Matthew 10

21Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, 22 and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved….

32 So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, 33 but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.

34 “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 36 And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. 37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38 And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

An outrageous example of the bane (the poison) of Memory-Verse-Theology derives from the saying of Jesus, “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

Ripped from its context, it gives to us Christians the warrant to march off to war and shed blood, a la these self-made, pseudo-theologians who put themselves forward as ‘teachers’ in the Church. [And these same wooden, illiterate literalists do the same with “Buy a sword…” Link ]

The parallel of this saying of Jesus in Luke 14:

25 Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, 26 “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. 27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

Both these passages address “The Conditions of Discipleship,” or in the title of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s famous classic, “The Cost of Discipleship.”

Here in Luke (as in Matthew) we see the “hyperbolic form, which is an authentic part of Jesus’ teaching…Nowhere is the diverse character of the Kingdom’s advent seen more clearly than in the severance of family loyalties” a la I. Howard Marshall in the New International Greek Testament Commentary. Such is a noted feature in Jesus’ parables. For examples see “Shock and Awe.” (Link) Hyperbole serves to grab the attention of Jesus’ listeners.

As to this hyperbolic saying in Luke (and in Matthew) about family, surely, any true Christian knows we are to love all people, even our enemies. (Link)