Joan of Bark

This is the common apologetic argument used by Christians to try to justify a difficult-to-accept passage, but it brings up an old question: why was Jesus so damn obtuse? Why cause so much confusion? Why not just state bluntly: "You must put devotion to my teachings ahead of everything else, even family ties"? Why would He use language that would generate so much confusion?

(I would also state for the record that Jesus did not mean what the apologists claim; that is, He really didn't like families, including His own. It had nothing to do with loyalty to his teachings and everything to do with his bitterness over being an illegitimate child. There are many passages that support this theory. But that's a topic for another thread.)

Sheshbazzar

I'd say, "Take a hike" or "Go to hell you damn demon possessed piece of shit" to any religious loony, that attempted to persuade me that I needed to "hate", or abandon my family, my loved ones, and friends, to follow their crazy half-baked religious teachings.
What the hell is wrong with peoples heads, that permits them to continue to be so utterly stupid, self-centered, and irresponsible to their loved ones, as to buy into such odious religious crap?

rhutchin

What if you applied for a job and the potential employer told you that you would have to desert your family for hours each day, travel to far off locations and leave your family behind, and essentially put your work ahead of your family. Would you take the job or tell the employer to "Take a hike."?

rhutchin

Why sugar-coat it? To follow Christ is to put Him first regardless what others demand of you. His language seems to be very direct and certainly puts everything into proper perspective.

Dogfish

How does that even begin to compare to the verse? "abandon" vs "hours each day"? "Hate" vs "put your work ahead of your family"?

You're really reaching there, buddy.

Deus Ex

Agreed!

It is far more important to love your wife than to love God, and I will tell you why. You cannot help him, but you can help her. You can fill her life with the perfume of perpetual joy. It is far more important that you love your children than that you love Jesus Christ. And why? If he is God you cannot help him, but you can plant a little flower of happiness in every footstep of the child, from the cradle until you die in that child's arms. Let me tell you to-day it is far more important to build a home than to erect a church. The holiest temple beneath the stars is a home that love has built. And the holiest altar in all the wide world is the fireside around which gather father and mother and the sweet babes. -Robert G. Ingersoll

Joan of Bark

Rubbish! His language is confusing (else we wouldn't be arguing about it here). And why does He say it must be all or nothing? If you love me you must hate them?

Hey JC, can't I love you and them? Or are you too insecure for that?

I also find it ironic that fundamentalists like to talk about "family values" all the time, when Jesus constantly disparaged families.

rhutchin

You do not seem to be confused about the meaning. It is obvious that you do not like it; not that you do not understand it.

rhutchin

Or we might read Paul:

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;...So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it,... (Ephesians 5:25-29)

And we can still put the love of a husband for his wife in proper perspective to his love for Christ.

Sheshbazzar

Paul seemed to have real difficulty with reading or the repeating anything Jesus had allegedly said.
Strange, how time after time "Paul" will go on and on in presenting protracted theological arguments, while never quoting Jesus to make, or even support his point, when a simple quote from one of "Jesus" "sayings" would suffice.

Not beating around the bush, I believe that the reason for that, is simply that Paul did not have any of the Catholic church's latter fabricated "Gospels"
with all those the made up "Jesus" sayings, that were fabricated to serve the agendas of The Holy Roman Catholic Church.

So, as in this case, he wasn't even aware that Christian husbands were commanded by -"Jesus"- himself to hate their wives, it rather being an expression of that misogyny that had came to so afflict the Holy Roman Catholic Church from the 2nd century onwards.
An attitude that might be summed up as that wives ought always to be kept silent, pregnant, ignorant, and in servitude, which was cleverly incorporated by The Holy Roman Church in their creation of the books called "The Gospels", a group of books that the real "Paul" had never even heard of, with a "Jesus" -"speaking"- "sayings" that he, Paul, had never heard or known;
And was actually composed in an opposition to the original inclusive actions, and untampered with Gospel preaching and writings of Paul.

Paul, (the real Paul) had a Gospel, but his Gospel was not those latter Roman fabrications foisted off on an unsuspecting world under the name of "THE Gospels".
Paul, (the real Paul) had no need of any "Matthew", "Mark", "Luke", or "John", and The Gospel that he preached was never dependant upon these Johnny-come-lately writings, Although the Catholic Church "doctored" his writings and invented new writings in his name to make it appear that he supported their new theological inventions.