Fools.

I was reading the Bible today, in the book of Luke. In that book, there is a very controversial verse where Jesus is trying to teach the multitudes about Him and the Word. The verse reads, "Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, '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.'" Luke 14:25-26

I think the crucial thing that people find controversial is the use of the word hate. These days, we use that word to express a feeling of great loathing or otherwise disgust with some sort of person, place, or thing. So when we see anything that tells us to hate out family, we tend to get a little wary of what this idea may be suggesting. Because of this, people look at this verse and say "Oh, well, the Bible tells us that we should hate our parents, our siblings, and even ourselves!"

The only problem is, people are looking at this word hate in the present tense. Hate was used much differently back then, and was actually used to refer to one's sense of priorities. So if you said that you hated someone, that only meant that you were putting something before that person. That there was something you were more worried about then the person you "hated". It had absolutely nothing to do with how you felt about the person, it was just a matter of one's priorities.

I think that's the problem with the world we live in today. We take our vocabulary and use the same words for different meanings. A situation or event that happened a couple decades ago means something completely different these days. We've been doing this since before we even started our nation. Take, for instance, the War for Independence. It was us against the British, and we were obviously more "with the times", including our war tactics. We hid in bushes, dressed in dark colors, and ambushed the British. The British, well, they wore red with big, white X's across their chests and stood in a single line taking turns firing into the forests where we were hiding. They obviously didn't get the memo that times had changed.

So what am I saying? Well, I'm not entirely sure, but I think what I mean to say is that our country has always been one to move too fast for it's own good, and it doesn't look like it's slowing down any time soon.