In the Lukan view of things, metanoia (repentance) is not simply a sequence of sorrow, confession, and pardon. The metanoia kind of turning is instead a more fundamental change in the lived structure of human existence that moves us from the patterns of waywardness and ignorance into patterns of release and repair. It is, in short, a “repentance unto life,” as the apostles realize from Peter’s testimony (Acts 11:18).
