From: pharvey@mipos3.intel.com (Paul Harvey)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Luke 14:26 was (Dan Quayle always wanted to be a fisher of men) was (In the begining, was only the pale light of pre dawn and the din of fish mongers tending their secretive ways on the lower east side ...)
Date: 24 Jul 92 18:25:23 GMT

pharvey@mipos3.intel.com (Paul Harvey) writes:
Now you got me confused. So let's see if I got this right. Jesus says if
you want to be a follower of Him, the cost (of that "free gift") is you must 
HATE your family and even yourself. Is that correct? Now assuming that to
be correct, you are saying that that only refers to if you want to be a
follower of Jesus. You are saying that doesn't apply if you want to raise
a family? But how can you raise a family free of HATE and still be a follower
of Jesus at the same time? Is that not possible? Are you saying that no one
should be a follower of Jesus because he preached HATE but we should follow
what he says elsewhere on the family as long as it doesn't involve HATE? Are
you saying that if you want to follow Jesus, you must be schizophrenic? If
someone asks you if you are a follower you say, "Yes I HATE all, even my
mother, even myself", but if someone asks about your family you say, "Yes, I
have a beautiful loving family that is nothing but LOVE"? Can you please
explain the idea of context you see? Are you a follower of Jesus? Do you
follow all of His rules? Did Jesus preach a "mixed message"? Was His
message different for married men than for single men? Are you accusing Jesus
of being a fisher of men, a free gift peddler, a grifter?

weaver@chdasic.sps.mot.com (Dave Weaver) writes:
Sorry Paul, now you have me confused.
I will attempt to bring this back to the central issue, as I understand it.
You claimed that in Luke 14:26 Jesus is preaching hatred of family.  I 
disagreed. The basis of my disagreement is the context of the passage. The 
whole discussion (vs.25-35) is Jesus teaching about the cost involved in 
committing yourself to following him. He uses a few illustrations, one of 
which is v26. The central message of his talk (vs.25-35) is: if you wish to 
be a follower of Jesus, you must first consider the cost. He demands first 
priority in your life. Viewed from this context, v26 simply teaches that for 
a follower of Jesus, family must be a secondary priority, that devotion to 
family cannot outweigh devotion to him. That is why I disagree with the claim 
that Jesus is preaching hatred.
Again let me say. It can be misleading to quote someone speaking on "Topic A" 
and using that quote to determine his position on "Topic B".  The "Topic A" of 
this passage is the cost of discipleship.  


---
You make it sound like I'm twisting Jesus' words. Jesus said that a follower
must HATE family and even one's self, in order to be a follower, did He not?
He did not say "make it a priority in your life", did He? Now Jesus did
not say He was preaching hatred, He was too good of a fisherman for that. That
was my conclusion, but it seems to me that anyone who says you should HATE
your family and yourself is certainly not preaching "good family values". As
a matter of fact, I bet that if someone made a heavy metal song using Luke
14:26 as lyrics, there would be an uproar of condemnation and the CD would
probably be pulled from the shelves and anyone who sold a copy would be
thrown in jail, at least in Florida. As for me, I say we'd better start
making the family and the children, all the children, THE priority and
quick before there is nothing left. To make something else a priority over the
family is a clear demonstration of HATRED for all humankind. This HATRED
stuff is old school, even the Pope is rallying for making the family THE
priority. Of course, then again, I've heard he's not a bad fisherman either.