Sai

i never could understand selling all your stuff to follow christ, or prepare for the end of the world. What are you supposed to do with the money?

Dark Virtue

That's an easy one...

spamandham

You're supposed to catch fish, and stick coins in their mouths.

Dark Virtue

Unfortunately, I've seen far too many cases of this...ruined families for the hope of some eternal gift.

Dogfish

No, I think it's, "If you slander him, he'll punish you for eternity". HELL of a nice guy!

graymouser

Really? Where in the context of Lk. 14:26 does Jesus say that anyone who follows him must love God or his family? After all, if you're saying that it's a literary construction meaning "you must love your father and mother less than God," where is the follower instructed to love God? Your prior example, on which you're attempting to build a case, of the contrast of "love" and "hate" in Gen. 29:30-31 (the LXX, which would have been known to the NT writers, used agapw and misew) builds on the interplay of the two words. Yet there is no agapw in the discourse in Lk. 14:25-35, only misew. A parallel construction can't work if only half the parallel is there.

What's interesting is that this verse does have a pretty clear meaning in its context, but it isn't the apologetic "love them less than God." Jesus says "Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple." (14:27, all cites are from NASB) and "So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions." (14:33). He is not asking for God to come first and other affections second - he is saying that discipleship must be a follower's sole concern in life. If you are to be a Christian, you are commanded to not only believe in Jesus, but to follow him without regard for possessions, family or (and this is quite clear from the "carry his own cross" line) your own life.

Now, this isn't family friendly, so conservative Christians really want Jesus to not have said the bit about hating your family. And it's clear, to some degree, he was being emphatic - you need to devote yourself to the point where you despise your family. But it's twisting the plain meaning to make this into "well, you should love your family but love God more."

semiopen

The Love/Hate thing was tied by IBIH to Deuteronomy which is considered to be structured as a covenant between a king and his vassals (servants, etc.) This is considered to be modeled after the Esarhaddon Convenant structure of 8th century BCE Assyria, although some conservative Christian scholars suggest it is closer to a second millenium structure.

As I've mentioned before, dealing with this structure is probably critical in fully developing IBIH's point, which seems to be that Jesus imposes his own convenant on all peoples. There are some difficulties with this in that whatever Jesus (or the New Testament authors) was doing is sort of a one sided convenant where it is imposed on people who are not his vassals.

IBIH has made a transition in this thread from being pseudo-scholarly to inane bible thumping.

Johnny Skeptic

Message to IBelieveInHymn: Are you aware of any fair, worth, and just goal that God would not be able to accomplish without injuring and killing humans and animals with hurricanes?

Do you know why God withholds evidence that would cause more people to accept him?

If you wish, we can discuss these issues at the General Religious Discussions Forum.

IBelieveInHymn

How many Christians hate their parents because of these verses? Do you think the Pope hates his parents? Do you believe Billy Graham hates his parents? What about Joel Osteen? Do you believe all of these men despise their parents, so they can be a disciple of Jesus?

Twisting the words of God is forbidden, and you might be condemned to hell.

spin

As you've done a fair bit of twisting for your own desires, have you prepared for your trip?


spin