Friends: We had just a little more to say on repentance, our doorway to hope. See the column below. Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #978

August 12, 2025

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Doorway to Hope

By Bob Walters

“Repent, and be baptized.” – Peter to distraught Jews, Acts 2:38

(This is the communion meditation I delivered at church Aug. 3, which includes some thoughts and words from last week’s column. – Bob)

Let’s do everyone’s favorite thing and talk about a Greek word in the Bible. To help add context, I brought along an artifact: an actual, printed 1983 American Heritage English dictionary. This is a nostalgia copy I keep on my desk, though I rarely use it.

The Greek word is “metanoia:” which in English we translate as “repent.” And while the Greek meaning of metanoia is “new and renewed thinking” or “to change one’s mind,” the dictionary – almost any modern dictionary, online or print – has a different, and I submit, a biblically misleading definition.  For example, in my dictionary:

“1. To feel regret for (what one has done or failed to do).  2. To feel contrition for one’s sins and to abjure sinful ways.” Ofr, repentir.” (i.e., Old French, orig. Latin, etc.)

That is accurate for Latin and old French – guilt, regret, shame – and fits our modern culture and understanding.  But it misses the mark of the New Testament’s Greek metanoia, “thinking anew,” and the Old Testament’s teshuva, “turn toward God.”

In church we generally think of repent as meaning “to turn around and go back” and to reject our sin. That’s good; that’s helpful.  But I love the Old Testament Hebrew for “repent,” teshuva, and New Testament Greek metanoia. Both line up better with leveling focus on God and Jesus, not ourselves.

On that night Jesus was betrayed by Judas – the night of the last supper, and what we call the first communion – Jesus didn’t lecture the disciples about their behavior or their sins or call for their repentance.  Jesus washed their feet.  He broke bread and shared wine and told them to remember who He truly is. He promised to send the Holy Spirit.  He told them to remember who they were to each other. 

Why? Because the world would be cruel to them as it was cruel to Him. They would need each other: in communion fellowship remembering His body and blood.

In the bread, we are to remember the body of Jesus’s divine sonship, human fellowship, and sacrificial, redeeming death.  In the cup, we remember the blood of not just the end of one life – the crucifixion – but the beginning of our new life and a new covenant in faith, not law. 

When Peter in Acts 2:38 tells the distraught Jews how to atone for killing Jesus, he says, “Repent, and be baptized.” Repent here isn’t a behavioral direction, it is telling them to stop thinking like Jews, and start thinking like Christians: to recognize Jesus as the Messiah Son of God, the Christ savior of all mankind who fulfills the law and the prophets (Matthew 5:17).

Metanoia: renew your thinking. Be baptized: join the Spirit.

The Bible becomes a very different book when we understand “repent” to mean more than addressing our sins and rejecting negative behavior; it means to positively turn toward God, wherever we are.  With this new and renewed and eternal thinking, we are accepting Christ as our Lord and Savior with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Repentance is our doorway to hope, and to new life in Christ.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes the word “internet” is not in his 1983 dictionary.

 

Friends: There is an eternal benefit to breaking the Law by dying in Christ … now.   Publishing early this holiday weekend!  Blessings and much happiness in the New Year. – Bob

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Spirituality Column #946

December 31, 2024

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Breaking the Law

By Bob Walters

“The written law brings death, but the Spirit gives life.” Paul, 2 Corinthians 3:6

My favorite thing in Bible study is when a light switches on illuminating an entirely fresh dimension to a familiar passage or theme.

I experienced one of those Friday listening to Colin Smith (Link) on Moody Radio.

Smith was preaching from Romans 7:1-6, where Paul uses the illustration of marriage lasting until death, the way the Law has authority over us only as long as a person lives. “Do you not know … that the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives? … by law a married woman is bound to her husband … but if her husband dies, is released from the law of marriage.” (Romans 7:1-2)

Smith pointed out that Paul, here, is not talking about marriage, but about death and new life. And while the rest of the passage, through verse 6, is plain as day about “dying to the law through the body of Christ that you might belong to another” (v4), I had never considered my own “death” in baptism, in the Spirit of Christ, as a death that broke the Law and freed me from death. Hallelujah! That is the New Covenant in Christ.

This was a “Eureka!” moment for me, settling a common – and one of my earliest – questions about Jesus: “Why did He have to die?” Who hasn’t wondered why God didn’t just wave his hand and “solve” sin, sparing Jesus and mankind the pain of death?

Smith preached his message using the language of “nomos,” the Greek word for the body of law governing human behavior.  Nomos (Romans 7:2) can refer to human government, but usually refers to God’s written law, the law of Moses, etc., the laws that “bring death” (2 Corinthians 3:6). The authority of nomos lasts until we die … in Christ.

