Bible Contradiction? Should we hate other people?

For today’s post we will tackle the question the Skeptic Annotated Bible asked: Should we hate other people?

Here are the two answers which the skeptic believes shows a Bible contradiction:

Yes, we should hate some people.

“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.” ( Luke 14:26)

No, we should never hate anyone.

“You shall not hate your fellow countryman in your heart; you may certainly rebuke your neighbor, but you are not to incur sin because of him.” (Leviticus 19:17)

“You shall not take vengeance, nor hold any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord.” (Leviticus 19:18)

“Everyone who hates his brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him.” (1 John 3:15)

“If someone says, “I love God,” and yet he hates his brother or sister, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother and sister whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God must also love his brother and sister.” (1 John 4:20-21)

(All Scriptural quotation comes from the New American Standard Bible)

Here’s a closer look at whether or not there is a contradiction:

1. When dealing with skeptics’ claim of Bible contradictions it seems one can never be reminded enough of what exactly is a contradiction.  A contradiction occurs when two or more claims conflict with one another so that they cannot simultaneously be true in the same sense and at the same time.  To put it another way, a Bible contradiction exists when there are claims within the Bible that are mutually exclusive in the same sense and at the same time.
2. One should be skeptical of whether this is a Bible contradiction given the Skeptic Annotated Bible’s track record of inaccurately handling the Bible.  See the many examples of their error which we have responded to in this post: Collection of Posts Responding to Bible Contradictions.  Of course that does not take away the need to respond to this claim of a contradiction, which is what the remainder of this post will do.  But this observation should caution us to slow down and look more closely at the passages cited by the Skeptic Annotated Bible to see if they interpreted the passages properly to support their conclusion that it is a Bible contradiction.
3. The skeptic tries to pit Luke 14:26 as affirming the claim “We should hate some people” against four passages (Leviticus 19:17, Leviticus 19:18, 1 John 3:15, 1 John 3:15) as affirming “We should never hate anyone.”
4. Technically the four passages (Leviticus 19:17, Leviticus 19:18, 1 John 3:15, 1 John 4:20-21) cited as affirming “We should never hate anyone” does not affirm that but instead teaches “We should never hate anyone who are your neighbor/countrymen (Leviticus 19:17), your neighbor/the son of your people (Leviticus 19:18), brother or sister (1 John 3:15 and 1 John 4:20-21).” Since these four passages do not actually teach “We should never hate anyone” then it does not contradict with Luke 14:26, if the skeptics is right that the Luke 14:26 teaches “We should hate some people.”
5. It is important we to understand Luke 14:26 in context which the skeptics think is making the claim “We should hate some people.”
   1. The verse is not telling one should hate others; notice the verb in Greek for hate is not an imperative so one can’t say its commanded.  Nor is the verb a subjunctive saying we are obligatory in the sense of “may/should.”  Rather this verb is an indicative verb to describe something descriptively.
   2. If you notice the verse in context is about discipleship.  Notice how  twice Jesus says in certain circumstance one “cannot be My disciple” in verse 26 and also in verse 27.  Verse 33 also talked about being a disciple when it states “So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.”  So there’s a total of three times Jesus talks about being a disciple so the focus is on being a disciple of Jesus, in which Jesus is the Master.  In the context also of Luke 14 we see Jesus earlier have told a parable about master where the word Master is mentioned explicitly in Luke 14:21, 22, 23. This theme of master/disciple is so important for interpreting Luke 14:26 with what is going on with the hating.
   3. To help understand what Jesus is talking about in Luke 14:26 I think Luke 16:13 is illuminating: “No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”  Note how Luke 16:13 is talking about the same theme of Jesus as Master and also following Jesus.  Here it states we cannot have two masters but one. If there is another master then inevitably one of the Master is loved and the other is hated.  I think Jesus here is not talking about hating prescriptively in general but he’s stating descriptively that if someone is trying to serve two masters than its inevitable one of the masters be hated.
   4. Turning back to Luke 14:26 I think what is going on here is that one cannot be a disciple of Jesus without Jesus being so much more comparatively greater than anyone else; if one were to have someone else as a substitute Lord there be hate going on.  There’s a comparison of individuals here in terms of the role of masters.  Thus in loving Jesus as Master one’s love of others in comparison seems hateful.  But it is not talking about actually hating someone.
   5. Often someone who is hated is seen as an enemy.  Jesus has a strong command for His disciples of how to treat an enemy; hear what Jesus said in Luke 6:27 “But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.”  This makes it clear Christians aren’t going out there to hate and do ill. The opposite instead is true.
6. Loving Jesus as Master does not mean we do not love others; rather we are to love everyone in proportion to who they are.  Of course if we love other creatures more than Jesus who is God, than we are committing idolatry and we hate one and love the other inevitably.  Yet we can still love others according to who they are.  We can love our family as our family.  That means we shouldn’t love a spouse less (such as its wrong to love one spouse less than one spouse) nor love a child more than who they are (such as it is wrong to love one’s kids as one’s own spouse, it would undermine one’s marriage to one’s spouse and cause marriage strife and foster hatred).  So too we can love and should love others according to God’s requirement.  Luke 14:26 is not prohibiting that.  The clue for this interpretation stems from observing how Luke 14:26 further describe a disciple must “hate” “even his own life.”  Yet Jesus also in Luke 10:27 states we are to love others as oneself; which presupposes we love ourselves.  But we can love ourselves out of proportion when we love ourselves more than God and we sin; that’s why 2 Timothy 3:2 can say “For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, slanderers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy.” With these considerations Luke 14:26 does not conflict with the other four verses on loving others.
7. There is no contradiction here.  Seems the skeptic needs to learn of How to Handle Bible Contradictions.
8. We shouldn’t miss that worldviews are at play even with the skeptic’s objection to Christianity.  The worldview of the author of the Skeptic Annotated Bible actually doesn’t even allow for such a thing as the law of non-contradiction to be meaningful and intelligible.  In other words for him to try to disprove the Bible by pointing out that there’s a Bible contradiction doesn’t even make sense within his own worldview.  Check out our post “Skeptic Annotated Bible Author’s Self-Defeating Worldview.”