[SERay]

Chris, in your reading of Strong's Concordance, you took their sample usage as an extended definition of the word. Most dictionaries do this, provide sample usage. The Concordance combines "repent" in the example of "repenting from sin."

"metanoeO" by itself is not making reference to sin. I can see how students could read something like this and be motivated to go down another path. Adding the expanded example not only changes the word, but also modifies the meaning of the scripture. This word misusage alone could be sufficient to create a case for departure from sound doctrine.

To add to this, Dr. A.T. Robertson says that the word Greek word metanoeO "has been hopelessly mistranslated," and further declares "that the tragedy of it is that we have no one English word that reproduces exactly the meaning and atmosphere of the Greek word." Anyone who has ever endeavored to turn Greek into English will know that Greek has many words for which there are no exact English equivalents.

The Greek verb metanoeO, which is always loosely translated "repent," is made up of a combination of two simple, easily understood words. These are meta, which means "after," and noia which means "mind." Since this word is a verb, it would mean to a Greek of the first century "have the after-mind;" and the noun of course would name the result of such an action, which would be "after-mindedness."

No one English term properly relays the meaning of metanoeO, but a scholar found that one could adopted three closely related and congruous words in order to express the truth in all contexts. These three words are submit, yield and ease.