To expand this a bit, the landmark reference on New Testament Greek words, the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, edited by Gerhard Kittel, tells us that repentance means “to change one’s nous, that is, opinion, feelings, purpose.” And the nous? What’s that? It’s your “inner sense directed toward a certain object,” what you perceive to be true, your “mode of thought.” Shades of meaning in the Greek term nous include mind, insight, understanding, judgment, and meaning. When you “repent,” you change all of these things, or to use Paul’s language, you are transformed, that is, radically changed, by the renewing of your mind. And that happens when you hear the Word of God.

Truth + crisis + friendships = transformation is a clever formula, but it is missing the power factor: the special presence of God. In the last chapter, when we talked about the special presence of God, I left out something terribly important there, too. I didn’t really tell you the most significant thing we can know about the special presence of God. The shekinah, you see, is not just a vaporous, swirling cloud of divine energy, sort of like that violent, thunderous mess at the very end of the motion picture Raiders of the Lost Ark. No, very simply,

The shekinah, the glory of God, the anointing, that wonder-working, special presence of Jahweh was and is a Person: the Holy Spirit.