What a great title!
I guess for quite a while I have struggled with the word repentance. I’ve come to see the term as referring to a change, a turning around, a conscious choice. Unfortunately, I have seen the term used to bludgeon others, to condemn others who aren’t like us, to expect that the turning is all that is important.
The word “into” is the term I would like to attach to the term “repent”. Just knowing what is bad is bad enough. Not knowing what is good is really bad.
The list of bad needs to be accompanied by a list of good.
Into the later decades of life, few people repent of the learning that they have done over the decades. Merely pointing out to them that something is bad is not enough. They have survived the bad.
Pointing out what they are repenting into is much more effective. Building a picture that portrays paradise, when they are surviving in hell, is much more effective than painting a picture of the hell they already live in. They know that hell, and they are surviving in that hell. They want a hope of paradise – of a resurrection from death into life.
I like the term “Merry Christmas”!
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Christ came into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. (Scripture passage – John 3:16-17)