Repent!

Those of you that know me know that I struggle often with my "church of Christ" heritage. Growing up in the church, often times, words like "Gospel" and "Repent", were used to scare me into submission.

Repent for instance, I can remember preachers using this word, along with my grandad, in what i felt were scare tactics to get you to act right. "REPENT!!!!" Can you hear that?

Here's what i found on dictionary.com.

Repent: to feel sorry, self reproachful, or contrite for past conduct.


In specific, let's look at Acts 2:38 "Repent and be baptized" (there's another word that was not translated form the greek, another time). The greek word is metanoya, (not sure if I spelled that right, but you get the picture here) meaning in english "change".

So, think about that for a minute, "change and be immersed" (since that's what the word baptismo means). What do you think? I like that much better, rather than be self judging, simply change your ways. Cause most of us that have spent the last 60 years or so in the church have a problem with "judging" ourselves as well as others.

Just something to think about!