"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).Wait, wait ... hate his own father and mother and wife and children? Are you sure that's what He said? Yes, indeed, that's exactly it. Of course, this is a problem because we are told not to hate (Matt 15:4). So what does He mean here? The answer is common and adequate. Look, for instance, at a story from Genesis. We learn that Jacob had two wives, one he wanted and one he didn't. The text says "he loved Rachel more than Leah" (Gen 29:30). The next verse says, "When the Lord saw that Leah was hated ..." (Gen 29:31). Now, wait a minute! It didn't say Jacob hated Leah; it said he loved her less than Rachel. Oh, and, yes, that's the idea. So the Matthew 10 language would be preferred.
"Whoever loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me" (Matt 10:37).That's more the idea. A comparative response. Not hate as we generally mean it, but that the difference between loving father and mother and loving Christ would be so great as to appear to despise (consider of no value) father and mother, etc.
That's fine. Every commentator agrees on this. It has been the historical position. The context, the parallel texts, the similar concepts elsewhere all confirm this. And we're okay with it.
But ... are we? It's an odd thing, I think, but when we start to wrestle with this passage, we forget, well, the passage. We work through all this, figuring out just what Jesus did and didn't mean by "hate" and finally come to a reasonable conclusion. But we forget to plug that conclusion back into the text. I say that because look at the text. If "hate" here means "to devalue", then Jesus is telling us that we must devalue father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters ... yeah, we see that ... and our own lives.
Now, wait a minute! That's going too far! After all, each of us knows how valuable we are. We know how important we are. We know that Christ died for us, that we hold great value as image bearers of God, that we are gifted and called and saved. We are important. I mean, look, isn't it a given that we will love ourselves (Eph 5:29)? So this is a bit too much, even if it doesn't mean actual hate. It is the bridge too far, so to speak.
Jesus said that unless we hate our own lives, we could not be His disciples. We now have a choice. Will we hold to a higher view of ourselves, or will we agree with Christ? On the surface it may seem like an easy question. "We'll agree with Christ!" Really? How about when bad things happen? Will you complain, "Why, God?!", or will you say, "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord"? When trials occur will you bemoan the difficulties or will you "count it all joy"? Because, you see, it's much easier to handle hardships and trials from the hand of God if we don't have an over-inflated view of our worth. If, on the other hand, we're pretty sure God is lucky to have us, that gets a bit more difficult. Will you "hate your own life", at least in the sense of "devalue in respect to Christ", or are you going to stand on your own importance and value and demand that Christ agree? Because as far as I can tell the number one problem is our own demand for respect and consideration from God. "I will be like the Most High." And when He doesn't meet our demands, we're offended. Because, you see, we do not, in any sense of the word, hate our own lives. Something to consider.
Postscript:
Of course, there is another option. We can just say, "This text makes no sense as it is written and we will discard it in favor of some other obscure-but-favorable understanding because you can't treat the Bible like it's clear, true, or ... what ... divinely inspired? Come on!" But, then, you'll have to deal with every single passage that anyone might question and you'll lose any sense of basic certainty about anything "Christian". Your call.
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