Who Must Renounce All Possessions to Follow Jesus?:
To start with, it’s very important to consider to whom Jesus’ words apply in this instance. I deny that it is required of every Christian to leave their families, or to be single and celibate. That is the higher calling of what Catholics call the “evangelical counsels.” Some are called to that; most of us are not. St. Paul makes these distinctions very clear in 1 Corinthians 7.
I contend that what is being referred to in the passages above is the “above and beyond” discipleship of those who are apostles: a select group of individuals that were present and required only during the period of the very early Church. Not all disciples are apostles. In fact, 99.99% are not. The Bible repeatedly refers to the initial group of the disciples of Jesus, as “the twelve.”
Armstrong of course avoids Luke 14:33 altogether, which is part of the discourse addressed to the "great multitudes" beginning in vs. 25 (which includes "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"):
So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.
There is no idea of a "higher calling" here. The Twelve already exist, yet the "great multitudes" are called just as they were. There is only one standard of discipleship, and it applies to all equally, from high to low, from the rich young ruler to the lowly fisherman and every one in between.
Armstrong's other arguments tend to fall in the "is is ought" category of fallacy. Just because the disciples fell asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane despite Jesus' request that they watch and pray with him doesn't make it right! The disciples', not to mention Paul's, many instances of bad behavior making them bad disciples isn't proof that Jesus' retreated from his conceptions. How silly.
The guy argues like a proof-texter with nary a hint of subtlety.
Perhaps he was a former fundamentalist. The idea that certain things "were present and required only during the period of the very early Church" sounds like he had been a Baptist dispensationalist before he became a Catholic.
On a final note, apocalyptic eschatology, which is the sine qua non for understanding this and all of the New Testament, is, well, you guessed it, not in view.
