Matthew 4:17 – From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.”
Over the last few years, a lot of words seem to be losing their original meaning. Words being redefined for political purposes, or others just out of time and ignorance. Either way, we should reclaim any words that have lost their meaning.
When Jesus said “……..” what did He really mean?
This is a really important question to me. Because I want to live the way He wants me to.
The word we translate as ‘repent’ has, I believe, lost some of its meaning over the last 500 years.
When John the Baptist, Peter and of course Jesus said ‘repent’, they weren’t just meaning that we should turn away from our sins, though it includes that. Repenting is so much more than that.
The greek word for repent is Metanoia. Meta means ‘beyond’. It means bigger, greater and Noia refers to how we think. Paranoia for example is a word you might be familiar with.
So metanoia is to think bigger or to think beyond.
When Jesus said ‘repent (metanoia) for the Kingdom is near’. He meant, it’s time to think differently, to think bigger, anything is possible, because there’s a new king on the throne …. ie Jesus.
