A Fresh Look at Counting the Cost (Luke 14:25-33)

Luke 14:25-33 (ESV)

25 Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, 26 “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. 27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. 28 For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, 30 saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31 Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32 And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. 33 So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

            The above is a good example of a passage that has been misinterpreted or over-interpreted because we fail to remember to look deeply into the meaning of words. We see the word “hate” in verse 26, and we know it cannot mean what we think of when we think of hate. Then we spend all of our time wrestling with the word, and we, if we are not careful, miss the point of Jesus’ teaching.

            Knocking out the discussion on the word “hate,” it does not mean the angry, loathing emotion that we tie to it today. In more than one place in Scripture, we can see the word hate used to mean to love less. When God “loved” Jacob but “hated” Esau, God chose Jacob and did not choose Esau. God preferred and was loyal to Jacob while he turned away from and left Esau to himself. This kind of preferring, this kind of shift in loyalty, is what is in view in this passage.

            Jesus tells us that, if we want to be his disciples, there has to come a point of commitment in our lives where we choose to pledge our allegiance to him above our family, our friends, or even our own lives and our own freedoms. To believe in Jesus in a saving way includes this kind of commitment. Of course, we will spend years working this out, and we will often get it wrong in places, but, if we are truly followers of Jesus, we will choose to be faithful to him above all others.

            The whole counting of the cost stuff fits this picture of our choice of allegiance. Are we willing to follow Jesus? It will cost. Yes, salvation is a free gift, but the choice to receive it will cost us in the here-and-now. Many will realize that their families, their friends, their co-workers cannot handle their commitment to Christ. Many will find that they lose friends and influence as they follow God. This is part of being a Christian.

            But, before we get sad about what we must give up, add in the second part of Jesus’ statement, the 2 kings. The one thing that the calculating king cannot do is avoid making a decision. The other king is coming. The calculating king will choose either to fight or to seek terms of peace, that’s it. He cannot do anything else. Which should he do? Of course he should make peace with a strong opponent. Well, God, the King, is coming our way. While it will be costly in this life to be his follower, it is still better to have terms of peace than to go up against a King we could never defeat.

            We do not often talk about the sacrifice required by the faith. It’s funny, really. We will talk about rules and laws that we should follow, even risking legalism in the process. We will talk about the significance of faith and the importance of Christ’s sacrifice. But, probably because we are still trying to sell others on the faith, we seldom talk about the simple, earthly consequences of following Jesus. It is not always easy. It is not always fun. Sometimes it is costly. Sometimes it leads to ridicule or even persecution. But whether we are having glorious days of peace and joy or difficult times of being despised by the world, following Jesus and being loyal to him above all else is totally worth it in the end.