Matthew 10:35-37 has Jesus say he came to set family members against each other and that anyone who loves father, mother, son, or daughter more than him is 'not worthy' of him.

The passage draws directly on Micah 7:6 (household betrayal as a sign of eschatological crisis, echoed almost verbatim in vv. 35-36) within a Second-Temple Jewish setting where kinship was the primary social and religious unit. Jesus is predicting a real social consequence of allegiance to him, not commanding believers to instigate it or to abandon family duty — the 'sword not peace' language describes the inevitable social cost that following him would, and historically did, provoke, as converts (particularly Jewish converts to the early Jesus movement, and converts from other religions in many contexts today) were frequently disowned or persecuted by their own families. 'Not worthy of me' is ultimate-allegiance/discipleship idiom, matching the logic of the first commandment ('no other gods before me'), not an instruction to hate or neglect family: elsewhere Jesus excoriates the Pharisees precisely for using a religious pretext (korban) to dodge the obligation to honor and materially support their parents (Matt 15:4-6), affirms the commandment to honor father and mother, and from the cross personally arranges for his mother's care (John 19:26-27). The demand is for ultimate priority, not the exclusion of ordinary filial duty.

Jesus's demand for ultimate loyalty coheres with classical theism's claim that a being of maximal greatness is the only fitting object of ultimate worship and love; any theology that places God on par with or beneath created goods, even family, is arguably idolatrous by its own internal logic — the demand is not megalomania but simply consistent monotheism if Jesus is who Christianity claims him to be.