.
I mean, it wouldn't make sense for the Bible to be all nice and then suddenly make this remark. Have you seen Reservoir Dogs when Eddie asks Mr. Orange about Mr. Blonde's murder? It's like this: "So, Mr. Orange, you're tellin' me this very good friend of
mine, who did four years for my father, who in four years never
made a deal, no matter what they dangled in front of him, you're
telling me that now, that now this man is free, and we're making good on our commitment to him, he's just gonna decide, right out of the ****in' blue, to rip us off?" Indeed, Mr. Orange had no reason to suddenly rip off Eddie's family because that would go out of context of his loyalty. By the same token, the Bible has no reason to go out of context.

Answer 4

Jesus was one man amongst many who wandered about the Middle East,at a time when there were many different religious ideals that were being discussed(look at the 12 tribes of Judah for example).I believe that his was probably the most lenient and forgiving and this was the reason for it's widespread acceptance over the rest.The parables are stories meant to convey a message or meaning.2,000 yrs. can make for a lot of distorted facts.People are still seeing Elvis in their fridge next to the milk and he's only been dead for 50 yrs.The bible is a good reference for living well, nothing more.

Answer 5

It does not mean "hate" in the classical sense but what it mean is "to love less." Within the context you will notice that the emphasis is on loving Christ more and commited to the work of a disciple. Being distracted or prevented by affection for family members could stand in the way even prove detrimental to spiritual health and your ultimate reward of life everlasting - especially if they oppose religiously.

Answer 6

No. Jesus also say, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul. Love your neighbour as yourselves.

That portion is out of context. The understanding is, to place God as first, and follow by others.

Allow me to refer back to King Saul. He is one classic example. He is man of men, a great leader who will not tax too much from his people. Yet God do not accept him. Why? Because he place the fear of men above God.

He fearful of how the men will look at him, and he is concern of the welfare of his people, and did not carry out God's order. Thus, he fallen out of God's plan. To me, if you do a research on him, you will find that King Saul fits into today CEO standards. But he did not place God first.

So, the teaching of the Bible need to use other portion to explain, and to use it to understand the whole concept. It is not right, even for doing any Literature, to quote one text and commend on it without seeing the entire pictures.

Look at other part of Jesus teaching, and you will find that Love is the central theme, and not hate.

I wish you well.

Answer 7

These 2 verse you quote are unrelated. The first one, does say that one is to hate his family in order to follow Jesus. You see that it also states that a person is to hate his own life, too. What this means, is that a Christian is to live for Jesus regardless of the opinions of His family, and even above his own personal ambitions for his life -- putting Jesus first in his affections. If there comes a time when serving Jesus puts one at odds with his family, Jesus comes first. He used the word 'hate' to underscore the importance of a Christian's primary allegiance to Him.

In the sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that to hate a brother (in the traditional meaning of the word hate ... calling names etc.) was just as if you murdered the person. Matthew 5:21-22 "But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, "you good-for-nothing,' shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, 'You fool,' shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell." It is important that you compare Scripture with Scripture in order to get an accurate sense of the meaning instead of just pulling out random verses.

This verse is a difficult one to obey, but I wouldn't consider it as a 'horrible instruction'. And how a Christian obeys it would look different depending on the circumstance. An example would be a believer in a nation that is hostile to Christianity ... they must choose whether they desire to follow Christ or remain a member of their family (as they are often disowned). Choosing Christ over their family's desire that they not do so, would be 'hating' their family, and putting their allegience to Christ first. Jesus is in no way condoning violence as you state in your question.

The 2nd verse you pulled out, has nothing to do with the question that you are addressing. Here Jesus is warning his disciples and followers of the persecution that they will face as followers of Him. Their own families will turn on them because of their decision to follow Him. So this verse is actually referring to what those OUTSIDE the Christian faith will do to believers.

I know that you mentioned that Christians often use context as an 'out' in a discussion, but it is truly important to the understanding of not only the Bible, but any literary work in general. I wouldn't expect to understand any work of literature, by just reading one or two sentences.

