Being a mature Christian???

I attended a community leaders meeting the other night and the associate pastor presented Col 1.28 as a key scripture to support community or Sunday school.  Now as he spoke I was thinking back to my master’s thesis.  The subject was on Sunday school and the focus of that gathering.  Outreach was one, fellowship was another leg of the triangle, but for the life of me I could not remember the third but it was teaching – duh.  

Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect* in Christ Jesus:

Anyway I was looking at the scripture and depending on the version or translation, the words differ.  In the NIC, KJ, NKJ, and the NLT, the word is perfect.  Whereas the NAS uses “complete,” the CEV, TEV, HSC, and ESV uses the word “mature.”  

The idea here is not to take the scripture out of context but I do want to raise some concerns that I was exposed to in my early years.  The word perfect has been a word I think as been taken totally wrong based on this scripture and the various translations.  What is “perfect?”  When I was an associate pastor in South Dakota I was in a different town at a youth function.  I took a break from it and went for a cup of coffee.  One of the men that lived in the town who went to church there was upset about his salvation experience.  “I guess I will never make it to heaven.”  What do you mean, you accepted JC as your Lord and Savior and you know you are saved by grace! “Yes, but pastor W sat down with me and told me that unless I gave up smoking and became an active member of the church, I was not going to heaven.”  Uhm, I almost went carnal and explicit at the same time.  What do you mean, here is what the scriptures say, you are saved by grace and your name is already on the invite list.  “No, according to Pastor W, I won’t make it to heaven until I am perfect and unless I am like him, I will never be perfect.”  Knowing pastor W I knew W was really stupid or he was in sin by smoking some Mexican agriculture.  Listen, the path is going to be a tough one.  It is a learning path and you need to be taught the ways to become better, more mature. And personally I would not want you to be perfect like W.  Do you feel like you are learning?  “Not really because all he is concerned about is tithing and saving. The quarterly’s not really working for me.”  I suggested a couple of other churches (outside the denomination we were associated with) where he could really learn.  

 

I have always had a problem with the word perfect or perfection.  I have seen those push for perfection but have not really taught or probably never really understood the concept of perfection as being one mature in the Word. These are the individuals that have a rules book of do’s and don’ts and try to keep those.

I like the word mature much better as it indicates that we are not perfect (although perfected through grace) and that we will need to mature in our Christian walk. It is true that Sunday school should be a time of learning, digging into the scriptures to assess our own lives and to see how we are growing.  As a new Christian we take to the milk and whey as we learn and develop, but like humans we grow we need more to mature.  Some individuals grow faster than others.  Some get hung up on a few choruses to reach “karma” while others eat the true meat of the scriptures putting substance to their walk.  We need to be mature and teach others maturity.  Read the scripture in context now – you will understand what I mean.  See vs 9-12.

“Nuf said.

 

 

My chief concern is to try to be an humble, earnest Christian.
Robert E. Lee