Jesus, in his perfect sacrifice and death, was freed from nomos and rose to new life. The Gospel, the heart of Christianity, is that when we are baptized into Christ, we first “die to sin” – i.e., break the Law/nomos – and then “all who believe” (John 3:16) are fully “alive in Christ.”  Jesus died not to “pay a price,” but to break our chains of death.

I know, I know. “Pay the price” is the controlling lingua franca of modern Western, American, Reformed, and Dispensational Christology.  We can’t imagine a “free” gift devoid of guilt but full of truth and promise.  Culture says good requires a reward, bad requires condemnation, and everything has a price. I.e., Jesus had to pay to play. Oy.

Jesus brought a new game that relies on knowing Him in faith, not owing the economy of an impossible nomos. Jesus does for us what we cannot do for ourselves.

We all know that the Law was not abolished; it says so in Matthew 5:17. That Jesus “fulfilled the law” doesn’t mean God was wrong. It means that man was wrong about thinking he had no way of living except for the Law/nomos. Then God sent Jesus.

The New Covenant in Jesus Christ is that His death doesn’t erase the Law; it frees believers from it. Are we “new creations in Christ”? Yes; we have His peace, truth, and are recommitted to and rejoined with the Father in eternal life.  The condemnation and purposeless guilt tangled in the web of unfulfillable demands of nomos are gone.

The lingering question of course is: What happens to nomos for those who die an unsaved, mortal death?  Are they freed from it? Or, eternally absent from God? Yikes.

As for me, I’m thankful Christ’s Spirit breaks the law of death and assures life.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) loves this annual time of renewal. Happy New Year.

Friends, Ever struggle explaining your faith in Christ to an unbelieving family member?  Consider the newly anointed Apostle of Christ Paul going home to his pious Jewish family in Tarsus. See the column below. Blessings and peace in the New Year.  Bob

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Spirituality Column #894

January 2, 2024

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Welcome to the Family

By Bob Walters

“… because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.” – Romans 8:14

The Apostle Paul wrote 13 of the New Testament’s 27 books explaining the kingdom of God, the person of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the mission of the church, and human life in Christ.

The four Gospels tell the story of Jesus. Acts tells the story of the early church, Peter, and Paul; the various letters of Paul and others explain the Good News of Jesus and what humanity is supposed to do about it.  Suddenly, in Christ, we are heirs.

It’s not surprising Paul was so adept and well-practiced at illuminating this newly arrived “Light of the World” – Jesus – who “came for all mankind” (John 3:16) and fulfilled the promises God made to Israel (Matthew 5:17). Jesus came into this world not to start a new religion, but to cement the divine-human relationship God set in motion in the Garden of Eden through Adam and Eve, in the seed of Israel through Abraham, and with the Law of Moses on Sinai.  Jesus came to complete God’s family.

Unlikely as Paul may have seemed – as “Saul” Paul had been killing Christians in defense of the Jewish Torah – Paul was the right man for the job of explaining deeply how the One God entered humanity through Israel in the person of Jesus to renew and restore the fallen world riven by sin and living far from its creator, the One God.

Paul brought many assets to the mission, including brains, energy, persistence, and faith in the One God.  Paul was thoroughly versed in Israel’s scripture as a Pharisee, schooled in Greek culture, was a Roman citizen, and who, despite being a zealot against the first Christians, became the tireless champion of the early church …  and not only because the resurrected Jesus appeared – forcefully, dreadfully, familiarly, personally – to Paul on the road to Damascus.

My holiday reading this year – we’ve had a couple weeks out of school – has been British professor (N.T.) Tom Wright’s book, “Paul: A Biography,” 432 pages published in 2018. Wright is called “St. Paul’s greatest living interpreter” and I’ll not attempt a “review” of the book.  I will say that its depth and common sense assumptions add new dimensions to the readings of Paul.  It’s a big read, but I enjoyed it immensely.

Wright drives home the point, vigorously described by Paul, that Christianity is a completion, not a replacement, of God’s great glory and purpose. And for all the book’s fresh and fascinating information and detail, one aspect I’d never before considered stopped me cold: Paul had to explain his faith in Jesus to his own pious Jewish family.

Shortly after beginning his ministry in Damascus and Jerusalem, “speaking boldly,” “Grecian Jews tried to kill Saul” and “the brothers” sent Paul back home to Tarsus (Acts 9:28-30) for what is thought to be a period of nearly 10, silent years.

