"Hate Your Parents" Part I: Understanding Luke 14:26

Few teachings of Jesus are as jarring at first hearing as His words in Luke 14:26: “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be My disciple.” The statement seems to clash with Jesus’ consistent call to love God, love neighbor, honor parents, care for family, and even love one’s enemies (Matthew 22:37–40; Exodus 20:12; 1 Timothy 5:8; Matthew 5:44). Yet Jesus never contradicts Himself. When a passage appears severe or dissonant, the faithful work is to understand the language He uses, the Scriptural background He assumes, and the message He intends His disciples to hear.

The Greek word translated “hate” is μισεῖν (misein). In modern English, “hate” almost always refers to emotional hostility or ill will. But Jesus is speaking within a Jewish linguistic and cultural framework where “to hate” often means “to prefer less,” “to relegate to second place,” or “to relinquish primary allegiance.” This is a well-established Semitic idiom. Scripture repeatedly uses “hate” in this comparative, non-emotional sense. Jacob “hated” Leah (Genesis 29:30–31), meaning he loved her less than Rachel; Leah is not treated with hostility. Deuteronomy describes the “hated wife” as the less-favored one, not as an enemy (Deuteronomy 21:15–17). Throughout the Hebrew Bible and the Greek Septuagint, this idiom expresses relational priority and does not indicate emotional animosity.

The New Testament confirms this understanding. Matthew records the same teaching of Jesus in explicitly comparative terms: “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me” (Matthew 10:37). If Luke preserved the Semitic idiom in Greek form, Matthew provides the interpretive key: Jesus is not commanding emotional hatred but rather demanding that every earthly relationship be subordinated to Him. His point is relational hierarchy: if family, social expectation, or personal identity occupy the throne of the heart, then discipleship is impossible. This is simply a continuation of the same instructions expressed repeatedly in the Old Testament and echoed by Christ’s teachings, the Great Commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Matthew 22:37) and “And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (Deuteronomy 6:5). Jesus’ words in Luke 14:26 are merely an encapsulation of His well-established command.

The broader context of Luke reinforces this. Luke 14 presents a sequence of escalating sayings concerning discipleship: the reordering of one’s loves (Luke 14:26), the bearing of one’s cross (Luke 14:27), and the renunciation of all that one possesses (Luke 14:33). Jesus is describing the totality of allegiance required of those who follow Him. However, these verses should not be misunderstood as a list of meritorious works or ascetic achievements. Instead, Christ offers us a description of the inner condition of a disciple: Christ must be the supreme love, the supreme loyalty, the supreme authority. Everything else flows from this ordering, and as such, each is strengthened. The husband who loves God first loves his wife more fully, animated and ordered through Christic moral orientation and rooted in the commandments of Scripture. This description shows us the path towards more fulfilling, grounded, and stable relationships in our daily lives by rooting our love in God and not temporal things.

Jesus’ inclusion of the clause “yes, even his own life” decisively clarifies the idiom. One cannot emotionally hate one’s own existence and obey Him elsewhere, for Jesus commands that we love our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:39). The meaning is instead that even self-preservation, self-priority, and self-determination must be surrendered. The phrase corresponds directly to His command to “deny himself and take up his cross daily” (Luke 9:23). Jesus is consistent: discipleship requires the dethroning of the self. Here we see the truly edifying effect of this verse and of God’s command more greatly. A Christ-centered love is one necessarily outside and beyond the love of self, and it is from this precise place that ordered love springs. This is not unlike the inward transformation that comes from the birth of a child; suddenly, the self is “hated” and love of the child is prioritized above our own needs, and yes, even the needs of our spouse where those may conflict with those of the child. This does not mean that we love our spouse less, that he or she has somehow become lesser as our unified soul mate bound by covenant under God. It is actually much more; a righteous reordering of our love, our priorities, that somehow magnifies our love for one another even while the needs of the child receive priority.

Love Ordered Through Christ strengthens our love of friends, family, and neighbor

This teaching is not new. It echoes and intensifies the great commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might” (Deuteronomy 6:5). The Shema demands absolute priority for God; Jesus applies that priority to Himself as the incarnate Son. Thus Luke 14:26 is not a departure from the Hebrew Scriptures; instead, Christ fulfills and continues the commandments of the Old Testament. The same God who required undivided love in the Torah now speaks with human lips and commands the same undivided love of Himself.

The rest of Scripture confirms that Jesus is not sanctioning the rejection of family responsibilities. He condemns the Pharisees for nullifying parental honor (Matthew 15:4–6). He rebukes those who fail to care for their household (1 Timothy 5:8). He commands love even toward adversaries (Matthew 5:44). The call of Luke 14:26 cannot contradict these ethical teachings. It defines the relational center from which all true love flows. When God holds first place, human love is purified rather than diminished.

The pattern becomes unmistakable across the testimony of Scripture: divided loyalty is incompatible with discipleship. Israel was rebuked for “divided hearts” (Hosea 10:2). Elijah confronted the people for limping between two allegiances (1 Kings 18:21). Jesus Himself declares that no one can serve two masters (Matthew 6:24). Luke 14:26 participates in this same Scriptural theme. Jesus is not narrowing the circle of those He calls; He is revealing the impossibility of serving Him while enthroning another authority—family, culture, or self—above Him. Nor is this commandment limited in scope: a career, lust for another, devotion to others (including divine, spiritual, and heavenly creatures), addiction, and self-obsession all defy the Great Commandment.

The meaning of Luke 14:26, when understood in its linguistic, historical, and Scriptural context, becomes clear. Jesus calls His disciples to an ordered love in which He occupies the highest position. Everything else—family, relationships, desires, ambitions, and even selfhood—must take its rightful place beneath Him. This is not hostility toward others but fidelity toward Christ, a fact proven by the increased stability, order, and fulfilment of love directed towards others when it originates in our supreme love of God. It is the foundation of discipleship and the condition for all true transformation. Christ does not call us to hatred but to the reordering of the heart, that we may love rightly, live rightly, and follow Him without division. When we place our love in God first, we are modeling our lives on the example of Jesus Christ, as Christians are called to do, and love for our family will only improve with a Christological foundation. Instead of fostering relational division, we find that love, rightly ordered, draws the very people we “hate” towards God with us, so that a love of God creates its own gravity that strengthens the love between husband and wife, mother and child, daughter and father.