{"id":410,"date":"2014-10-03T12:00:53","date_gmt":"2014-10-03T12:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/?p=410"},"modified":"2014-08-30T21:49:53","modified_gmt":"2014-08-30T21:49:53","slug":"matthew-543-48-love-for-enemies-word-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/10\/matthew-543-48-love-for-enemies-word-study.html","title":{"rendered":"Matthew 5:43-48; Love for Enemies (Word Study)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cBe perfect,\u201d Jesus said, \u201cas your heavenly Father is perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So what does that mean?<\/p>\n<p>In our 21<sup>st<\/sup> Century experience, we tend to define \u201cperfect\u201d as meaning \u201cflawless,\u201d or without any kind of shortcoming. \u201cThat diamond solitaire is perfect,\u201d we say, \u201cwithout any inclusion to mar its clarity or brilliance.\u201d But that\u2019s not an appropriate view when it comes to Christ\u2019s command here. His definition was something different, particularly as he applied it to the idea of loving our enemies.<\/p>\n<p>The Greek term for \u201cperfect\u201d that\u2019s transcribed in Matthew 5:48 is <em>teleios<\/em>, and instead of \u201cflawless,\u201d it means most literally: \u201cfinished\u201d or \u201cmature.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In other words, Christ\u2019s command to love our enemies is not simply a demand that we attempt to achieve a higher standard of behavior. It\u2019s actually a call for us to participate in a Holy Spirit-cultivated growth process by which we continually become more \u201cmature\u201d or \u201cfinished\u201d in our ability to genuinely love our enemies. As Dr. Wayne Detzler explains, \u201cPerfection in the New Testament is not a flawless imitation of God. Rather it is a growth into maturity which is discernible as one makes progress in the faith.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBe perfect,\u201d Jesus said. If perfection were simply a destination on the moral landscape, that would seem a cruel, impossible command. But it is not that. Christ\u2019s words instead are a beckoning motion, an appeal for you and me to spend our lives on a journey of perfection, continually growing and maturing in his limitless love, one unsteady step at a time.<\/p>\n<p>As we pursue this kind of perfection, we begin to reflect more and more our Father\u2019s \u201cfinished\u201d character of love toward our enemies, moving toward maturity in fulfilling God\u2019s purpose within\u00a0each of us.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/workscited.html\">Works Cited<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>[CWD, 1372; NTW, 307]<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u2126\u2126\u2126<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"About: Bible Study Nerds\" href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/about-for-bible-study-nerds.html\">About: For Bible Study Nerds\u2122<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"About: Mike Nappa\" href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/about-mike-nappa.html\">About: Mike Nappa<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2014 to present by\u00a0<a title=\"Nappaland Communications Inc. official website\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nappaland.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Nappaland Communications Inc<\/a>. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cBe perfect,\u201d Jesus said, \u201cas your heavenly Father is perfect.\u201d So what does that mean? In our 21st Century experience, we tend to define \u201cperfect\u201d as meaning \u201cflawless,\u201d or without any kind of shortcoming. \u201cThat diamond solitaire is perfect,\u201d we say, \u201cwithout any inclusion to mar its clarity or brilliance.\u201d But that\u2019s not an appropriate&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":571,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,15],"tags":[173,111,174],"class_list":["post-410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-matthew","category-wordstudies","tag-perfection","tag-sermon-on-the-mount","tag-teleios"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Matthew 5:43-48; Love for Enemies (Word Study)  - For Bible Study Nerds<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/10\/matthew-543-48-love-for-enemies-word-study.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Matthew 5:43-48; Love for Enemies (Word Study)  - For Bible Study Nerds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cBe perfect,\u201d Jesus said, \u201cas your heavenly Father is perfect.\u201d So what does that mean? In our 21st Century experience, we tend to define \u201cperfect\u201d as meaning \u201cflawless,\u201d or without any kind of shortcoming. \u201cThat diamond solitaire is perfect,\u201d we say, \u201cwithout any inclusion to mar its clarity or brilliance.\u201d But that\u2019s not an appropriate&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/10\/matthew-543-48-love-for-enemies-word-study.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"For Bible Study Nerds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-10-03T12:00:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-08-30T21:49:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mike Nappa\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Matthew 5:43-48; Love for Enemies (Word Study)  - For Bible Study Nerds","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/10\/matthew-543-48-love-for-enemies-word-study.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Matthew 5:43-48; Love for Enemies (Word Study)  - For Bible Study Nerds","og_description":"\u201cBe perfect,\u201d Jesus said, \u201cas your heavenly Father is perfect.\u201d So what does that mean? In our 21st Century experience, we tend to define \u201cperfect\u201d as meaning \u201cflawless,\u201d or without any kind of shortcoming. \u201cThat diamond solitaire is perfect,\u201d we say, \u201cwithout any inclusion to mar its clarity or brilliance.\u201d But that\u2019s not an appropriate&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/10\/matthew-543-48-love-for-enemies-word-study.html","og_site_name":"For Bible Study Nerds","article_published_time":"2014-10-03T12:00:53+00:00","article_modified_time":"2014-08-30T21:49:53+00:00","author":"Mike Nappa","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/10\/matthew-543-48-love-for-enemies-word-study.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/10\/matthew-543-48-love-for-enemies-word-study.html","name":"Matthew 5:43-48; Love for Enemies (Word Study) - For Bible Study Nerds","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#website"},"datePublished":"2014-10-03T12:00:53+00:00","dateModified":"2014-08-30T21:49:53+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#\/schema\/person\/a0ce37903172885871b0c504c6694575"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/10\/matthew-543-48-love-for-enemies-word-study.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/10\/matthew-543-48-love-for-enemies-word-study.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/10\/matthew-543-48-love-for-enemies-word-study.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Matthew 5:43-48; Love for Enemies (Word Study)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/","name":"For Bible Study Nerds","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Mike Nappa","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#\/schema\/person\/a0ce37903172885871b0c504c6694575","name":"Mike Nappa","description":"Mike Nappa is an entertainment journalist at FamilyFans.com, a bestselling author\u2014and a notorious Bible Study Nerd. He's a former youth pastor who shepherded kids on staff at Chuck Swindoll's church in Southern California\u2014and he's a bestselling and award-winning author with more than a million copies of his books sold worldwide. Plus, he holds a degree in Christian Education with an emphasis in Bible Theology. So, you know, he\u2019s got that going for him. Mike is also a pop culture dork who watches too much TV, reads too many comic books, utters too many bad words, laughs at all the wrong jokes, and often gets in trouble because he says whatever he happens to be thinking at the moment\u2014like quoting an R-rated movie in the middle of a sermon. Yeah, he\u2019s a mess (just like you!), but he kind of likes it that way. Most of all, Mike Nappa loves Jesus, and he figures that covers over a multitude of sins. Learn more at nappaland.com\/mikenappa.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.biblestudynerds.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/author\/mnappa"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/571"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":414,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410\/revisions\/414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}