Christian Love

"(43) You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.' 
(44) But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, (45) that you may be sons of your Father in Heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just  and on the unjust. (46) For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? (47) And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? (48) Therefore, you shall be perfect just as your Father in Heaven is perfect."                                                           Matthew 5:43-48   NKJV

You may ask, why does Jesus demand that people have this love? It is because such love as this makes men and women, just like God. When we achieve this, we will be perfect. However, Jesus is not speaking here about the type of perfection we are used to. For us to reach this type of perfection is impossible.

There is a Greek word for perfect which is teleios. To give an example, a man who has fully grown is teleios, which is different from a half-grown youth. The man has reached his maturity. A student who has reached the finishing line of their studies at Uni, is teleios, whereas a new student just starting out, as no grasp of it yet. They still have two or three years to go to reach this.
In the Greek, a thing is perfect if it has fully realised the purpose for which it is planned. So, as we have the love that Jesus demanded - as we achieve it - we have teleios and we are the 'perfection' that Jesus spoke about here in v48. We have fulfilled the purpose for which we desired.

William Barclay puts it this way, 'The Greek idea of perfection is functional. A thing is perfect if it fully realises the purpose for which it was planned, designed and made.' 

The world's idea of perfection, is just too impossible to reach. People strive and walk over other people to try and achieve this type of perfection. Actually, the root of 'Perfectionism' is fear. People don't realise that while they are striving to achieve a particular goal they are stressing out if someone beats them to it, or if they can't fulfil what they're attempting the way they feel it should be achieved. A perfectionist lives in fear of not being able to reach what their particular target is and they will spend wasted time attempting to get there; to be the best.

If that is you, Jesus does not want that type of perfection. He wants us to love people as He does; in other words, for us to be like Him. It's attainable, but it takes willpower, dedication and the ability to shrug off persecution, bad-feeling and abuse from those who are our enemies at this time. To win them over - if that is possible - we need to show them just how Jesus is, and that starts with loving them, no matter what.

So latch on to the Greek version of perfect - teleios- because that is what Jesus was discussing here.

Copyright 2019 Grahame Howard 

dailylifewithjesus@protonmail.com