Matthew 5:48 (page 2)

purplesofa

48 Be then complete in righteousness, even as your Father in heaven is complete.

from the Bible Basic English

5:48 Therefore ye shall be perfect; as your Father who is in heaven is perfect - So the original runs, referring to all that holiness which is described in the foregoing verse s, which our Lord in the beginning of the chapter recommends as happiness, and in the close of it as perfection. And how wise and gracious is this, to sum up, and, as it were, seal all his commandments with a promise! Even the proper promise of the Gospel! That he will put those laws in our minds, and write them in our hearts! He well knew how ready our unbelief would be to cry out, this is impossible! And therefore stakes upon it all the power, truth, and faithfulness of him to whom all things are possible.

Wesley's notes on the bible

48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
[1] perfect
The word implies full development, growth into maturity of godliness, not sinless perfection. Eph 4:12,13. In this passage the Father's kindness, not His sinlessness, is the point in question. Lk 6:35,36

Scofield Reference Notes

48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
5:48 Be ye therefore perfect. To carry out fully this great law of love would lift man to the Divine standard of perfection. This must be the aim of life. We have before us as a pattern for the perfect God; we have the Divine perfection embodied in Christ. It will require a constant struggle while in the flesh to come near so high an ideal, but it must be our continual aim. This does not teach such sanctification that we cannot sin, nor that we, here on earth, attain absolute perfection, but we have placed before us, as a model, the perfect ideal, and we will constantly ascend higher by striving to attain it.

Peoples New Testament

Lastly, Our Saviour concludes this subject with this exhortation (v. 48), Be ye therefore perfect, as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. Which may be understood, 1. In general, including all those things wherein we must be followers of God as dear children. Note, It is the duty of Christians to desire, and aim at, and press toward a perfection in grace and holiness, Phil. 3:12-14. And therein we must study to conform ourselves to the example of our heavenly Father, 1 Pt. 1:15, 16. Or, 2. In this particular before mentioned, of doing good to our enemies; see Lu. 6:36. It is God's perfection to forgive injuries and to entertain strangers, and to do good to the evil and unthankful, and it will be ours to be like him. We that owe so much, that owe our all, to the divine bounty, ought to copy it out as well as we can.

Matthew Henry's Whole Bible Commentary

48 You however are to be complete in goodness, as your Heavenly Father is complete.

Weymouth New Testament

Guest with Questions,

thanks for the link you posted,

The man (Dr. Ron Woodworth) that defends Christianity and shreds Tolles book apart did an amazingly great job.

I learned alot from his open letter to Tolle and Oprah.

It's very difficult to erase Christian teachings from my mind.

And I realize we (JW's) no very little about religion, how to research, or other religions.
We go no real depth to our teaching. And was completely discouraged from doing so.

purps

hmike

Leolaia and others have done a thorough job here. Maybe I can add just a little more.

Based on the context from vs. 43-48 (and even back to v. 38), a characteristic of this "perfection" or maturity is the practice of graciousness. Jesus uses the Father as the model:

He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. (5:45b, NIV)

There are examples of this elsewhere in the NT, as in Acts 14:16-17, where Paul declared to the Lycaonians who worshipped the Greek gods:

In the past, he let all nations go their own way. Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.

Jesus says the Father does not discriminate in his provision, supplying what is needed for life to both the righteous and unrighteous. Jesus calls on his disciples to follow the Father’s example and be gracious to all others, regardless of their behavior toward the disciples.

It is normal to extend kindness to friends and family, and even beyond to those whom we are comfortable with and accept into our world. For that, we receive signs of appreciation, we get affirmation, and maybe even kindness reciprocated. We receive a reward of some kind, even if only psychological, in the here-and-now. This was true for his listeners as it is for us. But as he often does, Jesus here challenges his disciples to distinguish themselves by going beyond the normal—beyond what even a "good" person would do. Jesus countered the conventional wisdom and even teaching that would shake its head at doing anything benefiting someone who would mistreat or persecute the disciple. Jesus calls on the disciple to be gracious simply for the sake of being gracious—graciousness is part of this person’s nature that would normally show in any interaction.

