I was recently watching an old episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” where the Enterprise crew encountered the idea of an alternate universe. Each person learned there was an alternate, and essentially an opposite, storyline for their lives in another dimension. Where they had turned left, their alternate self had turned right. Where they had said yes, their alternate self had said no. For better or worse, all their decisions, consequences, relationships, friendships and beliefs had yielded an opposite outcome, though within the bounds of the same person and life.

It’s long been a common plot for science fiction shows and movies from “The Twilight Zone” to “Back to the Future.” But a couple of thousand years before any of those scripts were written, the Apostle Paul penned the same idea as inspired by the Holy Spirit to the early Church.

To the Corinthians, Paul addressed all kinds of carnal sins that had no place in the lives of Christians and then wrote, “And such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God” (I Corinthians 5:11).

And to the Ephesians, Paul again referred to a previous lifestyle that had no resemblance to their current one: “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord” (Ephesians 5:8).

In each instance, and in others in the New Testament, there is the idea of having two distinctly opposite paths and outcomes in a life, separated only by one major decision (baptism) and the ensuing steps in the same direction. (Ephesians 4:1-6)

So often we feel helpless in aligning our lives with God’s expectations. We see our upbringing, environment, relationships or past decisions as a permanent current, and simply reversing course seems too arduous. We think things like, “This is just how I am, how I talk, how I think,” and we buy into the idea that an alternate self is simply impossible.

Paul knew that feeling as well as any in the Bible. He was an enemy to the early Church, but ultimately turned into one of the greatest, most sincere believers and preachers of the New Testament. He discovered an alternate self that he could have never imagined. And once he took that different path, Paul penned Romans 12:2, urging Christians “not to be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

A total transformation. Sound like science fiction? In fact, it is as real as the God that grants the possibility of such a change.

– Adam Sparks