THE ATHEIST'S COMPLAINT:
We are told that believers are not to worry about providing for their family (Luke 14:26, 33; 18:29-30) and yet believers must provide for their family (1 Timothy 5:8). Is there a contradiction?

RESPONSE:
Let us consider what the texts in question say:

Luke 14:26, 33; 18:29-30
If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple... So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple.... So He said to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or parents or brothers or wife or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who shall not receive many times more in this present time, and in the age to come eternal life."

1 Timothy 5:8
But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

In the texts which are quoted from Luke, Jesus is not telling believers "...not to worry about providing for their family..." as the questioner suggests. He is indicating the amount of love which is necessary in the disciple of Christ, such that we would leave all else behind. The point of the text is that we should love the Lord more than anything else. It does not tell saints that they have no responsibility to care for love ones.

The latter text indicates the importance the Lord places upon our responsibility to care for our family. Jesus became our perfect example of such, as He, while hanging on the cross made certain that His own mother would be cared for (John 19:25-27).

There is no contradiction.

This article is a response to Skeptic's Annotated Bible, but original article is no longer listed

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