Diagnosis: SPIT-WATER – Edition #7

July 29^th, 2007

A Heating Pad for My Diagnosis: SPIT-WATER – Edition #7

Here are the three OT definitions I have found to translate into “Repent”:

Job 42:6 Repent (verb): nâcham:

• To be sorry, console oneself, repent, regret, comfort, be comforted, be moved to pity, have compassion, rue, suffer grief, repent, ease oneself, have compassion

2^nd Chronicles 6:37 Repent (verb): shûb (pronounced: shoob):

• To return, turn back
• To turn back (to God), repent
• Turn back (from evil)
• To restore, refresh, repair (figuratively)
• To be returned, be restored, be brought back

Job 34:33 Repent (verb): shâlam (Pronounced: shaw-lam')

• A primitive root; to be safe (in mind, body or estate); figuratively to be (causatively make) completed; by implication to be friendly; by extension to reciprocate (in various applications): - make amends, (make an) end, finish, full, give again, make good, (re-) pay (again), (make) (to) (be at) peace (-able), that is perfect, perform, (make) prosper (prosperous), recompense, render, requite, make restitution, restore, reward, X surely.

If you would like to vote for Pedro… click here: Napoleon Dynamite. Anyway, I am going to move straight into the New Testament. On a personal note, this study has really helped me. It’s also been a bonus that my distractions are going away. The statistics this morning were puzzling. I didn’t realize that only 4% on Americans believe in Jesus (born 1984 to present).

Here is how religion ranks in the world.

• Christianity: 2.1 billion
• Islam: 1.3 billion
• Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: 1.1 billion
• Hinduism: 900 million
• Chinese traditional religion: 394 million
• Buddhism: 376 million
• primal-indigenous: 300 million
• African Traditional & Diasporic: 100 million
• Sikhism: 23 million
• Juche: 19 million
• Spiritism: 15 million
• Judaism: 14 million
• Baha'i: 7 million
• Jainism: 4.2 million
• Shinto: 4 million
• Cao Dai: 4 million
• Zoroastrianism: 2.6 million
• Tenrikyo: 2 million
• Neo-Paganism: 1 million
• Unitarian-Universalism: 800 thousand
• Rastafarianism: 600 thousand
• Scientology: 500 thousand

This was a study done in 2005. I found this at Adherents.com and thought to post it here. If this study is true, and the study showing that only 4% of Americans born 1984 or later is true, one of two things then is true (maybe both): #1 – The believers in America are aging and/or #2 – there are growing numbers outside of the United States. Either way, the 4% simply shows that Christianity is dying in the United States. And for me, that is the most disturbing thing I have seen in a long time. “In God We Trust” is a dying thing in the United States. I do have hope, though, in this statistic. Once you hit the age of 12 and younger, how many Christians can there really be? Obviously, that is going to pull the number down considerably. You have a range of numbers from 23 years of age all the way down to the age of a newborn. How many newborns profess to love Christ and follow his example daily? How many newborns can hold their head up when they are one day old? Yep. I haven’t met or even heard of one, which is my point.

There are still youngster’s out there who will have a bad marriage, habits, finances, and lifestyle, just to name a few things off my head. There’s a country that could use a little God, a little Jesus, in their life.

Repent.

Repentance first shows up in Matthew 3 in the New Testament. John the Baptist or Baptizer uses the word.

Matthew 3:1-12

In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the Desert of Judea and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah: “A voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’”

John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

“I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

What’s cool about this scripture is that I have seen a threshing floor. I know how the wheat is sifted out from the chaff. It’s a pretty neat process and really brings this scripture to life for me. Wheat is heavier than chaff. What happens is when the sifting process takes place, the chaff is blown away by the wind and the wheat, which is heavier, will remain in the barn. The person doing the sifting will just lift up the wheat with the chaff in it and begin shuffling them in the sifter (I guess that is what it is called), and the chaff will simply blow away. And that, in a “Cliff Notes” version, is how it is done. Anyway, I digress.

Matthew 3:2 Repent - metanoeō - (pronounced met-an-o-eh'-o):

• To think differently or afterwards, that is, reconsider (morally to feel compunction): - repent.

Matthew 3:8, 11 Repentance – metanoia – (pronounced met-an'-oy-ah):

• (Subjectively) compunction (for guilt, including reformation); by implication reversal (of [another’s] decision): - repentance.
• A change of mind, as it appears to one who repents, of a purpose he has formed or of something he has done.

This is what repentance is, a change of mind, to think differently. A reversal of what I used to think, I should think a different way. If I go to work, do I think that the company is cheating me, or do I try to give them the best performance an employee can give? When I drive on the highway, do I respect the law and government before me and give the best effort as a citizen of this fine country, or do I speed 5 or 10 miles and do rolling stops at the stop signs? I still struggle with the later, personally. I need to be more careful (more considerate and respectful of the law) and not rush myself when I come to a stop sign.

There are a considerable amount of scriptures on repentance in the New Testament. I’ll be flat-out honest, I don’t think I will hit them all in this series… in fact, I am not even certain I am going to continue the “Spit-Water” series after today. I might. I actually think that I am going to begin studying something else instead. I don’t know. We will see, won’t we… Johnny Out.