what I found when I researched the word hate/helps make sence of romans 9:13
Posted : 14 Nov, 2011 09:41 AM
Luke 14:26 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.
The subject here is the word for hate, which is the Greek miseo. One Skeptic is typical of critics when he writes:
Most Christians feel obligated to soften the face meaning of the word 'hate' to something like 'love less than me,' even though the Greek word miseo means 'hate.'
In line with this comment, Skeptics will stress the meaning of the word "hate" and insist that the word must be read literally, and that Jesus is truly preaching hate. But in fact, the "softening" is correct to do -- and is perfectly in line with the context of the ancient world, and the Jewish culture in particular.
For a background on the use of extreme and hyperbolic language in the Bible, I direct the reader first to my foundational essay on this subject. Abraham Rihbany (The Syrian Christ, 98f) points to the use of "hate" in the Bible as an example of linguistic extreme in an Eastern culture. There is no word, he notes, for "like" in the Arabic tongue. "...[T]o us Orientals the only word which can express any cordial inclination of approval is 'love'." The word is used even of casual acquaintances. Extreme language is used to express even moderate relationships.
Luke 14:26 falls into a category of "extreme language," the language of absoluteness used to express a preference, and may refer to disattachment, indifference, or nonattachment without any feelings of revulsion involved. To seal this matter completely, let's look at some parallel materials which prove our point. The closest example comes from Genesis 29:30-1:
And he went in also unto Rachel, and he loved also Rachel more than Leah, and served with him yet seven other years. And when the LORD saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb: but Rachel was barren.
Here, "hated" is clearly used synonymously with one who is loved less. Let it be added that if Jacob hated Leah in a literal way, it is hardly believable that he would consent to take her as his wife at all. (See also Judges 14:16 and Deut. 21:15-17.)
Now here is another example from Jesus, Luke 16:13:
No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hatethe one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.
Such extremes of feeling would be atypical, but the extremes are not meant to be taken literally; the point is that one master will get more dedicated labor than the other.
Now let's move into some secular works with the same sort of hyperbolic language. Fitzmeyer's Lukan commentary offers this example from Poimandes 4:6:
If you do not hate your body first, O child, you will not be able to love yourself.
Would critics suppose that this teaches literal hatred of the physical body? It does not -- it emphasizes the need to give preference to the whole self before the body alone. Literal hate of the body would have us cutting it with razors or hitting it with blunt objects -- an extreme practiced in some Eastern faiths, but not among the Greeks.
Here is another example from a war song in the Poetae Lyrici Graeci(see James Denney, "The Word 'Hate' in Lk. 14:26," Expository Times21, 41-42): it is said that in battle, men "must count his own life his enemy for the honor of Sparta" -- is this a literal hatred of one's own life being taught? No! It is emphasizing the need to make one's life secondaryfor Sparta's sake. Here's a final example from Epictetus 3.3.5: "The good is preferable to every intimate relation." This is just a more abstract version of Luke 14:26!
what I found when I researched the word hate/helps make sence of romans 9:13
Posted : 14 Nov, 2011 01:54 PM
amen PJ they say the bible says what they want it to say by taking it out of context and twisting and interperting.. it s pride and borders or maybe is complete blasphemy
what I found when I researched the word hate/helps make sence of romans 9:13
Posted : 14 Nov, 2011 08:06 PM
Elisha, see if this makes any sense to you.........
You were shown an ENTIRE CHAPTER, Romans 9 to be specific.
Your response was to focus on ONE WORD?
Paul is TEACHING US a subject, which is that God is the one who chooses whom He will show mercy on and that it is NOT up to the will of man.
It does not matter what you want the word "hate" to mean, because God showed mercy to one and NOT the other.
You need to read and deal with what Paul is saying, and not just focus on one word:
she was told, "The older will serve the younger." 13As it is written, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."
14What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God�s part? By no means! 15For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." 16So then it depends not on human will or exertion,[b] but on God, who has mercy. 17For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." 18So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.
19You will say to me then, "Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?" 20But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why have you made me like this?" 21 Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? 22What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory� 24even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? 25As indeed he says in Hosea,
"Those who were not my people I will call 'my people,'
and her who was not beloved I will call 'beloved.'"
26 "And in the very place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,'
there they will be called 'sons of the living God.'"
what I found when I researched the word hate/helps make sence of romans 9:13
Posted : 14 Nov, 2011 08:39 PM
James, I focused on the word hate because it was that particular scripture you had asked me to explain in another post! NO I will not accept that Jesus only died for some, I guess you could look at it that way if you say well if you get saved then youare one of the ones Jesus died for, I have explained what I believe to be true over and over I am not anything to but into a catagory I am not an extreme either way but what I believe is that the truth is kind of a little of both, my point was that God do not just decide to hate esau and love Jacob and this is not what I want hate to mean it is what the greek word that was translated hate means!
So I will try to explain it for you one last time.. A sinner living in sin and filth and aboniation to God , God loves him so do other people who are praying for God to move in his life, so things in his life start to happen, bad things.. his wife leaves maybe he ends up in jail or maybe he isnt such a bad sinner maybe he just gets laid off and cant figure out how he will feed his family, either way God has brouight him to a place where he sees his need for God, so maybe he remebers being in church as a child maybe someone comes up tp him and gives him a pamplet about God, but he is pricked in his heart this is all the move of God in his life to bring him to repentence.
Now the man has a choice , he feels Gods call (many are called) So he can either accept it and submit at which point he becomes chosen and one of the few or he can lean to his own understanding, get a new Job find a new wife bond himself out of jail and go on in his flesh because he never could get past the pride inside him that says you dont need Godor anyone else, or the pride that says, What if you try this Christian life and you fail,, What will the neighbors think? Or they will laugh at me, which is what I dealt with, whatever the case the man has to choose to follow Jesus or choose his pride! I dont know how I can explain it any plainer than that, this is where you and I part on a lot of things see I think every man has a choice to make as "God is not respector of persons" So if he respected persons then it would make sence that he would choose some and not others faviritism for no apparent reason but this isnt so becasue he isnt what he will do for me he will do for you, if you will enter in a covenant with him.. So the one thing I strongly disagree with PJ on is faith being a gift I do not believe at all that I could muster up my own faith, but guess what I pray and ask God to strengthen my faith, I ask him to keep me and dont let me start looking to the right or left, when we think we have got it whipped thats when we get in trouble!
