Family Matters

The holidays are officially over and everyone is starting to get back into the swing of the New Year. For me at least it was a good holiday season. Hopefully it was for you as well. The time between Thanksgiving and New Year is traditionally the time when people travel about the country getting reacquainted with close friends and family. You get to see those aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws, and out-laws that perhaps you don’t otherwise get to see throughout the course of the rest of the year. It can be very stressful, but hopefully it is (at least overall) a time of love, joy, and reuniting with loved ones. But for now, it is time to get back to work.

On what may appear to be a completely unrelated subject, but not really if you indulge me a second… I was talking with an acquaintance the other day about how difficult it often can be to understand scripture. We ended up in an interesting conversation about the various different translations of the Bible. Out of the blue, then, my friend said that the biggest single scripture with which they had difficulty understanding was the passage where Jesus said we had to hate our parents. They explained that it wasn’t until they heard in a sermon that what Jesus really meant was that we had to love God so much more than our family that is “seems” like hate in comparison. The scripture in question is Luke 14:26-27, which says

"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” (NIV)

When studying the gospels, it is often helpful to look for occurrences of the same situation in one or more of the other gospels. In this case, this same situation is recorded a bit differently in Matthew 10:37-39

"Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

Now we can tie it back to the original discussion, because what Jesus was really trying to say is a bit broader than just loving God more than we love our families. Rather, Jesus was saying that under no circumstances should our family or our friends stand in the way of our obedience in surrendering to and following Jesus Christ. It really was a great Thanksgiving and Christmas season. However, think back to all the family and friends you may have visited during this past Holiday season. What if, for the sake of Christ, you had to abandon those relationships?

I am so completely fortunate and blessed that my family is in complete support of the fact that I have decided to give myself to Christian ministry in obedience to Jesus’ call on my life. Not everyone could say the same thing. In fact, there are many places in our world today where merely becoming a Christian can literally (from a worldly perspective) ruin your life. Foxe’s Book of Martyrs is an extremely eye-opening book about the persecution of the church, but much of it is historical in nature. Here in 21st Century America, we don’t often think about religious persecution, but it does exist in our world. A simple internet search is all you need to see the truth about what is happening throughout the world today. By contrast, many of us have become so content in our “American Dream” lives that we aren’t even willing to give up simple comforts and be inconvenienced for the sake of Christ… much less lose our family – or worse – our own lives.

As we begin the New Year, let us thank God for the blessings of our families, but let us also be reminded that our true calling is to surrender our all – even those we love - to Christ.