I knew a couple of brothers who grew up as missionary kids in the mission field, getting “American school” in the morning while in the afternoons doing what the local/native kids did, from running naked across the veldt or savanna to stalking wildlife to things only tribe members did (that they wouldn’t talk about). Back in the U.S. for college, they had the most culturally open outlook of anyone I’ve ever met.
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i wonder if anyone here has read or come across Rebekah Drumsta?
I am not one who normally directs people to a specific source but I found this view on Christian Perfection rather refreshing
Does God expect us to be perfect?
Without giving too much away, she clearly does not think He does and argues it well.
Richard
I’ve come across some of her stuff before but never deliberately read anything of substance.
She was doing well until she got to this:
In fact, many scholars believe that perfect should have been translated as love or complete. If this is the case, look at the verse again replacing the word perfect with the word love, “Be ye love even as your Father in Heaven is love.” This radically changes things!
The term τέλειος (TEH-lei-ohs) does not in any way mean “love” – you have to do some nifty dog-tricks to get to that!
“Complete” is more to the point, and is far better than “perfect”: the concept is of having reached a mature stage, not of being finished. The word is used in mystery religions of those who have passed their initial instruction and been inducted into full membership. It can be illustrated with the example of a fruit tree, which an orchardman would consider τέλειος, complete or mature, when it begins producing fruit; it is then fulfilling its purpose or goal – and “goal” is critical to understanding τέλειος, which comes from a root meaning “end, goal, (final) destiny”, and thus τέλειος indicates a condition of being aimed towards a goal.
So her conclusion is right, just some of her path getting there is bad. The term does not (except in rare cases) indicate a status of having 100% match-up to some static model, which is how “perfect” comes across in modern English. And she missed a big point: we are to be τέλειοι (plural) as our Father in heaven is τέλειός (singular), but no guidance on what τέλειός is directly given – and in such cases we must look to the context. And that context is one not of checklist moral status but of relational status, with illustrations of moving from one level (“You have heard it was said”) to a higher one (“But I say to you”). The implication from the context, then, is that τέλειός, as the root of the word indicates, is a matter of moving toward a goal – a goal that could be summed up using Paul’s phrase about undergoing the process of being transformed into the image of Christ.
Just BTW, if you trace the English “perfect” backwards the root has overtones of “exquisite” or “excellent” (shades of Bill & Ted!).
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