There is a legend that at the gates of the ancient city of Thebes, there crouched on legs of iron, brandishing the wings of an eagle and speaking from the head of a woman, a feral creature. Whenever a stranger approached the city, the Sphinx, as she was called, put to them a deadly riddle.
If the stranger got it wrong—and they all did—the beast would devour him whole. When along came a wanderer named Oedipus, who ended the terror by solving the riddle, the Sphinx threw herself over a cliff to her welcomed demise.
Do you remember the riddle?
What goes on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?
If you don’t recall the answer, the following message will be ‘riddled’ with clues.
Here’s the first one: In the morning of my life, crawling on all fours, the most influential scripture I learned was about how children were supposed to behave. At the end of the fifth chapter of Matthew, Jesus tells the multitude on the mount:
“Be ye therefore perfect even as your father which is in heaven is perfect.”
Matthew 5:48
As a child, along with my parents, siblings, and all my church friends, I interpreted the keyword in that famous scripture—the word Perfect—the same way much of the world did then and still does. Perfect means flawless, spotless, sinless, and free from error. Invoking the word Perfect in the same sermon as precise words like Jot and Tittle, Jesus appeared to be inviting us to keep His commandments without the slightest deviation.
Clue number two: In the midday of my life, finally able to go about on two feet, I began to understand that there might be something in Jesus’ admonition to be perfect that went beyond the scrupulosity—and the attendant guilt—that had seemed in my primary days to form part and parcel of His invitation. As a Swiss missionary, I came to the word Perfect through the French word Parfait. Not the ice cream dish noun, Parfait is also the past participle of the French verb Parfaire, itself derived from the verb Faire, meaning To Do, To Make, or To Complete. Perfect, then, in addition to meaning flawless, can also mean just plain finished. Relieved to be off the hook from a strict standard of perfection that allowed no wiggle room for getting into heaven, I spent the second third of my life contemplating what it meant to be a complete human being, one who finishes or endures to the end.
And now a final clue: I currently find myself in that phase of life I call The Evening of the Sphinx. Although my doctor advised me not to play tennis on concrete surfaces, arthritis in my knees does not yet compel me to go about on a third leg, which is to say, walking with the aid of a cane. Even so, I now understand that the Savior’s invitation to “be ye therefore perfect” might have had less to do with the word Perfect itself—whether meaning flawless or complete—than the sometimes glossed-over modifier Jesus places ahead of that keyword in both the New Testament and Book of Mormon versions of The Sermon on the Mount.
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your father which is in heaven is perfect.
Matthew 5: 48
Therefore, I would that ye should be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect.
3 Nephi 12: 48
I’m going to read the two verses again, this time placing the emphasis on a different word. Before I do, consider that when an AI attempts to identify the authorship of an unattributed text, it ignores what we humans might consider the more obvious content words—words like Perfect or Father in Heaven to focus instead on the wordprint comprising the tiniest minutia of content-free context words.
Here are the two verses emphasized differently.
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your father which is in heaven is perfect.
Matthew 5: 48
Therefore, I would that ye should be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect.
3 Nephi 12: 48
Grammar time.
The word Therefore is what’s known as a conjunctive adverb. Used in a sentence or paragraph, its purpose is to separate everything that comes before it from everything that comes after it. Once separated, like the if-then glue of a cause-and-effect argument, Therefore reconnects the physically separated parts into a single logical idea. Here are some examples of how the word Therefore splits a phrase in two in order to emphasize the relationship between them.
- In the morning of my life, having not yet learned to walk, I therefore crawled on all fours.
- As I got older, my legs gained strength, and my balance improved. I could, therefore, walk on just two legs.
- A few years from now, if my arthritis gets worse, I might, therefore, have to resort to a cane, which is to say, I might, therefore, go about my life on three legs.
Let’s look at how the greatest teacher of all splits the fifth chapter of Matthew in two.
Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets, Jesus begins. I am not come to destroy but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, one jot nor one tittle hath not passed away from the law, but in me, it hath all been fulfilled.
Mattew 5:17
The bulk of the first forty-six verses of the Sermon on the Mount lists numerous examples of what fulfilling—completing—the law might look like.
- Don’t just not kill, Jesus said, don’t even be angry or tell someone they’re stupid.
- Before coming unto God, be first reconciled to everyone else.
- Agree quickly in an argument.
- Don’t hate but love your enemy.
- Bless them that curse you.
- Do good to those who might not like you.
- Pray for them that mock, embarrass, or take advantage of you.
Following all those examples and more, we finally come to the dividing word Therefore in verse forty-seven. Remember, it is Therefore’s job to separate and then tie together everything that comes before it to everything that comes after it. We’re in for a double treat as Jesus begins each of the next two verses, with our new favorite context word.
Verse 47: Therefore those things which were of old time, which were under the law, in me are all fulfilled.
Jesus is ‘therefore’ saying, what I’ve just given you is all the ways we should build upon the old laws on our way to fulfilling them.
In the last verse of chapter five, Jesus ties His fulfillment of the old law with his desire for us to remember all the ways he has just suggested that we, in our own way, fulfill not just the law, but fulfill or complete ourselves as well.
Therefore, I would that ye should be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect.
Therefore, Jesus might have said insitead, Love one another. Or Fulfill or Complete the law, whose end is Love, and on which hangs all the other laws and prophets. (See Matthew 22:40)
- “If ye love me,” Jesus says, “please place no other Gods before me.”
- “If ye love me,” he goes on, “honor my Sabbath day.”
- “If ye love me, honor your parents, and love your neighbors
- Don’t bear false witness against them, steal from them, be envious of them, harm them in any way, or even be angry with them.”
“Love me,” he commands. “Love one another. Be perfect, be flawless, be complete in that love. As I became perfect as My Father who is in heaven is perfect, as I completed the mission He sent me to fulfill, I would that you might also become therefore perfect, which is to say, fulfill my Law of love.”
In matters of love, at least, perhaps Oedipus and the Sphinx got things wrong after all. Maybe all of us got it wrong or omitted the final, final hour from The Ancient Riddle of Life. As we progress from infants to adults, to become old folks like me, the key to loving others as Jesus loves us is to somehow make our way back to a time when, as children, crawling on all fours, we knew no other answer than to just love everyone.
