UNSPOKEN (Chapter 15)

Can Bygones be Bygones or Do I Need to 'Buy Gun'?

May 10, 2026

She found a Bible verse.
She had questions.
Mautin had answers.
Neither of them was fully prepared for the conversation.
……..
Narrator’s Nook
So….
She’s been reading.
Not the casual reaching-for-the-nightstand kind. The actual, deliberate, I-have-a-journal-open-and-a-question-I-need-answered kind.
And she found 2 Corinthians 5:17.
And her first question was about …
I need you to understand that this is the most Ọrọ Adekunle thing that has ever happened in this series.
Mautin is about to be tested.
Not spiritually.
Just — Ọrọ-ly.
Let’s go.

ỌRỌ’S POV — Thursday Evening

It started, as most things did these days, with the morning question.

What did I want to say to myself today that I didn’t?

Thursday’s answer, written at 6:04 a.m. before anything else:

That I don’t fully know what it means to be new. I said the prayer. I meant the prayer. But I don’t know what new looks like from the inside. I expected to wake up the next morning and feel restructured. Like a building that had been renovated overnight. Instead I feel like the same building with the windows open.

I read it back.

The same building with the windows open.

I sat with that image for a while. Then I got up, made tea, and opened my Bible app because my physical Bible was still on the nightstand and I was in the kitchen and the tea was hot and I was not going to be efficient about this the way I was efficient about everything else. Sometimes a thing deserved to be slightly inconvenient.

I had been following a new believer reading plan that one of the CCI Yaba Follow-up team had recommended in a WhatsApp group I had been added to after my second Sunday, full of people who sent Bible verses after Triumph 30 Prayers at 6:00 a.m. with the cheerful consistency of people who had clearly been doing this for years and had forgotten that not everyone was ready for scripture at dawn.

Today’s verse was 2 Corinthians 5:17.

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

I read it.

I read it again.

Something in it caught my attention. Not the whole verse, one specific section.

Old things are passed away.

Past tense.

Not old things are in the process of passing or old things will eventually pass when you have done sufficient work. Passed. Already done. A completed action.

But then also — I looked at the words again —

If any man.

I put my tea down.

I picked up my journal. I had started one two weeks ago, at Coach Adaeze’s suggestion, in a plain black notebook I had bought from a provision store near my building because I was not yet at the stage of buying a beautiful journal with intention. Plain black notebook. Working notebook. No pressure.

I opened to a fresh page.

I wrote the verse out in full.

Then underneath it I wrote:

Question 1: Old things are passed away. Past tense. Does that mean the weight I have been carrying are already gone, or that they are in the process of going, or that they will be gone once I have done the work?

Question 2: If any man. What happened to women? Are we a footnote? Is this a translation problem? A cultural problem? Does “man” here mean “human” or does it mean what it says? This feels important. I need to know.

I looked at the questions.

Then I opened Google.

I spent forty minutes reading. Commentary, translation notes, the original Greek — ἄνθρωπος, anthrōpos, which meant human being, not the gendered male anēr. I found three different scholars who confirmed this. The King James translation had used man where the Greek said person or human. It was a translation convention of the era, not a theological exclusion.

I wrote this in my journal.

Then I wrote: So women are included. Good. The KJV and I are going to need to have a longer conversation but I am glad that God, at minimum, did not forget that 50% of His creation exists.

I looked at my notes.

I had more questions than I started with. This was, I was learning, what the Bible did. It answered one thing and opened twenty-one other doors.

I needed to talk to someone who had been doing this longer than three weeks.

I opened WhatsApp.

I went to Mautin’s chat.

I stared at it for a moment.

We had been texting more. Not constantly because neither of us was a constant-texter, we had both established this early, we communicated in the rhythm of two people who had things to say and said them when they had them. But more than before. The exchange after the first session. The MAP group. Small check-ins during the week.

I typed:

I have a Bible question.

I sent it before I could construct a reason not to.

His reply came in four minutes.

Mautin: Okay.

