Could you be making one of these mistakes in your understanding of what repentance is?

In this episode of Now Is the Time I talk about 5 misconceptions about repentance and I explain what Biblical repentance really is.

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 News

We are just finishing up our first online course "Principles and Methods of Bible Study"

Praise God for students from 5 different countries!

Our next online course is Old-Testament Survey.Wehave been working hard to get it ready in the online format and in just a few weeksitshould be completely ready to go.

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5 Misconceptions about repentance.
1. Repentance is a one-time thing.

Jesus began his public ministry by calling people to "Repent and believe" Mark 1:15. These verbs are in the present imperative and could be translated, "Be repenting and be believing."

Martin Luther said it well when he penned his 95 theses.

"When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, 'Repent' (Mt 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance" -Martin Luther
2. Repentance is when I feel really bad about what I did.

"Sense of guilt is enough to breed terror. Infusion of grace breeds repentance. If pain and trouble were sufficient to repentance, then the damned in hell should be most penitent, for they are most in anguish. Repentance depends upon a change of heart. There may be terror, yet with no change of heart." -Thomas Watson
3. Repentance as a means of self-atonement.

"The tears of repentance wash away no sins. It is bad theology to say that they do. That is the office, that the work of the blood of Christ alone." J.C. Ryles

4. Repentance is a vow to change my life.
"Yet, again, it is possible for men to progress even further than this, and positively to humble themselves under the hand of God, and yet they may be total strangers to repentance. Their goodness is not like the morning cloud and the early dew that passeth away, but when the sermon is heard they go home and commence what they conceive to be the work of repentance, they renounce certain vices and follies, they clothe themselves in sack-cloth, their tears flow very freely on account of what they have done; they weep before God; and yet with all that, their repentance is but a temporary repentance, and they go back to their sins again." -C.H. Spurgeon
5. Repentance must be done during the "altar call."
Throughout Scripture the call to repent and believe is given regardless of time or place.

-The Ethiopian Eunuch repented along-side a dusty road between Jerusalem and Gaza. (Acts 8:26-38
-Paul himself repented on the road to Damascus. (Acts 9)
-Cornelius repented in his home. (Acts 10:44-48)
-Lydia repented by the river. (Acts 16:13-15)
-Paul called the Philippian jailer to repentance in the middle of the night in a crumbling jail-house, (Acts 16:26-32)

There is never a good reason to put off repentance. It is the deception of the Devil to think that you must repent in a certain place or wait for a certain time. The call to repentance in the Bible is always immediate.
II. What is repentance?
The main Greek word "Metanoe" is used 60x in the NT.