A Word on Perfection

One of the most common problems that I've encountered in ordination and consecration papers is referring to Matthew 5:48 ("Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.") and concluding that Jesus is calling us to be holy as God is holy (which admittedly is what the OT says in Leviticus 11:44-45; 19:2; 20:26).

However, this conclusion takes the verse out of its immediate context (another common problem in the papers I've read). The immediate context is Matthew 5:43-48 ("love your enemies ...").

While I believe that the whole Sermon on the Mount exhorts the hearer to a higher moral standard, we commonly misunderstand what the NT says about perfection. Teleios, the word translated in Matt. 5:48 as "perfect", is frequently translated elsewhere in the NT as "whole", "complete" or "mature." We beat ourselves up when we are less than perfect, when I believe that God wants us to be mature! (The difference is this: neither children nor adults are perfect, but adults go back and try to rectify their mistakes; children don't!) If we translate Matt. 5:48 as "mature" instead of "perfect", I assert that what Jesus is saying in Matt 5:43-48 is something like, "You have heard it said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy,' but I say to you, 'Grow up! Love your enemy and pray for those that persecute you. Even a child can love those who love him first."

I preached a sermon on exactly this two years ago: "The Gospel of Baseball: We Did Everything Right but Win" in which I said our idea of perfection is like the Red Sox going 162-0. (God's idea of perfection--i.e. maturity--is something more like the Red Sox going 108-54. A team that does that is playing smart baseball. Such a team will still stumble, but they will adjust, correct, and get back on track.)