06/05/2026
HATING MOTHER AND SPOUSE AND CHILDREN
Jesus' test of true discipleship
By Dr. J. Robert Cosand
I have a book in my library entitled The Hard Sayings of Jesus. There’s a similar book in the Bethel church library entitled The Hard Sayings of the Bible. These titles are taken from a phrase in the King James translation of John 6:60.
Jesus had just said, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.” And His listeners responded by remarking, “This is a hard saying,” no doubt referring to the notion of eating His flesh and drinking His blood… thinking it sounded like cannibalism.
A biblical “hard saying” is a statement that is hard because it is difficult to understand. What appears on the surface is startling and seems, sometimes, to be something Jesus or the Bible would not say. And “hard sayings” are hard because they sometimes challenge our assumptions about what is true, and they show us another way.
They are statements like,
“If you do not forgive men, then your Father will not forgive you” (Matthew 6:15).
“If your right eye causes you to sin, pull it out and throw it away… and if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away, because it is better that one part of your body perishes rather than that your whole body goes into hell” (Matthew 5:29,30).
“Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth: I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother….” (Matthew 5:34,35).
You can see how these statements by our Lord would be called “hard sayings.” They startle us because they don't sound like something Jesus would say, and they cause us to think on a different level than we usually think. In Luke 14:26-33 we have a call to thoughtful obedience. The sober, startling statements in this paragraph ought to echo in our 21st century souls, reminding us that the call of Christ is not a call to a life of ease, but to a life of discipline and whole-heartedness and passion for Him that outshines all our other passions.
Jesus starts here by saying, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26). It sounds like a contradiction to the 5th commandment, “Honor your father and your mother.” It sounds like it contradicts 1 Timothy 5:8: “If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for the members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”
What does Jesus mean here?
The parallel verse in Matthew 10:37 is very helpful at this point. “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” Jesus points to the dearest relationships that we have on earth.
Who does not have a deep emotional reaction in their hearts at the mention of father and mother? What husband does not have feelings that run deeply in his soul at the mere thought of his wife? What mother does not have consuming and protective impulses when it comes to her children?
Jesus' point is very piercing in this statement. He is saying, “Do you know how much you love your mother and father? Do you know how great your allegiance is to your spouse? Do you know the feeling of being willing to give your very life for your children? Love me more than that! Give to me greater allegiance than you do to them! Lay down your life for me!”
The call of Christ is a call to complete and unchallenged devotion to Him. He wants to be dearer to us than the dearest people we know. In fact, He says, “Love me more than you love your own life. Are you willing to lay down your life for me? Are you willing to renounce your pride and selfishness? Are you willing to leave off that pet sin of yours because your love for me is so consuming?” And the thing that startles us most is to hear Him say, “If you are not willing to give this kind of allegiance, you cannot be my disciple.”
Why does Jesus say such things? Doesn't He know the principles of marketing? You must make things convenient for folks or they will turn away! They will find another religion down the street that does not make stringent demands on them. Is Jesus trying to discourage people from coming to Him? Doesn't He want to attract as many people as possible?
The answer is that because great multitudes were coming to Him, Jesus wanted to prevent people from following Him lightly and thoughtlessly, borne along by some emotional wave or out of curiosity.
Jesus is saying, “A disciple is not someone who listens to my teaching and is excited by the miracles. A disciple is someone who has heard the claim I lay to his life – and that claim is total –and then, after carefully considering what I am asking, he follows me fully. A disciple gives complete allegiance to me for the rest of his life, even if it costs him his life. Now, who wants to follow me and be my disciple? If you aren't willing to trust me with your life, you cannot be my disciple.”
Of course, our allegiance to Christ is not a perfect allegiance, but it is sincere and abiding.
This is the evidence of true faith, and the evidence is that the heart loves Him more than the dearest person on this earth: that there is a willingness to lay down pride and lust and jealousy and stubbornness and selfishness and greed, and anything that gets in the way of our communion with Christ.
The evidence of faith is a heart that says, with the hymn writer, “Jesus, Lover of my soul, let me to Thy bosom fly…. Thou, O Christ, art all I want; more than all in Thee I find.”
Longing to be totally His,
Pastor Cosand
