Recently we had a good debate about hatred. I appreciate those comments and the discussion that ensued. I still hold to the idea that God does not command us to hate, that we are not called to hatred simply because the bible tells us God Himself hates, nor do I believe hatred is a Christian value or virtue.
It is an emotion, not a calling.
Nor do I really hold to the idea that we should soften the word “hate” when we find it in scripture so it means something more akin to “love less.” However, here is an excellent article about that. It touches on language and culture, on understanding the more passionate language used in the bible and what is being conveyed in the context of culture at the time it was written. I appreciated this, because I recently had a conversation with a couple of missionaries in the Middle East and they too spoke of precisely the same thing, of culture and the extreme language that sometimes feels like hyperbole to them. Like how it is not unusual for a casual acquaintance to grab you and tell you how much they love you. “Love” and “hate” are used both casually and poetically and one’s honor and pride are really the central focus of just about everything, which can feel really foreign to more staid, Western sensibilities.
Clearly scripture uses the word “hate” quite frequently. If perceiving it as meaning “love less” is helpful, than by all means, do that. Myself, I prefer not to soften those words for a variety of reasons, one being that by the time we get to actually looking at sin or evil, “love-less” no longer really works. We aren’t really called to love sin a bit less than we do righteousness, so the translation begins to fall apart when it moves away from this context.
There is another way of perceiving the word “hatred” in the bible however, the method that I tend to use, where it provides a contrast for our hearts, a mirror reflection of the same kind of deep, passionate, emotion we are supposed to be directing towards love. The opposite of love is not hatred, it is indifference. On an emotional level hatred and love can run pretty close together, flip sides of the same coin. So if we can hate something intensely, we can flip that same kind of passion and intensity over to love.
Luke 14:26 is a good example of this, “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”
We are not being commanded to hate our families here, or even to love them less, we are being told to love God, to put Him first, with all the intensity and passion that we would usually reserve for hatred. God must become more important to us than all our other sentimentality and attachments, including our own lives. The language being used here is actually rhetoric and hyperbole, deliberately designed to trigger an emotional response.
Luke 10:27 says, “And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”
How do we know what it looks and feels like to love God with all our heart, soul, and strength? Well, remember when you hated so badly every inch of your being wanted revenge on your enemies? Love God with that same kind of passion and intensity. That is part of what Luke 14:26 is conveying.
I have been really blessed by some of these passages. God put them right in front of me and imparted some wisdom I so desperately needed at the time. So they do not offend me at all, I am not uncomfortable with them, they can life saving. If you are surrounded on all sides by really dysfunctional family or in a bad relationship, Luke 14:26 can be the reminder, just the permission you need to put God first, to invest all your passion and energy into your relationship with Him, forsaking all others.
See, there's this thing called biology... 
I really like this blog – very insightful!
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Every scripture must be taken in context according to a few filters. The historical, literary and theological elements must all be addressed. A great example of how hard it can be for language nuances to be understood when something is translated from one language and culture to another is the example of the statement “stop beating a dead horse” – to an American we understand there isn’t an actual dead horse and no one is beating it. Other cultures would not understand this saying.
There are many such cultural examples in the Bible – greeting with a Holy Kiss. We don’t literally do this today because it was part of their culture. It means reconciliation and acceptance, a holy kiss means forgiveness. That is why Judas kissing Christ was so absolutely wrong.
Taking a scripture alone, away from its context, and not understanding the literary, historical, cultural or theological aspects can really misconstrue the meaning of any given passage. I just went through this the other day with one of my readers because he felt conflict between two scriptures. One being the scripture telling us to pray in our closet and the other being the famous “where two or more are gathered” scripture. The latter is probably one of the most misused scriptures and does not mean what most think. It’s truth, but it deals with something a little different than we think http://www.crosswalk.com/faith/bible-study/why-the-context-of-matthew-18-20-is-important.html
The goal of hermeneutics and Exegesis is to extract what God meant when he wrote the scripture, anything beyond this comes at a cost to truth. When I say to examine its theological aspects you need to take your passage versus what the entire bible tends to speak on the subject. Cross referencing Old Testament with new is a great way to extract the truth.
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Greetings IB, I may not use the word command…but what about this one? “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” John 12:25. It’s not the only verse where Jesus uses love and hate as opposites, and I agree that we shouldn’t be redefining words, but I’m having difficulty applying the contrast you suggest.
