When we mature in our religion, we move away from anything that is vengeful, restrictive of those amiss, or anything that upholds maintaining order and social control. We begin to develop an actual inner life of prayer and outer life of service.
We begin to be converted people, in union with both the pain of the world and the love of God. We begin to read the Bible from the side of powerlessness and suffering instead of the side of power and control. Our conversion is foundational and essential, and it is the biblical characters themselves that first reveal this pattern, which then becomes obvious as we look around the world that we live in.
The Greek word ineffectively translated as “repentance” in the Bible quite literally means “to change your mind” (metanoia), which is what conversion is supposed to be about. True religion, in fact, is re-ligare to “bind back” or to be “whole again.”
Psalm 139:23-24 “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.”
