Hated by the World?

Two of the Gospels record Jesus encouraging his disciples in the struggle to be faithful disciples in the face of opposition.  In Matthew 10:22 says, "You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved." and this idea is also found in John 15:18, "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first."

Here recently, I have seen culture warriors paint these texts on their shields as they try to repel scrutiny for acting in mean and devious ways in the name of "Biblical" [marriage, science, morality, gender roles, etc].  It is not uncommon for Christians to take Biblical texts out of context, for example, when a football player writes PHIL 4:13 on his eye black, chances are he is not making a statement about the Holy Spirit's power to sustain the falsely imprisoned and enslaved; so when I started seeing the culture warriors claiming that the criticism leveled against them was the fulfillment of Jesus teaching that the world would hate his followers, I couldn't help but wonder what Jesus meant by "world."  Blowing the dust off the ol' lexicon we see that the Greek word that we have been translating as world is the word, "cosmos," which can mean "world," but can also mean "universe," "government," or more generally "order."  

If you don't think that word study was all that helpful, I would agree with you and think that the best way we can really get a sense of what Jesus meant when he said that the cosmos will hate you, is to take a look in the Gospels and see who treated Jesus with hate and contempt.

I will give you a hint, it isn't the sinners.  Yes, the antagonists in the Gospels are most often the Jewish religious elite.  Which is why, when modern day religious elite quote these words of Jesus, serious questions must be raised about the validity of the assertion that the criticism of the ostracized is "the world" hating them for following Jesus.

I think the best way to read, "cosmos" is to read it as the spiritual forces in the universe, because behind the curtain, the religious elite in the Gospels are being played by the spiritual forces of sin and death, who Jesus ultimately defeats in his death, resurrection, and the here-but-not-yet consummation of the eternal kingdom.

So does the cosmos hate the culture warriors? Yes, but not because they will die on the hill of a 6,000 year old solar system.  Rather, I can speak from experience to say that when I bought in to the culture war, the cosmos was destroying my heart by feeding me the lie that my selfish pride was not only normal, but praiseworthy.  The lie that being right was more important than being loving, to the point where I had a warped view of love that allowing someone else to think differently from me was failing to love them.

The cosmos promotes selfish pride, which make no mistakes is the root of all sin.  When we put on the character of Christ and live for the good of others, we will be hated--sadly, all to often those who will hate us the most are our own religious elite.