When I read this because of the context where he has been talking about persecution when family members will deliver one another up to be put to death, (vs 21...) and because of the immediate context about denying him before men (vs 32...) He is talking about what it means to be a true disciple.
Family members are going to bring hostility and pressure upon a true disciple to reject the Gospel and what it means to follow Jesus and to conform to the world or they will get the cold shoulder and even open hostility. Today Members of the believers own family will call him or her a hater if they say what the Bible teaches about homosexual sin for example.
You hear him saying that to follow Jesus means take up your cross and be willing to die for His name and to refuse to compromise with sin and the world. Those who are not willing to go that far will separate from us and in some cases when persecution from governments come in the shape of arrests they will even turn us in as criminals. But we must not let the family relationships take preeminence over our relationship with Christ and we must not deny Him or His Word even when there is pressure from family to do so.
Jesus came to demand decisions from people. Follow Him for real or be lost. No compromise! Not everyone will sign up for this. If wife doesn't want to, or another family member says the Bible is wrong, Choose Jesus and keep obeying Him. Those unbelievers and rebellious in the family will turn on you. Jesus is saying the time is urgent. It is now or never. Eternity is at stake. Jesus is saying I came to stir things up and kindle a fire. Start a riot! (verse Luke 12:49. Luke 12:51 repeats this same statement about division in the family)
All you have to do to earn the ire of your unbelieving family members is live a life of no compromise in obedience to Christ and they will hate you for it. The holier you live the more they will rage. The more you talk about Jesus the more they will want to kill you in their hearts if not in real life.
These things were realized in the first century and beyond under various extreme persecutions when family members turned in one another for being a Christian out of fear of losing their own lives and property if they did not. And it will happen again under the reign of the Antichrist most likely.
Sadly, it has always happened in my life. There is another verse too like this.
49 “I came to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already kindled! 50 I have a baptism to receive, and how distressed I am until it is over! 51 Do you suppose that I came to bring peace to the world? No, not peace, but division. 52 From now on a family of five will be divided, three against two and two against three. 53 Fathers will be against their sons, and sons against their fathers; mothers will be against their daughters, and daughters against their mothers; mothers-in-law will be against their daughters-in-law, and daughters-in-law against their mothers-in-law.”
You have quoted it as well. Luke Chapter 12: 49 - 53.
I always thought families could live peaceably. I have not seen any family or known any family that is completely free of a turbulent life.
That's life. I agree though. Our calling directs us first to God and then to family members and others. Not the other way around. That's what sets apart being a follower of Christ from others.
1
