[Raj_Copi_Jin]

Jesus Speaking) If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he can not be my disciple. (Luke 14:26 NAB)

This is another example of the danger of reading and quoting just one single verse and then jumped to some negative conclusions about God's Holy Scripture. As I have mentioned several times, we have to read the preceding verses, and better still, the whole chapter to get a correct understanding of the teaching.

This verse (and the preceding verses of Luke 14:26) is about the first cost was with regard to family when you are testifying and/or actively involved in the ministry of Jesus of His impending death on the cross and resurrection from the grave. We heard even today, many parents are prepared to 'disown' their children when they have heard that their children have converted and become believers of the Gospel. Sadly, believers are fighting against not just flesh and blood but against the power of darkness. This dark force will tell the parents that as believers of Gospel your children will not be able to take care of you when you are gone. They wlll not worship you; they will not offer sacrifices to you, etc. So, the first cost of being a believer is usually regard to family (and this later followed by other cost the believers will have to bear such as being persecuted in the work place, etc).

What is being taught here is that as believers who are prepared to testify for Christ's finished work, we must be prepared to live our lives that are set apart from the world, and that has to begin setting ourselves apart from our family. But that doesn't mean that we have to leave our parents. or to abandon them. What this meant is that we are going to encounter alot of difficulties and challenges from our family members who are non-believers for our faith in Christ Jesus. Thus, those believers who ‘come to Him’ in order to follow Him must recognise that He must then mean more to them than their families. They must respond to His way of life and His words. They must love their families less than they love Him.

By way of note: The Greek word used here is regularly translated in modern versions as ‘hate’ and that is what it does often mean. But we must remember that when translating from one language to another, we often cannot find a perfect equivalent. The word 'hate' can mean "to love less" rather than in the strict sense of 'hate' that inherently encompasses feeling of anger and wanting to take revenge. This is not exactly what it meant here when the word is translated to 'hate' in English from Greek. Taking into the right context of what believers are to face (and many new converts can really testify this fact to you), it meant that in order to believe in the finished work of Jesus and in order to prepare ourselves to share the Good News, we have to love the world less, and this have to first began from our family, especially those with family whose backgrounds are in ancestor worship, idol worship and other pagen religions. Without this attitude of loving our family less, we cannot be a true believer let alone to share the Good News with the non-believers.