After some discussion and direction, Grace asked the women what they thought the verse was talking about. As usual, they spent some time in silence looking blankly at the verse. Then someone piped up: "It's about loving your neighbor." Grace and I exchanged a look of utter disbelief as all of the women nodded in agreement. I'd love to make some more comments, but I just don't even know what to say....
PS and FYI- I think what the verse is actually talking about is priorities. To be a disciple, my relationship with Jesus has to come before every other relationship in my life. I have heard before that exaggeration was a Jewish teaching technique, and I suspect that maybe that's what Jesus was employing when he used the word "hate" here. If we look at this verse in the context of the rest of the Bible (which I would say is an important tool for interpretation), we see that He couldn't have possibly literally meant that I should hate my family.
