Matthew 10:37: “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”

Exodus 20:12: “Honor your father and your mother: that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God gives you.”

I have a friend who said that she has a problem or more likely grows sad watching a father hug his child.  The reason is that because when she was growing up the only time she was touched by her father was when he would hit her. I suspect she would have no problem with Matthew 10:37 but a lot of problems with Exodus 20:12. When she told me this story my mind immediately went to these two verses.

Is this not a contradiction?  We are commanded to honor our parents and then Jesus tells us that if we love them more than Him we are not worthy of Him. In looking at Matthew 10:37 we find that in the Greek the word for love is philon from the word phileo which is a friendship type of love. So we are to just phileo or be friends to God.  We are not to agape, unconditional love, God?

The more I looked to this in the Greek text, the more confusing it became.  Since Jesus spoke these words in Aramaic, I checked this out in my Aramaic Bible and then it began to make more sense.  The word for love used in the Aramaic is racham which is a love that is given and returned.  So we are to have that ultimate love for God just as we have for our parents who love us unconditionally and we return that love.  Yet, as my friend discovered, parents are not perfect and they can fall down in the love business, just as we can come up short in our love for our parents.  Yet, Jesus is saying that we must love God more than we do our parents, so possibly He is telling us that His love will not fall short like it may with our earthly parents.  My friend finds it hard to love her father because he fell short of that racham, love.  So maybe Jesus is telling us that since God will never fall short in His racham, love, then we will not fall short in our love for Him.  I John 4:19 tells us that we love Him because He first loved us. That phrase he first loved us is in the Greek aorist tense and suggest that this love has a definite point in time.  That time would be when Jesus showed us the greatest demonstration of love when He died on the cross.  His love for us never failed even to the point of giving up His life for us. He took the first step in love and when we take the second step and love Him in return, we turn that love into racham.

But what about this racham(ing) more than our parents?  The words more than in the Greek is hyper which means to be above or greater.  However, the Aramaic word is itira. Itira has the idea of something that remains. My friend had a natural love for her father. What love he was able to show she was able to return it, limited as it was, but it was still racham, returned love. Yet, it was filled with a lot of baggage and some would even say it was not love at all. Even the best of parents will fail in their love for their child and children in their love for their parents simply because we are flawed humans. There still remains more love racham to give, but because the love that is given is imperfect, the love that is returned is imperfect.  I could sense an itira a remaining love in my friend, for she felt sadness when seeing a father hug his children and knowing she never had that.  She longed for a more fulfilled racham returned love with her father but it fell far short of her longings.  But when Jesus who is perfect in love, gives His love, He will never fail us. Whatever love we desire from Him He will give it to us.  Because of the perfection of the love of Jesus we are capable of returning more love than we have for our parents who fall short of that perfection.  Thus, if we cannot receive the full love and return it to the level He loves us then we are not worthy of Him.  The Aramaic word for worthy is shewa which means to be suitable, to match, be put on a level playing field.  In its Semitic root it is a word used for placing a cover on a floor to prepare one’s bed.

Therefore Jesus whose love is more perfect than that of the people who should love us the most on this earth, our parents, then the love that we are capable of returning would be far greater than that of which we can give our parents.  If we refuse to return that love on the level of which God has loved us which makes us capable of returning that portion of love, and then it is a shewa love, a love which is not worthy or on the same level as that of which Jesus loved us.

It is like David said in Psalms 27:10, “When my mother and father forsake me, the Lord will pick me up.”  Our parents can love us with all their hearts, but they are still imperfect and will fail us, but God’s love for us is even greater than that of our parents.  Thus according to racham, we have the ability to love God even more than we love our parents.  We must love our parents with all the ability of love that we have just as we are to love God with all the ability we have to love Him. Because His love is greater than what even our parents can give then we have the ability of even greater love to return to Him.

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