The most misunderstood, and misapplied word in the English language is “repent”

The English word “repent” comes from the Greek word (metanoia) which literally means “a change of mind” or “after-thought”.

It comes from:
• (meta) = after, beyond, or change
•. (nous) ? ???a (noia) = mind, thought



So, metanoia refers to a profound shift in one’s thinking or understanding.

It does not mean to be penitent, or to change your ways, or stop an action you’re doing as it is often used by people, but rather to change your mind about something.

Yet Webster now defies the word repent as “ to turn from sin and dedicate oneself to the amendment of one's life”, a complete bastardization of it’s original intended meaning in the Greek, and with it a complete misunderstanding and misappropriated use of the word today by clergy especially as a prerequisite for salvation or relationship. There’s a whole deep dive into how this transpired, the likes of which aren’t necessarily relevant to the issue at hand here.

I have to believe that words have meanings they were intended to convey, and they are only relevant to the manner in which the original meaning that they were intended to convey, certainly not what we want them to mean for whatever reasoning that may be.

For instance, if you heard a person from the 1950’s say that he was a gay man, he doesn’t mean that he’s homosexual, but rather he is a cheerful, light hearted and merry person. That’s obviously what it has come to mean today, but that isn’t the original meaning of the word.

I say all of this to illustrate why it is critically important to find the original intent in language rather than preconceived notions of word meanings in anything you read, be it in this case scripture, or in old legal documents, or what have you as language changes, but original meanings and intent do not.