Gerhard Lohfink

13You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot. 14You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house.

In a previous blog I introduced Gerhard Lohfink’s suggestion that wholeness is the key to the Sermon and in another I gave his arguments for this claim. But what about the arguments for Matt 5:48 being about wholeness? Does “perfect” (teleios) mean “wholeness”?

Undivided loyalty to God also entails… undividedness towards the neighbor.

Wholeness is the inmost principle of the Sermon on the Mount.