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Be Ye Perfect?

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Photo by Karl Fredrickson

In a previous post, I told a story of a church member’s shocking reaction towards my friend for wearing jeans to church. Unfortunately, such reactions are not that rare in Christianity. Sadly, these days Christians are known more for being critical, judgmental, and condemning rather than gracious, merciful, and loving. Of course, most would claim the reason for our toughness on the immorality of others is that we have a standard to uphold. Many would quickly quote Matthew 5:48, which says we are to be “perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Because of this goal, we feel the need to measure and enforce such perfection.

Yet this feeling rises from of misunderstandings of that text and our role in judgment and conviction. Sure, 1 Corinthians 6:2, 3 says we will judge angels, but it says “will.” Not yet—we don’t have all the information. The Bible also talks of holding fellow Christians accountable, but always in the context of grace, gentleness and love (see Galatians 6:1 and 1 Timothy 5:20). The Bible is also very clear that conviction is the work of the Holy Spirit. Besides, can we really change each other? Why would we think we can when we can’t even change ourselves (Jeremiah 13:23)! If we are not to judge (yet) and we cannot bring true conviction, how could it be our job to perfect the church?

Perfecting the Church?

Yet, in our desire to create “perfection” in our churches, we create a human standard (according to our preferences) so strict that many who need Jesus can’t come to Him. Too many churches tell people they can’t do things that God allows, and allow people to do things that God detests! No, we are not to perfect God’s people; we are not to try to convict; we are not to judge. Jesus says plainly in Matthew 7:1, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.”

You might be wondering: what are we supposed to do about Jesus’ teachings on perfection? The passage in question: Matthew 5:48—“You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” First, if we are made perfect, it is God’s doing not ours (see Ezekiel 20:12 and Philippians 1:6). Second, this text doesn’t say anything about being sinless or being perfect in actions. We assume that’s what it means, but the word in the Greek means “mature, complete.” (In fact, never once does the word for perfect in action appear in the Bible to describe man. It is only used to describe God!) Of course, we would understand the meaning of Jesus’ challenge if we would just read the context.

The Context of Matthew 5:48

Jesus starts this topic in verse 43. He counters a common understanding with the truth. The world believes people should get what they deserve. The world says it’s okay to hate your enemies, but Jesus sets a new standard: love them and pray for them. It is noteworthy that verse 45 starts with “so that.” In other words, we do the former because of the latter. We love and pray for our enemies, “so that, you may be the sons of your Father who is in heaven.” To be children you must behave as the Father does—He is impartial in His love for us. He loves us all equally and allows blessings to fall on everyone.

Then, in verses 46 and 47, Jesus further challenges us to rise above the world. Love the unloveable—the not-good-enough. Do you give the same love to everyone? Every church believes they are a loving church, yet most only show love to the lovable (or they only show love while at church). Here’s a tough question: is the “love” shown by you at church really any different than the “love” shown at a local bar or even by a greeter at Wal-Mart?

Jesus brings the idea home in verse 48: be perfect, therefore, as our heavenly Father is perfect. The context is not about purified actions, it is about the central theme of Jesus’ ministry and teachings to His disciples. It is the summation of the Law (Matthew 22:37–40). It is the identifier of a disciple (John 13:35). He is calling us to be perfect in love. Becoming spiritually mature and consistent in how we treat each other. He wants us to love like the Father loves. A love that does not care who “they” are or what they have done. The love that can say “forgive them” even when being persecuted.

Perfect in Love

Can you imagine what it would be like to experience that kind of love? According to Paul, all of our evangelism, our ministries, our church services are pointless without love (1 Corinthians 13:1–8). This love requires more than a smile or greeting at the door on the way in or out. It is a love that cannot be experienced out in the world. Yet, somehow we have gotten it backwards. We used to live by the saying: “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” Today, we seem to be living by the saying, “Love the sin, hate the sinner.”

So, I will restate Jesus’ challenge: Be Ye Perfect—in love. And what better place to start than  among your fellow God-followers? We can’t love the stranger walking through the door if we don’t love each other first. This means we must stop judging. We must stop gossiping. We must stop trying to cleanse the church of its imperfect members (or leaders), and start showing the love of God instead.

God’s still working on me and you, and we are called to love each other through that process. So regardless of how spiritually clean the people around you are—whether their theology is seriously flawed or they actually ate real cheese—just love what God is making them to be. As Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34, 35). May we be perfect in love, even as He is perfect!

Why Is Unity Among Christians So Difficult?

