Did Jesus Really Tell us to Hate our Father and Mother?

 Atheist's Comment on Luke 14:26: "Nice god you folks worship. 🙄 Christians have their bags of excuses that they use. "That's taken out of context" is one that they use all the time. They'll try to say that I just "don't understand" what it really means, and so forth, or they'll try to put a spin on it and manipulate it somehow to try and justify what it says, but in the end they just make themselves look foolish and prove how biased, brainwashed and dishonest they are by demonstrating it with their denial tactics."

Reply: Jesus often put things in a black or white perspective. He said anyone who is not for him is against him. In another place he said anyone who is not against him is for him. Love, hate, for, or against... are just a few of the provocative and polarizing sayings of Jesus.

Our Creator is the same yesterday today and forever. He commands his followers to honor their mother and their father, to be faithful to spouses, and to bring up children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. He's not going to then say hate them (in the way English-speaking westerners would mean it).

Jesus laid claim to exclusivity when he used polarizing language to illustrate that we could allow no one to come between us and our God. If that happens, then we must walk away from them. If we do not, we cannot be his disciples.

When speaking of a vengeful hatred, Jesus said if we hate in our hearts, we are murders. Jesus was obviously not advocating parenticide. But he did not shy away from making provocative illustrations in the important issue of being his disciple. His choice of words shows just how seriously he takes that.

In one account, we read where he called a man to follow him and the man made an excuse by telling Jesus that he would follow him later, after he first "buried his father." This was a term meaning that he would remain with his father until his father died, and after that, he would become a disciple of Christ.

Jesus bluntly told him to walk away from his father. The phrase he used to relay that message was, "let the dead bury their dead and you come follow me." Jesus obviously meant that anyone who was not alive in him was spiritually dead. And he was putting a choice before the man to either love God and come follow Christ by "hating" his father, which meant leaving his home, or to hate God by choosing his earthly father over his Heavenly Father.

We are not given details, but there must have been something about remaining in his father's home that prevented this man from fully following Christ. His was a one or the other choice--a love or hate choice--as is ours, whenever we love anyone or anything more that we love our God.

The Bible was not written in English, so transferring ancient Hebrew and Greek thought into succinct English can be difficult. In some cases, even when the text seems straight-forward, we have seen that [contextually speaking] biblical definitions can vary quite a bit from the secular.

Rightly discerning the Word of God means knowing what it says. We gain a comprehensive knowledge of its contents by reading it through and through over and over. the Bible says spiritual things are spiritually discerned and the Holy Spirit will teach us. God gives his people called and anointed Bible teachers, not for us to depend on, but in addition to our own personal study. We should read our Bibles prayerfully and daily, always picking up today where we left off yesterday.

Author and speaker, Jocelyn Andersen, is an eclectic Christian writer. She is a Bible teacher who writes about many subjects including Bible prophecy and equality of the sexes. She is best known for her advocacy in domestic violence awareness. Her book, Woman Submit! Christians & Domestic Violence, has been a staple in the library of resources on that subject.  

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