PERFECT, COMPLETE — from telos, 'end, goal': not flawless but FINISHED, having reached its intended end, the way ripe fruit, a full-grown adult, or a completed task is 'perfect'. ⚠ It is a keyword of James — the 'perfect work' of endurance, the 'perfect gift' from above, the 'perfect law of liberty' (1:4, 17, 25; also 3:2) — carrying the sense of wholeness and maturity, not moral spotlessness. It is the word behind Jesus' 'be teleioi as your heavenly Father is teleios' (Matthew 5:48), which in context means all-embracing in love, not defect-free. The KJV's 'perfect' is right read as the older English 'complete', misleading read as modern 'faultless'. It is the Greek Bible's counterpart to the Hebrew tamim — El Shaddai's charge to Abram, 'walk before me, and be blameless' (Genesis 17:1) — and Luke's parallel reads 'merciful' (6:36): the wholeness in question is love without a fence. → first discussed at Matt 5:48