175 | What you've never heard about Perfection

It turns out that “perfection” is a terrible translation of Matthew 5:48. It’s found in the Sermon on the Mount: Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect. It’s a typical example of Western English speakers seizing on a word and running with it, while being ignorant of what the speaker is talking about, i.e., mostly you hear ignorant and unhelpful things about this passage. Fortunately, you are here and we can clear this up for you. Yes! It’s the Greek word teleios that is often translated as “perfect.” When you peek into the scholarship around this word and the words in the Hebrew Bible that are translated as teleios, you get a much different picture than the one conveyed by “perfect.” It’s more a matter of wholeness, of whole-heartedness for God, of thriving, of being truly well in all areas of life, as a whole person. Karen and Curtis talk it over! Let’s go. 

 

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Resources

The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing: A Theological Commentary June 2017 by Jonathan T. Pennington