Luke 13 – 14

Verse 13:4 asks a pointed question:

Speaking of current events, you’ve all heard about the 18 people killed in that building accident when the tower in Siloam fell. Were they extraordinarily bad people, worse than anyone else in Jerusalem, so that they would deserve such an untimely death?

This is the ultimate question of “why do bad thing happen to good people.” Jesus answers this very quickly in the next verse with “of course not”.  Do I have a concrete answer beyond this? Absolutely not, we have no understanding of why people die “before their time.”  I know my personal experience of almost total death was a wake up. It was a reminder that my life could end tomorrow and live that way today. Don’t waste opportunities for there may not be a tomorrow.

Verse 13:8 is a verse of hope for those lost in this world:

The vineyard keeper replies, “Give it another chance, sir. Give me one more year working with it. I’ll cultivate the soil and heap on some manure to fertilize it.

This is on the fruitless fig tree. The vineyard keeper is God and He is not willing to give up on any of us. This means all of us; we all could be that fruitless fig tree. This is not just for the unbelievers, but also ones receive salvation if we get stagnant and stop sharing Jesus with others. God is so gracious that he would rather delay final judgment to see if we’d change than just cut us down. We see this over and over again in scripture from Adam to Jonah to Peter, we all get a second chance.

Verse 14:26 is one of the most debated and complex verses recorded of Jesus:

If any of you come to Me without hating your own father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, and yes, even your own life, you can’t be My disciple. 

We are told by Jesus to love and the 10 commandments say honor your father and mother, but here Jesus is saying to hate them. So why is this and how do we resolve the conflict of everywhere else in scripture? First we notice as Jesus is getting to the end of his ministry, His words become more direct and controversial. The greatest factor fighting for our faith is family and friends. How many have gotten into discussions over religion only to be shot down by a loved one.

Now I like to pick on Solomon and will do so again. If we look at his life, early on his wisdom had him striving for God. Late in life his wives had him following other gods and idols. This had huge ramifications on Israel and the repercussions are felt even today. So Jesus words have meaning here where Solomon needed to hate his wives and not blindly follow them down a path of destruction.

Unfortunately it seems to be in conflict, but think about the audience being mostly converted Jews. If you were following Jesus, especially early on your family would be opposed to you most likely. Therefore not listening to them would be most wise. But would hate be the right word? Look at love, in today’s world we tend to say love and most define it as the Greek’s do in Eros. The Greek word used here is “miseo” which is translated to hate in most NT cases, but “avoided” in many OT cases. See how difficult it becomes to get the true meaning.

We are not to hate our family, but rather avoid them if they are in conflict with Jesus’ message. And maybe not avoid them but rather avoid following them down wrong paths. Who knows? I think what is being shown here is the clash of love of family verse love of God and Jesus is addressing it directly.