Public Enemy No 2

By Richard

I think that the general theme of Scripture is that we, ourselves, are the public enemy no 1. Sin at its heart is putting self at the centre of life and not God. Salvation, if you like to put it this way, is God’s forgiveness and grace to free us from our addiction to self, and a new power to love God as He deserves.

But in Matthew 10: 34-37 Jesus reminds us of Public Enemy No 2, family relationships. Of course we need to understand that there’s a certain hyperbolic flavour to Jesus words about Him being a sharp knife that cuts through family relationships. But we do need to take seriously Jesus’ reminder that, “Well-meaning family members can be your worst enemies!”

We need to recognise that close family relationships have incredible power to take us away from God. We need to realise that well-meaning family members have incredible power to stop us from doing what we know is right before God. Jesus is calling us to follow him even if it causes some unavoidable family fallout along the way. Jesus is not calling us to love our family less but to love him more!