From Background Notes [BN] for July 20th & 21stwritten
by Pastor Bob Brown:
If loving my enemy doesn’t seem pretty far-fetched, then agreeing to Jesus’ invitation to perfection surely does! So what’s the takeaway here? Perfection is something we deny all the time: “I’m not perfect, you know.” “Sorry for not being perfect.” Such denials usually come in the face of mistakes made, and we feel the need to beg off from always getting things right. We can’t be right all the time. Everybody messes up sometimes. Perfect? I don’t think so. But…
If loving my enemy doesn’t seem pretty far-fetched, then agreeing to Jesus’ invitation to perfection surely does! So what’s the takeaway here? Perfection is something we deny all the time: “I’m not perfect, you know.” “Sorry for not being perfect.” Such denials usually come in the face of mistakes made, and we feel the need to beg off from always getting things right. We can’t be right all the time. Everybody messes up sometimes. Perfect? I don’t think so. But…
… then we dig a bit deeper and discover the underlying word for “perfect,” the Greek term teleios, with the strong sense of “reaching the goal, hitting the target, achieving an aim.” The telos in Greek thought had to do with the purpose of things, and the ends we want to achieve. Biblically speaking, all things find their goal in God, and so the old catechism would ask young students: “What is the chief end of man?” and expect to hear the reply, “To glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.” [BN, 10-11]
Join us this week in Study, Worship, Praise and Celebration at Chicago First Church of the Nazarene:
* Saturday 6:00pm
* Sunday 8:30am & 11:00am
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