I’ll first describe how covenants create the context for understanding “perfection” and “loyalty.” I’ll also explain why “loyal” may be a better translation of the word “perfect.” And I hope to demonstrate how loyalty ties us back into the covenant God made with his people through Moses which was renewed and updated by Jesus himself and which we reenact each week at Sacrament. I propose that a better translation of the phrase, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect,” would be, “Be ye therefore loyal, even as your Father which is in heaven is loyal.” ” As helpful as these insights are from the Greek, we may miss the larger covenantal context within which the word “perfect” is embedded. We could translate the phrase as “be ye therefore purposeful, even as your Father which is in heaven is purposeful. For example, after a careful examination of the Hebrew and Greek words involved in KJV passages that use the word “perfect” with respect to mortals, Frank Judd explains that mortal flawlessness is not implied in Matthew 5:48 on the contrary, the “essential sense of the Savior’s command to be perfect is a call to live the gospel of Jesus Christ to the best of one’s ability, using the Atonement to repent when necessary.” 3 Thankfully, there have been regular reminders from scholars 1 and church leaders 2 that the original meaning of the Greek word “teleios,” far from evincing the meaning of flawlessness, instead evokes the sense of completion, goal-orientation, maturity, and purposefulness. But even then, the commandment to be “perfect” is given to us as flawed mortals for whom perfection seems so unobtainable. Perhaps the perfection referred to requires a perspective going beyond mortality and looking to the fullness that comes after the resurrection. Who, among the fallen children of Adam and Eve, will ever in this mortal life be able to be perfect? The cause seems hopeless.Ī different perspective may come by considering the difference in the Book of Mormon when Christ reiterates His commandment, but this time also referring to Himself: “Be perfect, even as I or your Father who is in heaven is perfect” (3 Nephi 12:48). For those of us already desiring to be more like God, that is, with tendencies toward perfectionism, this charge from Jesus can feel overwhelming, overpowering, and dispiriting. The Lord’s injunction to “be ye therefore perfect” (Matthew 5:48) is beautifully magnified when we realize that we are not simply asked to be without sin, but, rather, to “be ye therefore covenantally loyal” even as God has been eternally and covenantally loyal to us.įor Latter-day Saint readers, one of the most consternation-creating passages in scripture is Jesus’s admonition in the Sermon on the Mount to “be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). This article builds on that revealing research to show that the English word “perfect” in a covenantal context in scripture can also be represented with the covenantal synonyms of “loyal, loyalty, faithful, and trustworthy.” God has revealed and preserved the scriptures as records of these covenants and of the consequences of covenantal loyalty or disloyalty. Research during the past century on ancient Near Eastern covenants has brought clarity to the covenantal meaning and context of a variety of words and literary structures in the Old Testament and the Book of Mormon. This is especially true for the Old Testament and the Book of Mormon, which emerged out of an Old Testament cultural context. Any serious or close reading of the scriptures that misses or ignores the covenantal words, phrases, and literary structure of scripture runs the risk of missing the full purpose of why God preserved the scriptures for us. Complexities in the English Language of the Book of Mormon - 2015Ībstract: The scriptures are saturated with covenantal words and terms.Undaunted: Witnesses of the Book of Mormon.Robert Cundick: A Sacred Service of Music.
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