You want me to hate my mother?

You may be scratching your head if you read Luke 14 with me on the podcast today or ever on your own. I’m pretty sure there isn’t one of us who doesn’t trip on verses 26 & 27.  I get it…it’s jarring. The problem is that most of us don’t speak ancient Greek and Hebrew.  It’s always confused me why translators don’t tone down that word ‘hate’ but I suppose I’ll have to wait for a day when I’m able to corner a Bible translator with that question.  In the meantime, according to a note in my MacArthur study Bible, the hatred is actually a ‘lesser love’.  He’s telling us that the sense of the word in the ancient text is that we should be so devoted to Christ that our attachments to everything else will seem like hatred by comparison.  At ease, Jesus is not telling us to hate our mothers.