Repentance

The Answer I Could Not Give

Jesus had already told them to cross to the other shore.

One man was in the boat. Another stood in the water, holding it close while the others came aboard. The crowd was loosening reluctantly. People who had waited to speak were trying to ask their questions over one another.

I had spent the afternoon listening.

I was a scribe. Usually, when someone spoke about the scriptures, I knew where to question him. With Jesus, I kept finding that the question I had prepared was smaller than what he was saying.

Now he was leaving.

The Moral Record Comes Second

The Gospels repeatedly show Jesus meeting people whose moral records were clearly damaged. Yet he rarely begins by examining those records. He does not normally ask how many commandments they broke, how long they lived wrongly, or how many individual sins must first be accounted for. Again and again, his attention moves to something more immediate: repentance, humility, mercy, forgiveness, and the abandonment of self-righteousness.

Forget for a Moment Your Moral Achievements: The First Threshold of the Kingdom

People often examine their lives by looking first at ordinary moral and religious duties. They ask whether they stole, lied, committed adultery, participated in evil schemes, neglected church, or failed in some other commandment. They may also compare themselves with people who openly do these things. When resisting evil requires real effort, it is natural to hope that this struggle has value before God and will eventually be rewarded.

A Practical Guide to Dealing with Demons

Every practical approach must begin with a foundation. If the foundation is wrong, everything built upon it will eventually collapse. My entire understanding of demons rests upon one principle that may initially sound strange, perhaps even offensive:

The problem of demonic affliction belongs foremost to the exorcist.

Jesus Without Atonement Theory

  1. God does not need to be reconciled to humanity.
    Humanity needs to be reconciled to life.
    God’s mercy is not triggered by payment; it precedes repentance.
  2. Sin is not a crime against God but a departure from God.
    It does not injure the Creator; it destroys the creature.
    Sin enslaves, blinds, and diminishes. Its consequence is death because separation from life cannot produce life.
  3. Death is not God’s punishment but sin’s destination.

Objections to the Educational Interpretation of Jesus' End-Time Warnings — and My Replies

Objection 1: "You are turning prophecy into mere rhetoric."

If Jesus was not primarily predicting future events, then his warnings about the nearness of the end become little more than persuasive rhetoric. This strips prophecy of its supernatural character and reduces it to a teaching technique.

My Reply

Not at all.

The objection assumes that prophecy has value only when it provides information unavailable through ordinary means.

But the greatest prophets were not merely transmitters of hidden information. They were reformers of hearts.

Was Jesus really providing a calendar of future events?

PART I.

What I am proposing is that the value of the prophecy lies primarily in its transformative function, not in its role as a chronological forecast.

In my framework, the question is not:

"Was Jesus providing a calendar of future events?"

but rather:

"What was Jesus trying to produce in the hearts and minds of his listeners?"

From that perspective, warnings about an imminent end become understandable as educational tools.

Why Jesus Spoke as Though the End Were Near

One of the most persistent difficulties in Christian theology concerns Jesus' statements about the nearness of the end. Reading the Gospels plainly, one cannot escape the impression that Jesus spoke with tremendous urgency. The Kingdom was at hand. Judgment was approaching. The Son of Man was coming. The time to repent was now.

Many readers therefore arrive at an uncomfortable conclusion: if the end did not arrive when people expected it, then perhaps Jesus was mistaken.

When the Blind Act and the Seeing Are Judged

"Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth." (John 9:41) (KJV)

One Maxim, Many Forms: Incompetence Removes Culpability

The sayings
“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” and
“If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains”

are not two different ideas. They are two expressions of the same legal rule.

Remember Me: The Second Thief Speaks

I never thought my end would come like this.

When I first picked up the dagger, when I first slipped into the hills with men who whispered of freedom, I thought myself righteous. We fought for Israel—fought the Romans, fought the collaborators, fought anyone who bowed to Caesar’s shadow. Blood was spilled, yes. But it was blood for a cause. I told myself that dying for liberation was better than living as a slave.

So when they dragged me through the streets for judgment, I held my head high. Let Rome kill me. Rome had killed better men.

Repentance