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Okay. I need to admit something from the start: I woke up this morning tired. It has been a long couple of weeks and I’m exhausted. But it is more than that. I’m tired of all the arguments I have read and heard between professed Christians lately. I’m not tired because people can’t agree, but because it doesn’t seem like many Christians today can disagree in a nice way. Christians can be down-right mean—especially toward each other—and it is making me tired, and sad.

One might think that Christian disagreements arise because one side isn’t reading their Bibles and the other side is. Yet, in many cases, arguments on both sides of an issue often claim the Bible as their main source of authority. One such case, plaguing my denomination right now, illustrates this. Members on one side of the issue use Scripture to support their cause and declare that those who oppose their views are simply using modern culture as their foundation. Interestingly, it is exactly the same argument their opposing side uses against them! How can this be? Can the Bible really support both sides of an argument? How can cultural ideas be the foundation of both sides of an argument, yet be different?

The majority of these conflicts appear when a topic does not have a clear “Thou shalt” in the Bible. Whenever anything having to do with the church cannot be clearly seen in scripture, we have the tendency to come to different interpretations. But is it wrong to see things differently? Is it bad if we do not agree on everything?

In my studies in Scripture, I have not found one passage that says that God’s people would always agree on everything (I may have missed it—if so, please direct me to the passage). Instead, I have found several stories that show disagreements between the people who follow God. In most of these disagreements, however, His people were able to remain united.

I believe this is our real problem: we don’t seem to be able to disagree and stay united. Of course, too often we view doctrinal agreement as equal to being united. Again, in my experience, this is rarely true. I have, on some occasions, experienced a strong unity with people who believe differently than me, while on other occasions, I felt a lack of unity with people who claim to believe the same as me. Yet, some suggest that certain topics are so important that we must agree on them to remain unified. But which topics meet this inconsistent level of importance?

Unfortunately, it doesn’t take a very important issue to cause division. How many churches have been split over the color of new carpet? A church can have heated arguments, and almost split, over the position of the piano—on the right or the left of the pulpit? Surely carpet colors and piano positions must be of great importance. What about diet? Music maybe—that’s a really nice hot potato. Oh, wait. I know. How about women and their ability to be ordained? If anything, one of these has to be the topic that is vital enough to unite us or, as far as I can tell, justify a lack of unity.

Wrong. No doctrine, regardless of how much we may value it, is supposed to be what unites us. Likewise, no topic, regardless of how much we may disagree with it, should divide us. Doctrines were not meant to be the deciding factor of our oneness. Actually, quite the opposite: divisions simply based on religious beliefs are called factions in the Bible, and are listed among the works of the flesh in Galatians 5:19–21. This is the list that is in opposition to the Fruit of the Spirit: love, patience, long-suffering, etc. According to scripture, divisions among fellow believers are not the result of God’s Spirit in our lives. Actually, it appears to be the result of a lack of God’s Spirit in our lives.

You see, according to Jesus, there is only source of true unity: being in Him and the Father (John 17:21–23). It was His prayer that His followers would be one; that we might be unified. He did not say that our unity would be through agreement on beliefs (or, more realistically, agreement on opinions), but that our unity would be based on the fact that we walk with Him. Basically, Jesus is saying that those who hold on to Him, those who are in Him, will find themselves united to each other as well.

Think about Jesus’ illustration of the vine and the branches in John 15: what makes the branches united? It’s their connection to the Vine. This connection is what really matters. This is what will bring true unity among the believers.

So why are we still arguing amongst ourselves instead of spreading the gospel, and whining when we don’t get our way, and purposely causing divisions among our fellow believers? Why does unity seem so difficult? It is because we are trying to use our own methods to become unified. Unfortunately, all we do is further fragment Christianity. We are only forming more doctrinal cliques. Maybe that is all we really want. Maybe we don’t truly want to be one in Christ. Maybe all we want is to be right in the eyes of others in our group. I pray that this is not so. If it is, our Adversary has already defeated us.

This is not a call to doctrinal uniformity—I’m not suggesting that we run back to some centralized, mother church—nor I am suggesting that we cease standing up for our beliefs. I am only suggesting that we find unity amongst ourselves in our mutual love for our Savior; that we embrace each other in Christ. So many people with so many different beliefs and opinions may never completely agree, but we can be one like the Father and the Son are one.

If anything, we are truly united in this one fact: we are all sinners and we have the same Savior. Let us hold on tight to this gospel truth! Without this truth, everything else is meaningless anyway.