Can you explain Luke 14:26?

Question

Luke 14:26

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.

You have to hate your parents, your wife, your children, your brothers, your sisters, and your own life in order to be Jesus' disciple?

Jesus doesn't seem very "loving" at all.

Answer 1

I am not worthy to explain His words, but He gave me the ability to use my brain to have an opinion, an opinion that might be fire or salvation for me.

There He means that He didn´t came to give us solutions and to make everything easier, not at that point of time at least! There He means He came to show us a way, to show us the truth, and we to try to chose if we will follow it or not! But when someone is saying something to us, even if we don´t understand it, we think it in our brain and we find the good and the bad of that... and after our brain in a way is in a division, and in order to get out of that division, we have to take a position, to chose!!!

So that is what He meant in that part, that He came to place a division to us, and us to take a position! The question for the division is "Was He a real God?" "We believe on Him?", so after we take a position to that, He will know who follow Him or not.

In other words, he came to separate the worthy from the unworthy by placing some questions to us, that will lead us to a division and we will have to chose which part we want to follow. Just that.

So, by discussing about that subject and questions with our parents, we will see that we have many different opinions, the same with our friends, the same with our mate (wife, husband e.tc.) so we have to respect all the opinions, to take our position, support our opinion, and we will see who was right at the end.

It is bad, to be stressfull with what He said or asked in a way. He said many things that were hidden in purpose, many things that would make much people feel better. But also He asked amazing difficult things but fair (in my opinion). So, it is not good to feel stressfull and wonder "When He will judge me, He will accept me?" that is wrong... Feel free, help and don´t hurt, love as much as you can, not fake... and then maybe you will not be in the first... but at least you will have good opportunities... and if you fail? So what? Take it as a game that finished and keep the good memories... That is my opinion, and it is not what the Church and the people who rule it teach! And I want to believe that Jesus was near to my opinion, not to pressing ways that have only the opposite result! Think about it...

Also, If you read before He mentions "If you confess me in front of the people, I will confess you in front of My Father, and if you deny me in front of the people I will deny you in front of My Father."
So that says clearly...Take a position!!!

And, that want to show in continue that if you love Him, more than anything else then you will take a heavenly salary.

I am not a religius limited believer (as Church -I think- want us to be) I am just someone that just search much for the truth and also someone that can´t accept that 2000 years humanity believes in someone that never existed or He was just an ordinary human! (But even if I am open to anything, I have just taken my position as far as I have searched until now, and I believe that Jesus (as is His name on Earth) is the second in level God that created our World with all the dimensions and also He is the Christ, the Chosen one that symbolize the new start!)

We will see my friends... We will see... the time is near!

Answer 2

No that is not Jesus' point. His point is tht you MUST be so dedicated that you could compare your loyalty and devotion to hatred.
You must have Jesus as your first love; your highest joy; your priority or you cannot be his disciple.
This passage also illustrates that there is a high cost to being Jesus' disciple. With the joy that comes with fellowship with the Most High God also comes persecution. We must love and cherish Jesus so much that it can be compared to hatred of others; that is how extreme it is. This is not an easy teaching and i applaud you for wrestling with it. Pray and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal more than any person who answers. Be sure to read the whole chapter too; reading passages out of context is inaccurate and can even be dangerous.

Answer 3

It's another way of comparing the love that you should feel for Jesus. The mother and father, wife children etc read it in the same way - they too must also love the Lord more. And in a sense it is like consecrating them to the Lord and they you, so that you and they have nothing stopping you or them from attaining the Promise made to you - salvation and eternal life. Consecration, by the way, is to come to the Lord with empty hands so He will fill them. No one should keep you from the Truth, not even family. This passage does not mean to literally hate them therefore. Another way of looking at it, if your own earthly father or someone that you knew who loved you, died for you and it so happened that he saved your life by doing so, you would remember that fiercly, and no one would get in the way of your love for him. Don't forget He died for us.

Answer 4

Luke 14:26 is one of the many example of how high the standards of God is.

But thank God for Jesus has died on the cross to exchange our sins for His righteousness. When we accept Him as our savior and believe in His work on the cross, we become a New Creation, where the old has gone and the new has come. In this new form, we already died to ourselves and resurrected with Him. We now have non imputation of sins.

This is the gospel. Good news that is too good to be true but it's true anyway. The bible is more than 1 verse.

Answer 5

By hate, Jesus means you must not hold allegiances with anyone, including yourself. This is a call of complete loyalty. It means that there are no excuses for not heeding the call. However, this could easily be abused or misunderstood. Before taking any radical steps based on a single verse, you should seek guidance from others.

Answer 6

You would get more of a in depth answer if you asked a pastor or any clergyman rather then just normal sinners on yahoo answer like me...but I will try...

My study Bible said at the bottom of where that verse is that it does not induce violence or hate/ but as with most of Jesus's teachings was a parable that you should put your service to Christ first, adn your family second !

Answer 7

From what you've read so far, and will still read, it is clear that people don't want to accept that the bible is flawed. let me give you an example, you buy a jacket that simply doesn't fit you, you do your best to make yourself comfortable in it but you can't, you stretch your arm a little bit and bend your back a little bit to make it look like it fits you but it doesn't, you look like an idiot wearing that thing but because you happened to believe that this is the right thing for you you keep on trying to fit in that awkward jacket. Same with religion, you are forced to accept nonsense, and you keep trying to justify it, find excuses for it, and at the end of the day you make a fool of yourself.. you find yourself saying: no jesus didn't really mean this, well he actually meant that.. yet the man made it very clear, he said: HATE.. they read it, they look at it, they pray and cite it, but they just don't want to SEE it!
This also tells you that logic has no place when you are dealing with blind faith, and it’s blind all right!

Answer 8

"If any one comes to me without hating his father 7 and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Its means that he should be your first priority in life. you should hate the evil ways of these people and not the people themselves.

Answer 9

I wish I knew the original Greek word that has been translated into "hate." I also wish I knew all the linguistic nuances of the time, which I don't.

Hate? No, not hate like we think of it. It means that we must put Christ first in all things, and God must be the cornerstone of all relationships. It's the same as in Islam.... complete submission of one's totality to the will of God. We are to live according to God's will, not our own. Only then can we be true believers. Btw, this is the deep meaning of Islam.

In my religion, the Baha'i Faith, we are taught to know God and worship Him, and love Him so much that He is our hearts' TRUE desire, and that if by following Him we will be cast into hellfire, then because we love Him so much, we would still follow Him. That's my goal.

Answer 10

We are His if we love him and are called to his purpose. I love Jesus and he is first in my life, My parents think I speak to strongly about Christ but I don't care. My wife may not agree with all I say and that does not matter, I love my children but not in the same way.

The scripture is saying that our love for him makes all other love seem like hatred, I love my family but my love for him is so much more.

Understand, He was and is God but he came to earth to live as a baby, he lived life as an example without sin. God brought himself from on high because of his love for us and became a servant to man.

God gave his only Son so that we could have a way to him.

My love for him is so much greater than my love for anyone on earth and guess what. It can never come anywhere close to his love for us. I don't have words (no one has ever had words) to describe his love.

All you have to do is accept his love, ask him to love you today.