Verse Lens · Expanded explanation
Luke 14:26 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 26. 26If 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.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
Luke 14:26 uses severe preference language about family and life without authorizing family hatred or cult control.
Read It With
- Luke 14:25–14:35
Read Luke 14:26 with 14:25–14:35. In isolation, this contribution—uses severe preference language about family and life without authorizing family hatred or cult control—can be detached from its speaker, audience, scene or teaching sequence, and outcome. The complete unit establishes: Jesus tells crowds that allegiance may relativize family and life, requires carrying the cross, and resembles calculating a tower or war before beginning; renunciation and useful salt close the warning.
Follow the Context
- Identify the actors, setting, and initiating speech or action in Luke 14:25–14:35.
- Jesus tells crowds that allegiance may relativize family and life, requires carrying the cross, and resembles calculating a tower or war before beginning; renunciation and useful salt close the warning.
- Hold this material interpretive limit in view: Semitic 'hate' expresses radical preference but remains deliberately severe. Renunciation must be read with Luke's varied household and possession practices, not as leader-controlled dispossession.
What This Verse Is Not Saying
This verse does not detach its specific contribution—uses severe preference language about family and life without authorizing family hatred or cult control—from the complete unit or override the unit's explicit boundary: The cost sayings do not authorize family abuse, self-harm, coerced poverty, cult control, neglect of dependents, or reckless conflict.
What Remains True
Luke 14:26 uses severe preference language about family and life without authorizing family hatred or cult control. Read inside Luke 14:25–14:35, this contribution supports the unit's proportionate truth: Jesus tells crowds that allegiance may relativize family and life, requires carrying the cross, and resembles calculating a tower or war before beginning; renunciation and useful salt close the warning. Its use remains accountable to affected people and the unit's explicit boundary.
How It Can Shape Life
- Luke 14:26 uses severe preference language about family and life without authorizing family hatred or cult control. Its faithful response is proportionate to that role: Disclose the real cost of commitment and examine capacity before promising; discipleship is not hatred, abandonment of dependents, self-harm, or surrender to authoritarian control.
Teach It Back
Explain Luke 14:26's specific contribution to Luke 14:25–14:35: uses severe preference language about family and life without authorizing family hatred or cult control. Include the preceding and following movement, one source-controlled uncertainty, one affected person or group, and what the verse does not authorize.
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Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read Luke 14:25–14:35 — Discipleship Cost Requires Honest CalculationSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? probable
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact displayed KJV wording, verse order, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and coverage.
Exact location: Luke 14:25–14:35, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM-derived repository corpus
Open source ↗Greek textual evidence
The Greek New Testament: SBL Edition
Michael W. Holmes, editor; Society of Biblical Literature and Logos
Society of Biblical Literature and Logos Bible Software, 2010
Supports: Greek wording and sentence relations; the edition is not treated as a complete apparatus.
Exact location: Faithlife SBLGNT official repository, data/sblgnt/text/Luke.txt, 14:25–14:35
Open the Luke Greek text file ↗open translation and translator notes
NET Bible First Edition Notes: Luke
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006
Supports: Verse-level translation, syntax, KJV-language clarification, historical notes, Synoptic parallels, and textual alternatives.
Exact location: NET Bible First Edition Luke PDF, exact tn/tc/sn entries attached to Luke 14:25–14:35
Open source ↗