Jesus first

³⁴ “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. ³⁵ For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; ³⁶ and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.’ ³⁷ He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. ³⁸ And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. ³⁹ He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.¹

What Jesus comes before your Family. Yes Jesus is before your ma and pa.

37. It is affection that binds households together; thus Jesus moves on to consider the place of love. He assumes that there will be love between parents and children, but claims for himself a higher place in his disciples’ affection than that which they accord to their nearest and dearest on earth, and that in a society that held it a dreadful thing to put anyone higher than one’s parents. Loves⁸⁸ is a significant word; it points to the warmest affection. Jesus does not bid his followers love their parents or their children (nor, on the other hand, does he forbid warm affection in the family). He simply assumes that family members will love one another. But he is concerned that they must not value their attachment to the members of their families so highly that he is pushed into the background. This has important implications for an understanding of the person of Jesus. No mere man has the right to claim a love higher than that for parents or children; it is only because he is who he is that Jesus can look for such love. The words imply that he is more than a merely human teacher and leader. Of the one who lacks this love for him he says that he is not worthy of me (GNB, “is not fit to be my disciple”). We must not forget that Jesus knew what it was to experience misunderstanding in the family, for his own thought him mad (Mark 3:21). Jesus is not asking from his followers something he did not know for himself.

38. The demand for loyalty is further brought out by relating it to taking up a cross (cf. 16:24). For us this is a remote metaphor, but Jesus’ hearers were people who had seen men take up their cross (anyone condemned to be crucified was required to carry the cross beam to the place of execution). They knew that when this happened and the man went off with a little knot of Roman soldiers, he was on a one-way journey. He would not be back. Thus, for them, taking up the cross stood for the utmost in renunciation of the claims of self. The person who took up a cross had died to a whole way of life; Jesus demands from everyone who follows him nothing less than a death to self. For follow⁹¹ see on 4:20; here it clearly means “follow as a disciple” (after me is a glimpse of the way a follower would literally walk behind his teacher).

39. Now comes the tremendous paradox that brings out the truth that the person who concentrates on getting the best, by that very fact loses it. He who finds is more exactly “he who will have found,” and life (see on v. 28) may be used of the whole of one’s earthly existence or of life considered in terms of eternity. This poses something of a problem: Is Jesus speaking of life here and now or of life in eternity? But perhaps we can put the antithesis too strongly; both may be in mind. “Since the soul is the center of both the earthly and the supernatural life, a man can find himself facing the question in which character he wishes to preserve it for himself” (BAGD, 1.d). To find life in the sense of the things one delights in here and now and without regard to other considerations is to lose it in the deeper sense, both now and in eternity. The verb rendered lose can have the sense “destroy”; it points to the total loss of the only life that is worth living in the empty pursuit of that which has no permanence; it cannot last beyond the fleeting hour. The other side of the coin is that the person who counts life well lost in the service of Christ will find life in the fullest sense. That person will live a fuller life here and now and can face eternity without trepidation. For my sake is important. Jesus is not suggesting that anyone should weigh up the merits and demerits of life here and now and life in the hereafter and decide for the latter on the grounds that he will get more out of it that way. That is still selfish living and means the loss of real life. The life that matters is the life for the sake of Christ, the life that takes the same road of self-denial as Jesus did and that is concerned not with the benefit that one will be able to secure either here or hereafter, but with the service of God and of one’s fellows. It has been suggested that life here means very much what we mean by “self”; to concentrate one’s best energies on oneself is to destroy oneself, whereas to lose oneself in the service of Christ is to find oneself.²

The only way a believer can escape conflict is to deny Christ and compromise his witness, and this would be sin. Then the believer would be at war with God and with himself. We will be misunderstood and persecuted even by those who are the closest to us; yet we must not allow this to affect our witness. It is important that we suffer for Jesus’ sake, and for righteousness’ sake, and not because we ourselves are difficult to live with. There is a difference between the “offense of the cross” (Gal. 5:11) and offensive Christians.

Each believer must make the decision once and for all to love Christ supremely and take up his cross and follow Christ. The love in Matthew 10:37 is the motive for the cross in Matthew 10:38. To “carry the cross” does not mean to wear a pin on our lapel or put a sticker on our automobile. It means to confess Christ and obey Him in spite of shame and suffering. It means to die to self daily. If the Lord went to a cross for us, the least we can do is carry a cross for Him.

Matthew 10:39 presents us with only two alternatives: spare your life or sacrifice your life. There is no middle ground. If we protect our own interests, we will be losers; if we die to self and live for His interests, we will be winners. Since spiritual conflict is inevitable in this world, why not die to self and let Christ win the battle for us and in us? After all, the real war is inside—selfishness versus sacrifice.³

10:37 not worthy of Me: Those who will be glorified with Christ in His kingdom reign are those who have suffered for Him (Rom. 8:17; 2 Tim. 2:12). Those who refuse that kind of discipleship will experience great loss (1 Cor. 3:15; 2 Cor. 5:10: Rev. 3:11, 12).

10:38 Taking up a cross stands for commitment to the extent one is willing to die for a cause. This verse is not saying the only saved people are those who continually are totally committed. If this were true, who would be justified? Rather, when a person who is saved lapses, as Peter did and as a carnal Christian does (1 Cor. 3:1–4), that person certainly is not worthy of Christ and that act brings loss of reward. Of course, the same is always true of a lost individual. Even his finest work is ultimately worthless to him because it is done apart from acknowledgment and dependency on Christ (Rom. 3:12).⁴

1 The New King James Version. (1982). (Mt 10:34–39). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

2 Morris, L. (1992). The Gospel according to Matthew (pp. 267–269). Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: W.B. Eerdmans; Inter-Varsity Press.

3 Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). The Bible exposition commentary (Vol. 1, pp. 39–40). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.

4 Radmacher, E. D., Allen, R. B., & House, H. W. (1999). Nelson’s new illustrated Bible commentary (Mt 10:37–38). Nashville: T. Nelson Publishers.