New Testament context A young man in the
Christian gospels asked what he should do to obtain eternal life, and Jesus told him to "keep the commandments", but when the young man pressed further, Christ told him: "If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor". It is from this passage that the term "counsel of perfection" comes. Again in the Gospels, Jesus speaks of "
eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven", and added "He that can receive it, let him receive it".
St. Paul presses home the duty incumbent on all Christians of keeping free from all sins of the flesh, and of fulfilling the obligations of the married state, if they have taken those obligations upon themselves, but also gives his "counsel" in favor of the unmarried state and of perfect chastity (
celibacy), on the ground that it is thus more possible to serve God with an undivided allegiance. Members of religious institutes confirm their intention to observe the evangelical counsels by vows – that is, vows that the superior of the religious institute accepts in the name of the Church — or by other sacred bonds.
Nuns at work in the cloister Apart from the consecrated life, Christians are free to make a private vow to observe one or more of the evangelical counsels; but a private vow does not have the same binding and other effects in church law as a public vow. The danger in the
Early Church, even in Apostolic times, was not that the "counsels" would be neglected or denied, but that they should be exalted into commands of universal obligation, "forbidding to marry" (), and imposing poverty as a duty on all. The Council's
Dogmatic Constitution on the Church also asserts that "it is the duty of the
ecclesiastical hierarchy to regulate the practice of the evangelical counsels by law". ==Criticisms of supererogatory interpretation of evangelical counsels ==