“Whoever loves father or mother more than me”
Anyone who loves his father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. (Matthew 10:37 BSB)
What it sounds like today
A command to despise your family, flatly contradicting everything else Jesus taught.
The cultural key
Semitic idiom used 'love' and 'hate' for choosing and subordinating, not emotion. Genesis 29 says Leah was 'hated' in the same breath as saying Jacob 'loved Rachel more than Leah'; 'Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated' (Malachi 1:2–3) means chosen and not chosen. Matthew's parallel translates the idiom for Greek ears: 'whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me' (Matthew 10:37). In a kinship culture where family was identity, economy, and security in one, even the correctly-translated demand was seismic. Matthew's wording is the in-house translation of the idiom Luke preserves raw: where Luke's version says 'hate,' Matthew renders the comparative sense, 'loves more than me.' Scripture's own gloss on its most misread demand.
Recovered meaning
Not contempt for family but ranking: every other loyalty, including your own life, takes second place or the discipleship is not real. The idiom softens the mistranslation and leaves the demand at full strength.