Jesus Wasn't Perfect

Before you pick up rocks to stone me for the title of this devotional, let’s do a little thinking together.

What are the implications of this verse:

It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered. - Hebrews 2:10

According to the Bible, Jesus was not perfect. He had to be made perfect. What is helpful is to unpack the Greek word for perfect, which is TELOS which means “perfect, complete, end, mature.” It’s embedded in ‘telescope’ - where you see the end, so to speak, of the universe. TELOS was used to describe flowers in full bloom or fruit the was ripe - so it didn’t really carry the connotation of ‘without error or moral fault’ which is how we often think of it.

So the book of Hebrews is not saying that Jesus was corrupt and needed perfecting - it’s saying that Jesus, like all humans, had maturing to do. This is exactly what we read about in Luke 2 when it says twice that Jesus ‘grew up.’

Let’s hold all of this in mind as we come to Jesus’s interaction with the woman from ‘Canaan’ (as Matthew calls her). She pushes back on Jesus and tells him that he needs to see things differently (see yesterday’s devotions) - and he agrees with her. Since she’s talking specifically about ethnic difference within the kingdom of God, you get the sense that she might have been one of the first people outside of his own ethnic heritage that Jesus met… so he had some learning and growing to do. We see that when he corrects what he said earlier and says, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted” (Matthew 15:28).

Jesus matured. As a kid in Luke 2 he grew. He also learned things ‘through what he suffered,’ as Hebrews puts it. And he learned things from this great woman of faith. And since Jesus is the model of what it means to be human… we get to do the same thing!

What are some ways you need to grow, like Jesus did? Think particularly of ways that you don’t fully understand another ethnic group and ask God for the grace to be like Jesus and to have your assumptions challenged and to mature.