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NASB | Luke 14:26 "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. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Luke 14:26 "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 [in the sense of indifference to or relative disregard for them in comparison with his attitude toward God]--he cannot be My disciple. |
Subject: What does this mean? |
Bible Note: Prosemetic, "Hate" was evidently not understood by Jesus' hearers as we understand it today. The NASB margin notes: "I.e. by comparison of his love for Me." English can't give us a good modern analog to Jesus' idiom, so we have to dig into the Bible a bit. "Yet I have loved Jacob; but I have hated Esau..." (Mal 1:2-3) But wait a minute — "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love." (1Jo 4:7-8) Holy contradiction, Batman! Can God hate if He is love? Is Jesus saying that the more we love Him, the less we'll love our own children? Either we’ve got a fickle God or a faulty translation. Then again, how much could God have hated Esau if He sent His only begotten Son to die for people (us!) just like him (Heb 5.8). I’ve heard it said that God hates, not because He hates as we hate, but because He loves as we don’t love. When we choose sin, when we turn away from Him, He opposes us completely, and for our own good, because even the good we attempt without Him is ultimately for private purpose and, therefore, evil. God’s love is also just; if we love injustice His love will be hostile, oppositional, and translated as “hate”. (Read how David almost comprehends this Godly love-hate in Psalm 139:21-22). If we love our parents, friends, family more than Jesus, if we put them first, we are doing them and us no good. If I love my lovable atheist mother-in-law to the degree that I’m mum about our Lord, what good is that love? Jesus is frequently inflammatory, but always theological. In Luke 14.26 it sounds like by always coming to Him, by seeking Him first, we might learn to hate in the way that He loves. The translator is always a traitor; yet Jeremiah, who spoke directly from God, was almost universally misunderstood. Colin |