"No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." Matthew 6:24

"If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." Luke 14:26

While to many of us love and hate are manifestations of the emotions, the Jewish idiom of love and hate is quite different.  In the above verses, these refer to a decision of the will.  To love is to choose or to submit to, and to hate is to reject or to refuse to submit.  This idiom is clearly illustrated in Malachi 1:2 which is quoted in the same sense in Romans 9:13.  The prophet declared God's love for Israel, but Israel responded by questioning what demonstration they had had of God's love.  The response was "I have loved Jacob; but Esau I have hated".  God's love for Jacob was demonstrated in His choice of him to be the heir to the Abrahamic promise, and God showed His hatred of Esau in setting him aside from the line of promise.  Thus loving and hating were manifestations of God's choice.  When Christ demanded that one hates those to whom he is bound by the closest of blood ties, He was not speaking in the area of emotions but in the area of will.  A disciple must make a choice and submit to the authority of Christ rather than to the authority of the family headship.

J. D. Pentecost (Edited)