IF God is Love...

[Timmy]

Originally Posted by Praxeas

First of all I don't see how you merge two scriptures together to get you must have your family and if so you may have to forsake them,

You don't see how loving your family less than you love God may be a factor in having to leave (forsake) them? Never mind, then.

Second you didn't address the point I raised about what it means to leave

OK, it can mean leave. Fine.

Third, they aren't contradictory.

The contradiction is was alluding to is the same one you did. That you are told to hate your family, and yet you must love them. You said hate must be hyperbole. I asked how you decide which of two contradicting scriptures is hyperbole. You haven't answered that.

Hyperbole is self defined.

What?

What makes you think

Mat 19:29 And whoever has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.

Is a hyperbole since it's not putting a demand, thus my point about a command, on people?

I didn't say it was hyperbole. And all I said was you may have to forsake your family, and if you did, you would be rewarded.

Also consider Matthew 10:34-37:

34Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.

35For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

36And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.

37He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

Edit: Oh, I said you may have to forsake your family. That's why you thought I thought it was a command. Not exactly. I had in mind a situation where you are given a choice: it's either Jesus or your family. Maybe they are unbelievers and they demand that you forsake your faith, or something. In a situation like that, would it not be accurate to say you "have to" leave them?