Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, 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. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:25-27 ESV) What is the moral here exactly....?
Hate refereed to "willing to put Jesus first, even before their family and their own life". I think you probably know this anyway and you posted this just to stir up (*)(*)(*)(*).
Why would anyone put Jesus first? Does him claiming to be the son of God warrant that devotion? All he did was some cheap tricks. He never did tell a mountain to jump into the sea and have it do as he commanded. If he was still wiggling on the cross he might have a point. But he isn't. And his message isn't that impressive either.
There is always someone or something you put first in your life. Better Jesus than yourself or your drug habit if any.
I love asking difficult questions. It seems rather odd to expect people to hate their family, is it not?
It's not that hard a question, anyone who's actually read the entire new testament would easily understand the context of that verse.
Put hate in context to that of hating yourself,as the verse included.It would seem odd to hate yourself as well but the disciples had to deny themselves and eventually face the music. No one that loves themselves would bother to go through persecution. Self-love would have you put your own desires and needs before doing anything that Jesus told them to do. Spacecricket put it context but some say that Jesus used hyperbolic language to express his points..
That's how cults get started, and Christianity was a cult long before it had an official imperial church.
I always read that as hating ones life no matters who it is. Hating the human life experience. As anyone can see now its unfulfilling.
When you read that passage and compare it to a healthy mental state Jesus comes across as a master manipulator. He gets people to commit to a cult in which he is the focus of all of their attention. They give up everything to go zooming off to do his bidding. Some even end up losing their lives. That's what guys like Charles Manson and Jim Jones did to their followers. You would think that a deity could have found a better way.
The very sort of observation I would expect from the clueless...Jesus is God incarnate. God made it all so of course had he chosen he could have made us all his slaves at his whim. He did not of course so choose. What did the followers of Christ do that got them in so much trouble? Well for openers they denied the godhood of men like Nero and Caligula. They taught love, peace, and mercy. For this theyw ere hounded and murdered by such as you.
I certainly can't argue against a none-believer's perspective because that would make sense to see it that way. However, comparing Manson to Jesus isn't so parallel. He manipulated his followers to kill. (because his delusions weren't manifesting)
I explained that "hate" doesn't mean what you're saying it does, in the context. I means the disciples were willing to put Jesus above their own family, not that they actually despised their family. Plus if you actually read the Bible, you'll see that his apostles still kept in touch with their family, which makes the context obvious.
So then why use the word hate? Why would a God expect people to hate their family if it came to that? Is God really that insecure?
But, wait, didn't Jesus say to love everyone? Which is it? And why would the word "hate" be used to say "put Jesus first?" lol, that doesn't make sense. And if Jesus also says to love everyone, but loving everyone doesn't mean putting them before god, then how does hate mean putting god first? It just looks like you're desperately trying to turn this into a positive thing (not that I think putting religion before family is actually positive). And we're talking about a god that told people to slaughter their own family members for petty crap, so is it really that unbelievable that god would tell people to hate their family? Check out this passage: Here, the god suffering from multiple personality disorder yet again talks about people being against their family. Really, because I've read the entire Bible, and that passage just looks stupid. The ol' "it's out of context" copout when you don't want to deal with a crappy passage.
"Hate" obviously didn't have the same meaning in the context of the time that the Bible was written, as it does in modern speak.
Really? The definition of hate has changed sense then? Can you provide some scholarly work to back that up?
Its found by reading more than one sentence. You know, a process not found strange in any other profession or study save atheism. The context of that famous quote is quite clear when you bother to read the entire thing, but alas, our atheists are unable to read an entire paragraph - must mean Christianity is screwed up? As opposed to those who can only manage to read one sentence, and then declare themselves master of religion ... but cannot offer any insight into an oft quoted passage of the Bible that anyone who has actually read the Bible would know. Go ahead atheists, deliberate non-contextual quotation is clearly a sign of great, superior even, intellect rather than simple dishonesty.
No, he did love everyone, its just that love is not the same thing as enabling abuse and atrocity ...
It says that God must be the center of your world. It goes on in other parts of the Bible that would should honor our father and mothey and family but God must come first. Pretty simple really. My dad can't get to in heaven but God can.
