Publication Date

April 2008

Document Type

Article

Abstract

Put into its simplest terms this debate concerns if a turn, or change of life, is necessary for salvation. That is why ıπιστρέφομαι (I turn) is key to understanding the concept of repentance. If Scripture uses ıπιστρέφομαι in way that suggests turning is necessary for salvation that would be in favor of the Lordship point of view. Or if Scripture’s use of ıπιστρέφομαι demonstrates that turning is not necessary for salvation the Free Grace perspective gains ground.

Another key word to this debate is μετανοέω (I repent). Discovering how the New Testament writers use μετανοέω will shed considerable light on the validity of either the Lordship or Free Grace concepts of repentance. This means that one of the best methods for determining the biblical concept of repentance is the examination of these words in context.

Luke-Acts proves to be fertile ground for this kind of examination as it contains nearly half of all the references to ıπιστρέφομαι in the entire New Testament and nearly half of the references to μετανοέω as well.This shows that “turning” and “repentance” are important concepts for Luke and make his writings a logical choice for this kind of study.

The following discussion has two major sections both of which are limited in scope to Luke-Acts. The first is an analysis of ıπιστρέφομαι and the second is an analysis of μετανοέω. Within these sections, the occurrences of each of these words are taken in canonical order and examined contextually, syntactically, and grammatically for the purpose of discovering the Lukan paradigm of repentance and how that paradigm fits the characteristics of repentance espoused by those adhering either to Lordship or Free Grace salvation.

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