God before family?

I had sort of an interesting experience over the weekend. A friend of my husband's dropped by with an article he'd clipped from a European magazine, "explaining" to Europeans, American Christians.

What had caught his eye in the article was the idea that Christians ought to put God before everyone, including family and friends.

Luke 14:26: 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.

He said he'd never heard of this before. He's a simple man, a farmer, and I have no idea what sort of religious background he has but he has been in this country a long time and is familiar with Mennonites, since they are mostly his neighbours.

Now what struck me as odd is this: wouldn't most people, if the preposition is that there is a God, by definition assume that God has to come before all else? Or is it the word "hate" that freaked him out? I don't know why he thought this was strange.

To me, it seems just common sense that if you accept, even just for the sake of argument, that God, as defined by an all-powerful creator, exists, then of course, he has to come before everyone else.

It would be like arguing with a cop over your right to speed. Meaningless. He's got the power and the law on his side.

Maybe not a debate in this, I just found it all very curious. I didn't answer him (he came to visit my husband) but I was rather shocked by his shock.

Layla