Intro

This blog gains its name from the book Steele's Answers published in 1912. It began as an effort to blog through that book, posting each of the Questions and Answers in the book in the order in which they appeared. I began the project on Dec. 10, 2011. I completed it on July 11, 2015. Along the way, I began to also post snippets from Dr. Steele's other writings — and from some other holiness writers of his times. I still do that every once in a while.

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Be Ye Perfect

QUESTION: Is Matt. 5:48 a precept or a prediction? We note that the revisors have changed the words, "Be ye perfect" to "Ye shall be perfect," making them a promise instead of a command.

ANSWER: Both forms are mandatory. All the requirements and prohibitions of the Decalogue, except the fifth, are in the indicative form, "Thou shalt" and "Thou shalt not." This is really in the Greek as strong as the imperative mood. Even though we had no expressed command, we would be bound to realize the highest ideal. This is found in the character of Jesus Christ. "While a better is in sight, we can rest in no good; and the refusal to move onward is to be a traitor to the highest, and so, finally, to the good itself," says Dr. Borden P. Bowne. Indifference in sight of spiritual perfection is a perilous attitude of a free moral agent professing faith in Christ.

Steele's Answers pp. 108.

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