The Amazing New Testament: Repentance

  During the pandemic, perhaps because lots of us were stuck inside, and restricted to non-physical interactions, many of us connected with people in other places, or at least I did – and I am so grateful. I reached out to writers and musicians and preachers who probably wouldn’t have travelled to Charlotte and enlisted them in online conversations. A surprise blessing of the pandemic.

One who’s become a friend is Chris E.W. Green, a brilliant Pentecostal scholar and theologian. He was fascinating on my Maybe I’m Amazed podcast, and has worshipped with us a good bit online. When he published his newest book, Being Transfigured, he sent me a copy – and among its many gems is a sermon he delivered on “repentance.” I guess if you’d asked me when I was 18 or 19 years old, What is repentance? or How do you get the grace of God? I’d have answered that If you recognize any sin, you tell God you’re sorry, and God has mercy. Now I know it’s way more complex than that. Repentance matters, but it’s more than an apology. And mercy is yours even if you never say you’re sorry.