Maybe this perfection, maturity, or completeness is manifested in not relying on the short-term material or psychological rewards of limited grace. Out of his completeness, the disciple is free to extend acts of grace to anyone independent of any reinforcing behavior from the beneficiaries. Whatever the rewards actually are, they come from outside the situation.

I also think this is consistent with the theme of what constitutes blessedness that Jesus spoke of at the beginning of the Beatitudes.

purplesofa

Hey possible-san

Why did you delete your post?

purps

justhuman

The original Greek text says -na iste telioi(perfect)osper o patir mas en tis ouranois telios estin. Be perfect like our father in heavens is perfect.

This is the goal for each Christian. To be perfect, to have a holy life, and immitate God's perfect qualities

quietlyleaving

hi purps

here is another slant from

http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/trench/section.cfm?sectionID=22&lexicon=true&strongs=G5046

It will be seen that there is a certain ambiguity in our word ‘perfect,’ which, indeed, it shares with t??e??? itself; this, namely, that they are both employed now in a relative, now in an absolute sense; for only so could our Lord have said, “Be ye therefore perfect ( t??e??? ), as your Heavenly Father is perfect” ( t??e??? ), Matt. 5:48; cf. 19:21. The Christian shall be ‘perfect,’ yet not in the sense in which some of the sects preach the doctrine of perfection, who, as soon as their words are looked into, are found either to mean nothing which they could not have expressed by a word less liable to misunderstanding; or to mean something which no man in this life shall attain, and which he who affirms he has attained is deceiving himself, or others, or both. The faithful man shall be ‘perfect,’ that is, aiming by the grace of God to be fully furnished and firmly established in the knowledge and practice of the things of God (Jam. 3:2; Col. 4:12: t??e??? ?a? pep????f???µ???? ); not a babe in Christ to the end, ‘not always employed in the elements, and infant propositions and practices of religion, but doing noble actions, well skilled in the deepest mysteries of faith and holiness.’ 1 In this sense St. Paul claimed to be t??e??? , even while almost in the same breath he disclaimed the being tete?e??µ???? (Phil. 3:12, 15).

Eckharte Tolle does have a point imo but in a non scholarly way. It seems to me that he isn't trying to be a christian and is more of a buddhist but welcomes both. Philosophically he is Hegelian. Hegel defined some concepts (especially the one Tolle is based on) that were/are very widely accepted by learned christians and scholarly philosophers. I wouldn't dismiss what he has to say if it benefits you.

quietlyleaving

I knew there was something I did not agree with about Tolle and it is this, from The Power of Now, page 102

"Already for most humans, the only respite they find from their own minds is to occasionally revert to a level of consciousness below thought...this also happens to some extent through sex, alcolol, and other drugs that suppress excessive mind activity. If it weren't for alcohol, tranquilizers, antidepressants, as well as illegal drugs, which are all consumed in vast quantites, the insanity of the human mind would become even more glaringly obvious than it is already. I believe that if deprived of their drugs a large part of the population would become a danger to themselves and others. These drugs of course, simply keep you stuck in dysfunction. Their widespread use only delays the breakdown of the old mind structures and the emergence of higher consciousness. While individual users may get some relief from the daily torture inflicted on them by their minds, they are prevented from generating enough conscious presence to rise above thought and so find true liberation."

To me the above sounds very sweeping and irresponsible. I don't agree with his dismissal of medically supervised drugs as standing in the way of true liberation. I think he does have some useful thoughts about meditation but needs to be appproached in a critical way and not taken as an authority.

Sorry about going off point here purps.

ql

possible-san

Hi, purplesofa.

Why did you delete your post?

Sorry.

Since there was no reaction of yours, I inferred that you did not need my information.
Then, I deleted it.

I am a person who thinks it important to convey the "words of appreciation" to the person who gave information.

If you need the information which I showed, I put up that information here once again.

possible
http://bb2.atbb.jp/possible/

RR

but be what you already are-.....

Ah, so if I'm a pedophile I should rejoice and continue ... hmmmm think that'll hold in court?

RR

Matthew 5:48

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