Me: It’s about 2 Corinthians 5:17.

Mautin: Go on.

I looked at my journal. At the questions I had written. At the forty minutes of research and the three scholars and the Greek word ἄνθρωπος.

I typed:

“If any MAN be in Christ.” Why man? What happened to my gender? Are we exempted from becoming new creatures or is the Bible just casually not acknowledging our existence?

I hit send.

I put my phone on the table and picked up my tea.

It was cold.

I went to make more tea.

My phone buzzed before the kettle boiled.

MAUTIN’S POV

I read the message twice.

Then I sat back in my chair and looked at the ceiling for a moment because this was… this was very Ọrọ.

This was the most Ọrọ question I had received since I had known her and it landed in my chest with a warmth that I was not going to examine right now because God had given me an instruction and the instruction was to be her friend and this was a friend question and I was going to answer it like a friend.

I also… and I want to be clear that this was a purely intellectual observation. I found it genuinely funny.

Not the question itself. The delivery.

What happened to my gender?

Are we exempted from becoming new creatures?

The dry precision of it. The fact that she had clearly done research before asking. I could tell by the confidence in the question that she had already partially answered it herself and was now coming to me for confirmation and extension, not for basic information.

She had been a new believer for less than 21 days and she was already reading Greek-origin commentary.

I typed:

Okay first of all — you did research before asking, didn’t you.

Ọrọ: I looked up the Greek word. ἄνθρωπος. It means human being, not specifically male. Three scholars confirmed. The KJV translation used “man” as a generic term for the era. So I already know you’re going to tell me women are included.

I looked at the screen.

Me: Then why are you asking?

Ọrọ: Because I wanted to hear you explain it. And because I have follow-up questions that my Google search couldn’t answer.

I set my phone down on my kitchen table.

I was at home. I had left work at 6:00 p.m., done my 4:00 to 5:00 reading, cooked jollof rice that was currently cooling on the stove, and was about to eat when the message came in. The jollof was going to wait.

I picked the phone back up.

Me: Okay. Let me explain it properly.

Ọrọ: Please do.

I thought about where to start. Not the commentary version. Ọrọ didn’t need the commentary version, she had the commentary version. She needed the inhabited version. The thing I had learnt not from reading but from living inside it.

I started typing.

ỌRỌ’S POV

His messages came in sequence. Not one long message. He sent them in paragraphs, which meant he was thinking between them, constructing it in real time rather than writing it all at once and sending. I watched the typing indicator appear and disappear and appear again and I sat on my couch with my fresh tea and I waited.

The first message:

Mautin: The Greek word is ἄνθρωπος. You found that. It means human. Person. Anyone. The KJV was translated in 1611 when “man” in English was used generically for the human race. Like how people used to say “mankind” meaning everyone. It was the convention of the language, not a theological statement about who the verse applied to.

Then, a pause. Then:

Mautin: But here’s what I think you actually want to know. Not the translation question. The other question.

I looked at the screen.

What other question?

Mautin: Whether it applies to you specifically. Whether “new creature” is something available to Ọrọ Adekunle who has been carrying things for a specific number of years and who only said the prayer a few days ago.

I put my tea down.

He was right. That was the question underneath the question.

“Yes”, I typed. “That’s the one”.

Another pause. The typing indicator appearing. Disappearing. Appearing again.

MAUTIN’S POV

I was being careful.

Not because the answer was complicated. The answer was clear to me, had been clear for years, was written in the thing I had been living since I was nineteen years old and chose to stop running from the faith I had been raised in and start actually inhabiting it.

But because Ọrọ was new. And I had learnt, from being in the follow-up unit for three years, that the worst thing you could do for a new believer was give them the full theology all at once and leave them standing under the weight of it. The truth had to arrive in portions they could actually receive.

I also knew from fifteen of paying attention that Ọrọ had a particular sensitivity to anything that sounded like a performance of comfort. She could hear managed reassurance from a distance. She would close the folder immediately if I gave her something that sounded like a customer service script for new Christians.

