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(OPINION) The past couple of weeks, I’ve tried to explore spiritual concepts that have nearly universal applications for everyone from church deacons to skeptics.

Previously, I looked at the importance of maintaining balance in all things, and at the two commandments Jesus said were most important — loving God and loving our neighbor.

This week I want to talk about a pair of concepts that are typically used side-by-side in Christian circles, and which also strike me as among the more misunderstood and egregiously misused principles in the church lexicon. Understood rightly, they’d benefit everybody.

Those two words are “sin” and “repentance.” Taken together, they suggest the idea that we’re all sinners who need to repent. 

That is absolutely true, in my opinion. True, but generally misconstrued.

This past week I received an email from an Arkansas reader on this very matter. 

“My biggest peeve is that a great portion of the folks involved in (enforcing religious rules) haven't a clue of the meanings of key words when originally written,” he said. “For example, ‘repent’ is generally taken to indicate a need for public prostration and loudly expressed  mournful sorrow for such and such done by the person. … Well, that’s a result of some of the ‘sausage making’ done to our language by a bunch of mostly well-intentioned — but ignorant — people.”

The original meaning of repentance, as my correspondent pointed out, was much different. 

But first, before we get to repentance, we need to understand the ancient concept of sin. After all, it’s sinners who are expected to repent, right?

The ancient Greek word translated in the New Testament as “sin,” “hamartano,” means “to miss the mark.” It was commonly used — by Homer, for instance — of archers whose aim went awry. They drew down on a target, but the arrow veered to the left or right, too high or too low. When that happened, the archer had “sinned.”

Early Christians employed this same term to describe what frequently happens with our social, spiritual or moral behavior. We might hope to hit the bullseye in some given circumstance. But sometimes we miss. Our aim is off.

Consider a hypothetical example. You declare to yourself, your teenager, your spouse and maybe to God that from here on out you won’t lose your temper with your kid anymore when he forgets to lock the basement door after coming in from the back yard.

But then he forgets it again, for the 29th time, and you once again blow your stack.

You’d set a lofty goal — but missed the mark. You strayed from your intended target, like an archer with poor aim. 

See how simple that is? See how nonreligious that is?

“I wanted to hit the bullseye, but I blew it.” Period.

So, after you’ve missed the mark, the issue becomes, what do you do next?

Well, you think it through. You ask yourself what it is about your son failing to lock a door that makes you so crazy. Maybe you realize that in this latest episode you were actually upset about something that happened at work and took out your frustration on your son. Or you decide you could make the whole problem a nonissue by routinely checking the door yourself. 

That done, you make adjustments you hope will keep your temper in check the next time.

In short, you repent. The word “repent” comes from another ancient Greek term, metanoia, a compound word that literally means, “mind change.” One definition tellingly renders it, “after thought.”

It means that if you’re honest and reasonably self-aware, you’ll often realize you’ve messed up in one way or another. You acted smugly or stupidly. You failed someone you loved. You reneged on a vow you’d made to your coworkers. Whatever.

You give the matter thought after the fact. You apologize to whomever you wronged, where that’s appropriate. You formulate a better plan for the future and try to stick to it.

You’re thus exhibiting a changed mind. You’ve reached a new understanding, which should, if you’re sincere, produce salutary changes in your behavior.

You’ve “repented” of your “sins.” That’s it. That’s all there is. 

No bawling or squalling required. No public self-flagellation. No groveling to self-righteous mobs of faux saints or social media vigilantes.

This sin-repentance thing isn’t, and shouldn’t be, the exclusive domain of religion, although it is central to spiritual and emotional growth. It’s as applicable to atheists and agnostics as to Catholics or Baptists. 

Myself, I need to repent of something large or small about five times every week. You probably do, too.

Repenting isn’t about piety per se. It’s about being a healthy, self-aware human being. It simply means we possess the common sense to recognize we’re imperfect. It means that when we miss a target we don’t deny it; instead, we meet our failures head on, look for better ways of being and change course as needed.

Or, as the self-help gurus say, when we know better we do better.

Paul Prather has been a rural Pentecostal pastor in Kentucky for more than 40 years. Also a journalist, he was The Lexington Herald-Leader’s staff religion writer in the 1990s, before leaving to devote his full time to the ministry. He now writes a regular column about faith and religion for the Herald-Leader, where this column first appeared. Prather’s written four books. You can email him at pratpd@yahoo.com.