When Jesus said that people had to give up everything to become his disciple, he was mainly refering to family. The context of Luke 14:33 is family. So far, this whole blog has been about money, and I have learned that Luke's Jesus wanted his followers to be freed from the ties of money and possessions. At the end of chapter 14, however, Jesus called his disciples not only to be freed from ties to money, he wanted them to be freed from family ties as well. This is radical and hard for us to grasp, because family is so important to us. Among U.S. Evangelicals and Mormons, family and the importance of family has become central to their teachings.
JESUS' DISCIPLES
Peter answered him, "We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us (Matthew 19:27)?"
In Matthew 19, Jesus told his disciples that it was incredibly difficult for the rich to enter into the kingdom of heaven. The disciples told Jesus that they had given up everything for him and they wondered what kind of reward they would receive. After Jesus defined their reward, he told them that everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother* or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life (Matthew 19:29). Note that where the asterix is located, some ancient manuscripts included wife. If some ancient manuscripts had wife included in this list and some didn't, then we see that the early church was not in agreement with including wife in the list.
That being said, the disciples did leave everything, including their families, while they followed Jesus. This separation was not like the 1970s cults that ask people to renounce family. Early in Jesus' ministry, he visited Peter's mother-in-law and healed her. That episode in Jesus' ministry shows us that Peter was married and that family was still important enough to visit. So when Jesus taught separation from family, he did not mean a complete separation.
Possessions
Jesus' teaching that his disciples should abandon everything was radical, so radical that the early church could only follow his teaching for a short time, when they had all things (possessions and finances) in common. I believe that when the first major persecution hit the early church, when people had to leave Jerusalem to avoid persectution, the "all things in common" experiment was over.
I believe at this point the church had learned from experience to redefine how to follow Jesus' teachings on money and possessions.
Later, after the experiment was over, the early church followed Jesus' teaching in a less radical way. When the Jerusalem Church was facing a drought, the church in Antioch sent a generous donation in order to relieve some of the burden Jerusalem was facing.
And later still, Paul seemed more influenced by Ecclesiastes (5:18-20) than by Jesus when he told his Timothy that God gave us all things to enjoy, but that the rich should be "willing to share (1 Timothy 6:18)."
Family
The Apostles left their families during Jesus' ministry. How much they abandoned their families is not known. Peter brought Jesus to visit his wife and his mother-in-law early on in his ministry, but that's all we know about Peter and his wife until years later when Peter and his wife were a team. And Jesus' own family came to his meetings because they thought he was going crazy.
We know that Martha and Mary stayed with their brother Lazarus (whom Jesus loved) in a home near Jerusalem. They neither abandoned family, nor their possessions.
After Jesus' resurrection, we are told that Mark left his mother's house in order to follow his uncle Barnabas (who had previously sold his land and given it to the Apostles for distribution) and Paul (who had already abandoned his own identity to follow Christ) to minister at Antioch. We don't know how long Mark left his family and we know nothing about whether or not he had a wife.
Later still, by the time the apostles' ministries were fully mature, the apostles were taking their wives with them on their journeys, as 1 Corinthians 9:5 states: Don't we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord's brothers and Cephas (Cephas is another name for Peter)?.
PAUL
Before he converted, Paul was a part of the persecution that brought an end to the "All things in common" experiment. It could be that one of the reasons Paul hated the Christians so much was because they separated themselves from their possessions. It set them apart from the majority of Israelites and made them look more like one of the many cults of that day.
After he became a Christian, Paul spent several weeks with Peter and other apostles learning what they knew about Jesus. During this time, it could be that Paul learned more about Jesus' teaching on the subject of separation from possessions, money and family. We can't be sure, but we do know that Paul would leave everything, even his own identity at the cross.
WHAT LUKE LEARNED FROM PAUL
Luke was a sometimes travelling companion of Paul. Because he traveled with Paul, we can assume that he learned a lot from Paul. In fact, the main reason Luke was included in the New Testament was because he did travel with Paul. And because he spent so much time with Paul, we would expect that he would reflect some of Paul's teachings.
In fact, Luke's teaching about separation from family and money may have reflected Paul's belief that these tie us down to this world, as 1 Corinthians 7:33-34 states:
But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world—how he can please his wife—His interests are divided. In the same way, a woman who is no longer married or has never been married can be devoted to the Lord and holy in body and in spirit. But a married woman has to think about her earthly responsibilities and how to please her husband.
I am not suggesting that the idea of separation from money and family came from only from Paul and not from Jesus himself, I am saying that Luke emphasized what Jesus said about money and family, in part, because Paul nurtured and kept it alive. While the majority of the early church abandoned the "all things in common," Paul reimaged it to fit his ministry.
Even though there is similarity between Luke's Jesus and Paul's writings about separating from this world's ties, Paul saw separation as his thing rather than everybody's. Paul broke ties with family and anything that would tie him down to this world, but he did not insist that others follow the same rule.
Even though there is similarity between Luke's Jesus and Paul's writings about separating from this world's ties, Paul saw separation as his thing rather than everybody's. Paul broke ties with family and anything that would tie him down to this world, but he did not insist that others follow the same rule.
