The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Pastor Gary St. Amand First Baptist Church Most of us are familiar with images of the wild-eyed street preacher in some public square proclaiming messages of doom and gloom while holding up a sign which reads, "Repent, the end is near!" From these images we can often think that the word 'repent' means joining alongside these preachers, dressing in sackcloth and waiting for the apocalypse. But this is a misunderstanding of the biblical meaning of the word. The Hebrew word for repent, "shuv," simply means to return, or to turn around, change directions. I can remember reading a web blog on the issue of the environment where the author picking up on the crazy street preacher idea, said, we need to repent, repent! OrÉ we could just choose to change our economic and environmental policies. But, he went on, maybe we should just repent, repentÉ!" He had no idea that his idea of changing our economic and environmental policies was far closer to the biblical concept of repentance than the crazy eyed street preacher idea of repentance that he was mocking. Of course the difference in the biblical understanding of repentance is the fundamental idea that if you don't turn to the creator, the source of life, then perhaps you might just be turning from the fire and climbing into the frying pan. I wonder what repentance means in the context of the economic crisis we are facing. How do we change the economic policies that have led us to this place? What does Jesus have to say to us about the way that we care for the poor and oppressed in our society and in our world? What does the bible teach about avoiding debt and the charging of interest? What about the Bible's teaching on greed? I am not an economist but it seems to me greed has played a fundamental role in creating the difficult situation in which we have found ourselves. I suspect that God has more to say our fundamental human condition than many of us realize and perhaps repentance is more relevant to us than we may care to admit.