Answer 8

Bible is best taught by the clergy not by linguists. Jesus must be loved most.Anyone else is loved next.Be willing to suffer for Christ instead of putting anyone to suffering.Be willing to die for Christ instead of killing. Jesus said He appears to us in the form of the hungry,the sick and ill clad.Love these Christs more than anything.

Answer 9

From the web site: http://www.tektonics.org/gk/jesussayshate.html

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Skeptics who really want to give Jesus a black eye are fond of quoting this verse, Luke 14:26:

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.
The subject here is the word for hate, which is the Greek miseo. Dan Barker is typical of critics when he writes:

Most Christians feel obligated to soften the face meaning of the word 'hate' to something like 'love less than me,' even though the Greek word miseo means 'hate.'
In line with this comment, skeptics will stress the meaning of the word "hate" and insist that the word must be read literally, and that Jesus is truly preaching hate. But in fact, the "softening" is correct to do -- and is perfectly in line with the context of the ancient world, and the Jewish culture in particular.

For a background on the use of extreme and hyperbolic language in the Bible, I direct the reader first to my foundational essay on this subject. Abraham Rihbany (The Syrian Christ, 98f) points to the use of "hate" in the Bible as an example of linguistic extreme in an Eastern culture. There is no word, he notes, for "like" in the Arabic tongue. "...[T]o us Orientals the only word which can express and cordial inclination of approval is 'love'." The word is used even of casual acquaintances. Extreme language is used to express even moderate relationships.

Luke 14:26 falls into a category of "extreme language," the language of absoluteness used to express a preference, and may refer to disattachment, indifference, or nonattachment without any feelings of revulsion involved. To seal this matter completely, let's look at some parallel materials which prove our point. The closest example comes from Genesis 29:30-1:

And he went in also unto Rachel, and he loved also Rachel more than Leah, and served with him yet seven other years. And when the LORD saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb: but Rachel was barren.
Here, "hated" is clearly used synonymously with one who is loved less. Let it be added that if Jacob hated Leah in a literal way, it is hardly believable that he would consent to take her as his wife at all! (See also Judges 14:16 and Deut. 21:15-17.)

Now here is another example from Jesus, Luke 16:13:

No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.
Such extremes of feeling would be atypical, but the extremes are not meant to be taken literally; the point is that one master will get more dedicated labor than the other. Now let's move into some secular works with the same sort of hyperbolic language. Fitzmeyer's Lukan commentary offers this example from Poimandes 4:6:

If you do not hate your body first, O child, you will not be able to love yourself.
Would critics suppose that this teaches literal hatred of the physical body? It does not -- it emphasizes the need to give preference to the whole self before the body alone. Literal hate of the body would have us cutting it with razors or hitting it with blunt objects -- an extreme practiced in some Eastern faiths, but not among the Greeks! Here is another example from a war song in the Poetae Lyrici Graeci (see James Denney, "The Word 'Hate' in Lk. 14:26," Expository Times 21, 41-42): it is said that in battle, men "must count his own life his enemy for the honor of Sparta" -- is this a literal hatred of one's own life being taught? No! It is emphasizing the need to make one's life secondary for Sparta's sake. Here's a final example from Epictetus 3.3.5: "The good is preferable to every intimate relation." This is just a more abstract version of Luke 14:26!

Bottom line -- skeptics who think that Jesus is preaching literal and misogynist hate in this verse are doing no more than the usual -- thinking out of time, out of mind with the text, and in some cases (like Barker and C. Dennis McKinsey) letting their own "hate" get in the way of reading the text any way other than with wooden literalism.
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I hadn't seen this verse before and was intrigued by your question. I did some digging and found the above information. Sound good to me and I by it. You'll probably refuse because you're so anxious to find something indefensible in Christianity but don't let your personal viewpoint cloud your judgement. These are good points, language does evolve.

Answer 10

Love the sinner, Hate the sin.