25 Now large crowds were going along with Him; and He turned and said to them, 26 “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. 27 Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. Luke 14:25-35 (NASB) Read verses 28-35 on the site.
Thomas More was one of the 16th Century’s most promising scholars before he became one of Henry VIII’s men. He was friends with Erasmus. These two Roman Catholic apologists would write enlightening works and were, therefore, allowed access to the higher echelons of society and the church….
They would defend the Pope and the Roman Church with vigor, but in private they would write letters to each other making jokes about the corruption in the monasteries and with the Pope himself. To them, Christianity was all about religion not about faith. The Church was their means to their scholarly pursuits. More had a certain nobility of character that opened doors to wealth and power. When he was young he wrote his first book, Utopia, with Erasmus in mind. It was published in 1516. In it, he gave notice that there was a great humanistic scholar in England. He had graduated from Oxford and thereby became a Latin and Greek scholar. He had the tools to become a great Biblical apologist. However, his rise to power in English society took him down another path. He was knighted in 1521. He became Speaker of the House of Commons in 1523 because Henry VIII favored him. He became Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in 1525.