At the Last Supper, Jesus said to Peter, "When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren" (Luke 22:32). This was after about three years of apostleship. Peter had left his livelihood and followed Jesus. He had declared his witness that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God. He had been persecuted. But still, after all of that, Jesus suggested that Peter had not yet been converted.
Am I reading this correctly? If that's true, what does it mean to be converted? Can we too go through the motions without really being converted? What's the difference between a converted life and a life of going through the motions?
I'm excited to hear your thoughts about this--I've been thinking about it for a couple weeks.
ReplyDeletePS-Sorry I've been so irregular in making posts--I've been finishing up Spring term. Anyhow, I'm done now, and hope to be better at providing interesting discussion topics during the summer.
The Greek word translated in this verse as "converted" is "Epistrepho," which means to turn around or to return. In my brief study of Strong's Concordance, it seems that every reference to being converted has a similar meaning. This suggests to me that the biblical idea of conversion is not so much one spectacular event, but an ongoing process in which we continually return to Jesus. As Bruce C. Hafen (one of my favorite Mormon scholars) said, referring to Matt. 11:28-30, "His words do not describe an event or even simply an attitude, but a process; not the answer to a yes or no question, but an essay, written in the winding trail of our experience."
ReplyDeleteThat said, the thing that most impresses me about Luke 22:32 is Jesus' love. He acknowledges that Peter will turn away from Him, but is not angry. He simply states a fact and then expresses His confidence that Peter will return and strengthen his brethren. I believe that He feels the same about us. He knows that, in some way, we will each turn away from Him. But like the father in the parable of the prodigal son, He anxiously awaits our return.
Even though it says Luke's name, this is Kendra. I thought this was a very interesting passage that you brought up and spent some time thinking about both the ideas of conversion and refinement, and here are some of my jumbled thoughts at this point.
ReplyDeleteFirst thought: I think that the conversion process, at least now, has to do with accepting Christ as our Savior and therefore, receiving the Holy Spirit into our lives. I am not sure how that process would have gone for the disciples who were literally living, conversing, and walking with Jesus before he was crucified and before His followers received the Holy Spirit.
However, maybe Jesus' comment to Peter at the last supper has something to do with the fact that Peter, nor anyone else who was close to Jesus at that time, knew the extent of what God was about to do for the world through Christ. Because Christ had not yet died to redeem the sins of humanity, none of the people grasped the gift that was to be given to them, and therefore did not fully understand their conversion.
This is the first time that I have given extensive thought to that comment, but upon thinking about it, I was struck that Peter's point of reference for Christianity and what it meant to be a Christ-follower was very different from ours today, and Jesus obviously knew that.
Second Thought: Romans 8 says a lot about how we are changed once we have the Spirit of God within us. We are no longer slaves to the sinful ways of the world, and nothing can separate us from our Lord; but we now have a new loyalty to the ways of the Lord.
When looking at this passage, to me, it says that we all are "converted" when we choose to accept Christ into our lives as our Savior and the Spirit dwells within us. For some, this is a one time event; for others, it is a process of many years.
But, once we accept Jesus, our journey of refinement does not stop there. Even though "neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord," we still grow in our faith every day. We still have highs and lows, and yes, we turn away. And I agree with you David, that when we turn away from the Lord along the path of our faith journey, He waits patiently and expectantly for us to turn to Him again. And therefore, I think that our faith journey is, indeed, "an ongoing process in which we continually return to Jesus," but we are still claimed as His own at that point. We can never fully separate ourselves from Him...I don't think. (Although I do often think that this is a baffling idea. But, many passages of Scripture claim that once we of God's we are His forever). However, I think that rather than these acts of turning away and turning back being part of our "conversion," I think they are more a part of our "refinement" after we have come to the faith.
Kendra, thank you for your thoughts; I thought they were beautiful. I especially liked the idea that, because none of the original apostles understood "the extent of what God was about to do for the world through Christ," they may not have been entirely converted. As I thought about that, I remembered this C.S. Lewis quote:
ReplyDelete“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right, and stopping the leaks in the roof, and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably, and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to?
The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of– throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”
Perhaps, like the original apostles, we too might not grasp the extent of what God will do in our lives and in the world. And perhaps not understanding that influences the extent to which we can be truly converted.
I'm still thinking about the tension between "being God's forever" and being able to leave Him. I'll try to post some thoughts soon. What thoughts do you all have?