Jesus did not tell us to repent. He told us to make a fresh start.

Sunday, 1/22/17

In today’s Gospel St. Matthew summed up the preaching of Jesus by saying, “Jesus began to preach, and say, “Repent, for the kingdom, of heaven is at hand.”

Now, is that right? Was our need to repent the main thing Jesus preached about?

Well, the Gospel says that, so it must be true. But, is it?

When you are checking on what the Gospel said, it is good for you to realize that what we have is an English translation of what Matthew wrote in Greek.

But don’t we have an accurate translation? Well, sometimes the Scripture scholars and the bishops have different ways of explaining how a word should be translated from Greek to English.

That happened here. The word Matthew wrote to sum up the main message of Jesus was "metanoiete." Literally it means. “Turn your thinking around.”

There is a big difference between repenting and turning your thinking around. 

”Repent” looks to your past, and has you punishing  yourself for what  you have done wrong. But, with “turn your thinking around” Jesus is telling you to forget what went wrong in the past. And turn your thinking toward making a  fresh start.