Wright sets a fascinating narrative for this period before Paul wrote his letters: the zeal-filled Pharisee Saul goes home to his Jewish family in his Jewish neighborhood of Tarsus – where he had likely learned the family tentmaking business – now bringing zeal for Christ into a family environment that remained zealously pro-Torah. 

One never need wonder how Paul became so good at expressing the inheritance in Christ of the human family under the One God, saved by Jesus.  Paul began with a decade of trying to explain it to his own family and neighbors. That’s serious conviction.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is aware of the many “controversies” regarding the actual authorship of the various “Pauline” letters and other books of the Bible as well, but accepts the truth of the biblical canon as God’s Word.  Satan prefers we doubt.

Suppose a living, holy Messiah came from God and nobody noticed.  Or few people noticed … or made up their own meaning.  It’s a 2,000-year-old quandary of Christianity.  See the column below. - Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #883

October 17, 2023

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Eyewitness Views

By Bob Walters

“Many will seek, but few will enter.” – Luke 13:24, Jesus speaking of God’s Kingdom

Podcaster friend Richard Jacobs, who is Jewish but nonetheless intensely curious about Christian beliefs, sent this question a couple weeks ago.  How would you answer it?

“If Jesus was crucified in 33 A.D., someone who was 15 years old at that time would've been cognizant of what was going on, and that person would've been born in 18 A.D. approx.  By 85 A.D. most, if not all, the direct eyewitnesses to Jesus were passed away. How do you think culture and humanity changed once the original first hand eyewitnesses passed away?

Well, what would you say?  Think about it for a few moments. 

I was a guest on Rich’s “Finding Genius” podcast in June (LINK) and after a brief “we must do it again” email exchange in early July, had not been back in touch.  I love these kinds of “what if” posers” but when the email arrived had time only to return this quick note:

“Great to hear from you Rich. Yes, too long! Can't respond in depth at the moment, but great question. The apostle John was just such a person: he witnessed the crucifixion, was younger than Jesus, and died approximately 100 A.D. Many heresies sprang up almost as soon as Jesus died; many persist today. Will be back in touch. Love this question.”

Slightly edited, here’s what I sent to Rich a few days later (before the Hamas attack):

“Hey Rich, getting back to this. First thing to consider, in my view, is how long after the Resurrection it took for anybody to actually understand what was going on: forgiveness. Many disciples, followers, and other people – according to the Bible – saw the resurrected Christ, but few if any figured out Jesus was the seal of their salvation, eyewitness or not.

“I mean, ‘Jesus back from the dead; neat trick,’ yet it was former Pharisee Paul, with a comprehensive command of Jewish scripture and called as an apostle a few years later, who put the tinsel on the tree and preached Christ the savior. John wrote his Gospel perhaps as late as 90 A.D.  It was still decades/centuries before a full ‘Christology’ was discerned. Eyewitnesses got the ball rolling, but Jesus’ truth had only begun to be grasped.

“And remember, the whole point going forward – ‘the New Covenant’ – was faith not proof.  Jesus had to die, come back, and then ‘go away’ to activate the faith dynamic. Despite all the instruction of Hebrew scripture, i.e., the Old Testament, almost nobody knew what Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection meant – for sure – so folks concocted stories.

“The church at Corinth Paul chided was an apostate mess.  The Gnostics and other heresies sprang up like daisies in various iterations saying Jesus had to be spirit or flesh but not both. The Jews were having none of it, over time doubling down with the Talmud and Mishnah re-explaining and re-emphasizing Jewish law still awaiting a Messiah (of David?) to adjudicate injustices against Israel. Today dispensationalists, end times prophesiers, and messianics are holding their breath – along with the rest of us – watching the war in Gaza. 

“The truth that Jesus was the fulfillment of Israel (Matthew 5:17) and is the only way, truth, and life of humanity’s eternal return to God's Kingdom (John 14:6) remains a point of contention for all outside Christian faith and even some in it. Jesus said ‘few would believe’ and like everything else, Jesus was right.  Most people on Earth, to this day, don't believe.  

“My thought is that this is as it was supposed to happen: faith, no faith, re-packaged expectations for a Messiah who will elevate the Jews over all, and secular nonsense of personal ‘truth’ untethered from a savior and Lord they cannot and or will not see.

“I think we're right where God figured we’d be: mostly fallen; and where Satan hoped we would be: largely confused. Our one opportunity to know God’s truth and salvation was right there on the cross. We either believe or we don't, and the secular circus continues.” 

Maybe we’ll have a chance to discuss it further on another of Richard’s podcasts.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) realizes he is one voice in a rather strong whirlwind.