Whoever you are, whatever you believe, you probably need to repent. So do I. | Opinion

The past couple of weeks I’ve tried to explore spiritual concepts that have nearly universal applications for everyone from church deacons to skeptics.

Previously, I looked at the importance of maintaining balance in all things, and at the two commandments Jesus said were most important — loving God and loving our neighbor.

This week I want to talk about a pair of concepts that are typically used side-by-side in many Christian circles, and that also strike me as among the more misunderstood and egregiously misused principles in the Christian lexicon. But understood rightly, they’d benefit everybody.

Those two words are “sin” and “repentance.” Expressed in a bit different way, it’s the idea that we’re all sinners who need to repent.

Which is absolutely true, in my humble opinion. True, but often misconstrued.

This past week I received an insightful email from an Arkansas reader on this very matter.

“My biggest peeve is that a great portion of the folks involved in (enforcing religious rules) haven’t a clue of the meanings of key words when originally written,” he said. “For example, ‘repent’ is generally taken to indicate a need for public prostration and loudly expressed mournful sorrow for such and such done by the person. … Well, that’s a result of some of the ‘sausage making’ done to our language by a bunch of mostly well-intentioned — but ignorant — people.”

The original intent of repentance, as my correspondent pointed out, was much different.

But first, before we can get to repentance, we need to understand the ancient concept of sin. After all, it’s sinners who are expected to repent.

The ancient Greek word translated in the New Testament as “sin,” hamartano, means “to miss the mark.” It was commonly used — by Homer, for instance — of archers whose aim went awry. They drew down on a target, but the arrow veered to the left or right, too high or too low. When that happened, the archer had “sinned.”

Early Christians employed this archer’s term to describe what frequently happens with our social, spiritual or moral behavior. We might hope to hit the bullseye in some given circumstance. But sometimes we miss. Our aim is off.

Consider a hypothetical example. You vow to yourself, or to your teenager, or to your spouse, or maybe to God, that from here on out you won’t lose your temper anymore with your kid when he forgets to lock the basement door.

But then he forgets it again, for the 29th time, and you completely blow your stack.

You’d set a lofty goal — but missed the mark. You strayed from your intended target, like an archer with poor aim.

See how simple that is? See how non-religious that is?

“I wanted to hit the bullseye, but I blew it.” Period.

So, once you’ve missed the mark, the issue becomes, what do you do next?

Well, you think it through. You ask yourself what it is about your son failing to lock a door that makes you so crazy. Maybe you realize you were actually upset about something that happened at work and took out your job frustration on your son. Or you decide you could make the whole problem a non-issue by routinely locking the door yourself.

That done, you make adjustments you hope will prevent you from going ballistic next time.

In short, you repent. The word “repent,” you see, comes from another ancient Greek term, metanoia, a compound word that literally means, “mind change.” One definition tellingly renders it, “after thought.”

It means that if you’re honest and reasonably self-aware, you’ll often realize you’ve messed up. You acted ugly or stupidly. You failed someone you loved. You reneged on a vow you’d made to God. Whatever. There are myriad variations.

You give the matter serious thought after the fact. You apologize to whoever you wronged, where that’s appropriate. You formulate a better plan for the future and vow to stick to it.

You’re thus exhibiting a changed mind. You’ve reached a new understanding, which should, if you’re sincere, produce salutary changes in your behavior.

You’ve repented of your sins. That’s it. That’s all there is.

No bawling or squalling required. No public self-flagellation. No groveling to the self-appointed, self-righteous mobs of faux saints or social-media mobs.

This sin-repentance thing isn’t, and shouldn’t be, the exclusive domain of religion, although it is central to spiritual and emotional growth. It’s as applicable to atheists and agnostics as Catholics or Baptists.

I need to repent of something about five times every week. If you’re honest, you probably do, too.

It’s about being a healthy, self-aware human being. It simply means that we possess the common sense to recognize we’re imperfect in ways big and small. It means that when we err we don’t deny it; instead, we meet our failures head on, find better ways of being and change our course as needed.

Or, as the self-help gurus like to say, when we know better we do better.

Paul Prather is pastor of Bethesda Church near Mount Sterling. You can email him at pratpd@yahoo.com.