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Six

To Tell a Lie…Make it Big!

Luke that says,

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

At first glance, the Bible seems to encourage the hatred of immediate family members. Some strange cults not withstanding, do you know of any church that has a “hate your family rule?” Does the Bible teach the necessity of disliking or separating from parents, siblings, children, or spouse, in order to be part of the Church? Of course not! Why not? Because we know hating family members is not God’s heart. We know His character and His love for the family. We also know many other scriptures that contradict such a preposterous notion. For example, we are exhorted to provide for our family, especially those in our own household (1 Timothy 5:8).
All Jesus is saying in that verse in Luke is don’t let your family, or anyone else for that matter, be idols to you. Don’t put them ahead of God in your life, because the enemy could use them to trip you up. That’s all He’s saying. Your love and devotion to Him must be first and above all else. We never hear of a house of God requiring members to hate their families. Maybe some crazy cult would, but no healthy Christian church would promote such a thing. Why not? Because we know that is not God’s heart!
Our problem is that the enemy has been able to influence and affect our filters of interpretation. Ever since the fall, satan has been twisting our thinking. Tragically, the enemy has sold us a pack of lies, and because we believe these lies are the truth, we read a verse like “women are to keep silent in the church,” and we actually entertain it as if that ...

... middle of paper ...

...t teach them and be true to the full context of the discussion in 1 Corinthians. Either Paul meant what he literally said and women are no to make a single sound when the church meets, or he was using hyperbole to confront the false teaching. Paul was using humor and exaggeration to poke fun at an obviously ridiculous belief.
I have actually heard otherwise brilliant men make the claim that Paul only meant that women are to be submissive to males in the church. But sadly, even today, this verse is frequently used to prevent women from being pastors, teachers, and elders (1 Timothy 2:12). You cannot have it both ways! Either the women are to have not leadership role in the church, or God is the God of loving inclusion, as Paul so beautifully demonstrates in 1 Corinthians 13. We will look further at the subject of elders in book #8 of this series, Nobility’s Rule.

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