Who is speaking the truth?

[David Koot]

In context I prefer the NIB rendering. "There must be no limit to your goodness, as your heavenly Father's goodness knows no bounds." It is a summation of the preceding verses.

mel

Interesting. After studying the verb, I had come to a similar conclusion. V. 28 is, indeed, 'a summation of the preceding verses.' I have to run right now, but would like to explore the verb at some length, later on.

Dave

[Bravus]

Cool

[David Koot]

Now, as to the verb:

First of all, we are dealing with GREEK grammar, rather than English. As is noted, the Greek tense deals more with the KIND of action rather than WHEN it will occur. IOW the fact that the future tense is present does not, in and of itself, mandate a time for performance in the future. In the instant case, as was commented on earlier, v. 48 is a summation of Jesus' discourse. It is saying, in effect, 'Then you will be perfect (or complete)' That is the literal translation, or, in the word order as it appears, 'You will then be perfect.' 'Then' does not refer to time, but to performance of the actions specified. 'By doing these things, you will be perfect.' I also found it of interest that the middle voice is used, rather than the active. Speaking of the middle voice, professor Conrad of Washington University pointed out in 2003:

"Linguists refer to the parent language from which Greek derives as “Proto-Indo-European.” They tell us that Proto-Indo-European had only two morphoparadigms for voice, those conjugational patterns that in Greek have traditionally been called “Active” and “Middle-Passive.” There was no distinct morphological indication in verbs that expressed the notion of the 'passive' only; rather, the “Middle-Passive” sufficed to convey both intransitive notions of entering into a state or condition or activity and transitive notions indicative of actions being performed upon the grammatical subject . . ." [emphasis added]

I notice that in earlier posts on this thread, commentaries are referenced. Commentaries certainly can be useful as a source of ideas for sermons. However, they are not authoritative when it comes to Greek grammar. Not a good source for definitive grammatical information.

Best regards as always,

Dave