Also, I tend to agree with your love against indifference opposition, hate being a misguided “caring” about something or someone. But then I think if ‘perfect love casts out fear’ how does that fit? I think where I end up is that God’s love is strong enough to oppose any list of negatives the devil can throw at us! Be blessed – Have a great day!
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Well, I think you understand what I am saying pretty good because you said, “Jesus uses love and hate as opposites.” I said a “mirror reflection” which is pretty much the same idea, what is reflected will be a reverse image. Opposites. So John 12:25 is not actually instructing us to literally hate our life, like in the way people walk around declaring, “I hate my life.”
In truth, the beauty of that passage is far more profound, it explains how when we are deeply attached to our life, have invested everything we have into it, and then we lose it, we’ve lost everything. If instead our eyes are on Christ, we are invested in storing up treasures in heaven, than when we lose our life, we have actually lost nothing and gained the whole world. Death at that point just becomes like stepping from one room into the next and the fear of it has no power over us.
John 12:25 is using the same literary technique as Luke 14:26. “Hate” is being used as a way to show us how to sever our sentimentalities, our fleshly attachments, and to put all that emotional investment in loving the Lord instead. We are not being told to simply hate our life and stay there, we are being told to love God more than we love our own lives.
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There is one idea l hold to only because it remains so far from what humanity can seem to be able to do on its own: how God managed to reconcile His mercy and peace with His truth and righteousness, be just and the Justifier while in “Thy wrath” also grant such a complete “pardon” as He has in the outrageous gift of salvation that “turns away wrath, removes God’s enmity from us and our enmity to Him” given that “to turn a heart to God is as difficult as to make the world revolve upon its axis.” (Spurgeon, Ps.85)
I agree in those inightful words about “one’s honor and pride being the central focus of just about everything.” Maybe that is what makes the severe mercy of God and His honor such a mystery which seems to be taking a lifetime for its “unsearchable riches” to be revealed. The manner in which God has solved the greatest problem humanity has faced by reconciling His unchangeable nature and character: a holy God of justice and righteousness, love and mercy, and managed to love us sinners while hate our sin, in His great plan of salvation, a Self-sacrifice that boggles the natural mind. How He has forgiven our sins in a manner that keeps His love from conflicting with His justice, and His mercy somehow compatible with His righteousness, miraculously keeping the law intact by carrying it out yet still forgiving the sinner remains a marvel!
“Mercy and truth meet; righteousness and peace kiss.” (Ps.85:10) The most beautiful reconciliation ever. Forgiveness and salvation no simple or easy task as it took the Father sending His own Son into the world, “take humanity upon HImself and raise it up by humbling Himself and living as a man…’living under the law’, giving perfect obedience to it, working as a carpenter in His father’s workshop in Nazareth…not born in a king’s palace but came into poverty, need and lowliness. At the Cross God was making His own Son to be our Sin-Bearer, putting our (my) sins upon Him and punishing them, so God remains just and righteous because the sin is punished, the law is fulfilled,as Jesus bears the penalty for us and God opened a way of forgiveness for us. He reconciled His own attributes.” M. Lloyd-Jones (Eph.3, Romans 3, Colossians 2)
Godliness continues to be a mystery, yet what a blessing to know, as you have so often written about, of the great and merciful love that He has when just one sinner repents, one sheep no longer lost. (Luke 15) Blessings to you IB.
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I’ve been contemplating the previous post you mention and the conversation that followed, and it’s taken my mind an entirely different direction. It’s both off-topic and much too long for a comment, but I will try to make a post of my own. The heart of what I hope to write concerns the theology of glory v. the theology of the cross. J.
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Sounds good, Salvageable. I’m interested in what you have to say. I’ll keep an eye out for your post. Feel free to leave a link, too.
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Ah Memi, in communication, there is intended meaning, and perceived meanings. Wilson notes the he reads the Word “naturally”, i.e. Respecting figures of speech and idioms when those were the intent of the speaker.
For example “bad” , meaning the dark version of “cool”, Never works for me, since Micheal Jackson ruined use of the term!😏
“Judgmental” is another ruined word. If I say “Memi is a female.” That is a statement of fact, not judgement.
Though often statements of fact are pronounced “judgements” by some, when they don’t want to face facts!😏👍
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