Perfectly Complete

Perfectly Complete

 On my last birthday, I received a very nice gift from my husband. It was a Hebrew-Greek Study Bible that I had been wanting for a while. I just now started reading through it because I was on my second year of trying to read the Bible in a year. Yes, it took me TWO YEARS to finally complete that task. Slow and steady wins the race and all that….So, finally I’ve gotten around to starting the Hebrew-Greek Bible. It is a really cool, yet complicated, Bible. It has underlines of the words that have multiple meanings when translated, so you can look up the other possible translations. 


There has always been a line in the Bible that I have wondered about. In Genesis 17, God is speaking to Abram (soon to become Abraham), and He says this, “I am the Almighty God, walk before me, and be thou perfect.” That word, perfect, has haunted many a Christian I’m sure. I know that it has haunted me. Perfect? How will I ever accomplish that?! Not to mention that we, as humans, are all sinners. There is no getting around it. So, I flipped to the back of my Hebrew-Greek Bible and hoped to dispel this myth of perfection! Thankfully, it helped me gain a new understanding for this verse.


The Hebrew-Greek word for this is tâyîm, which has many possible meanings – including without blemish, complete, full, sound, undefiled, upright, or whole. The words complete, full, and whole all made me really think about what was being said by God. Let’s replace the word perfect in the line with “complete”. 

“I am the Almighty God, walk before me, and be thou complete.”

Now it takes on a whole new meaning, doesn’t it? Basically, He is saying to Abram that He will make Abram complete. In this context we see that it is not by anything Abram does or doesn’t do that he will be complete, but instead it is THROUGH GOD that Abram becomes complete and whole. By following God, obeying God, and loving God Abram becomes full, whole, complete, perfected. 


“For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority.”
Colossians 2:9-10