So I was going to tell her the truth. The whole thing. Just in her language.

I typed:

The verse says “is.” Present tense. Not “will be” or “is trying to become.” IS. The moment you said that prayer and meant it, the newness happened. Not the feeling of newness — the reality of it. Those are different things.

Send.

Then:

Think of it like this. If you change your name legally, the change is real from the moment the document is signed. Whether you feel different is a separate conversation. Whether other people start calling you by the new name yet is another separate conversation. The legal fact is settled.

Send.

You are a new creature. That is a settled fact. What you are experiencing right now, the “same building with the windows open” feeling, or whatever you’d describe it as, is not evidence that the change didn’t happen. It’s evidence that the change is working its way out from the inside.

I put my phone down and stirred the jollof.

Then picked it up again.

Also, and this is important, old things have passed away does not mean the memories are gone. It doesn’t mean the weight of what you carried is instantly lifted. It means those things no longer have legal authority over who you are. They can knock. They can show up. But they are no longer the landlord. A new Sheriff is in town.

I read that back.

I sent it.

ỌRỌ’S POV

They are no longer the landlord.

I read that sentence four times.

Then I picked up my journal and wrote it down word for word because it was going to live in this notebook permanently.

They can knock. They can show up. But they are no longer the landlord. A new Sheriff is in town.

I thought about the management system. The one I had built at age seven or before seven, in a bathroom in Jos that nobody knew about except me and the person who had put me there. The system I had been dismantling slowly, in Coach Adaeze’s sessions, in the morning recordings, in eight sentences at a MAP group, in one line of worship.

The system was not gone.

But it was no longer the landlord.

I typed: That’s a really good way of putting it.

Then, before I could stop myself. I texted him.

Me: Did you come up with that or did you read it somewhere?

Mautin: I came up with it. But feel free to act like you thought of it first.

I stared at the screen.

That was — that was a joke. Mautin Hundeyin had made a joke in a theology explanation. Smooth, clean, delivered without announcement.

Me: Noted. I’m adding it to my content bank.

His reply came immediately.

Mautin: I want credit.

Me: You’ll get a footnote.

A footnote.

Small print at the bottom. Very professional.

A pause.

Then…

Mautin: Ọrọ.

Me: Yes.

Mautin: Do you have more questions for Prof. Mautin or is class over?

I looked at my journal. At the list I had written.

Me: 🤣🤣🤣. Lol. I have four more.

Mautin: Of course you do.

Me: Is that a problem?

Mautin: No. Send them.

•∆•∆•∆•∆•∆•∆•∆•

MAUTIN’S POV

She sent four questions.

Each one more specific than the last. Each one demonstrating that she had already done preliminary research and was coming to me for the lived version, the experiential version, the version that couldn’t be found in a concordance.

The questions were about:

Is the all things in all things become new literal or selective? Did it mean literally everything or the spiritually significant things?

Is the transformation something that happened to you or something you participated in? Like, do I need to do anything? Is it free? What part is paid? Do you get me?

When the Bible says ‘passed away’, does it mean the old self is gone or dormant?

And the last one, which was the one I sat with the longest before answering:

If the old things have passed away, why do they still feel so present sometimes? Is that a faith failure or is that just — what the process looks like?

I set the phone down.

I ate some of my jollof rice.

I thought about the question.

Not theologically. I knew the theological answer, I had been reading and studying for years and the theological answer was clear. I thought about it personally. About the specific experience of being a new creature who still had days when the old weight arrived uninvited and sat down in your living room without asking.

About the nights I lay awake thinking about my father. The man who had left before I was old enough to have a memory of him staying. The absence that had become a presence of its own. The thing I was not going to become, the mistake I was not going to repeat, the weight I had been carrying in the shape of a commitment that nobody had asked me to make but which I had made anyway because someone had to.

About how the new creature still had that.

Still sometimes went to sleep with it.

And how that had not, in all the years since I chose this faith properly, made the faith less true.

I picked up my phone.

I typed the last answer carefully.

•∆•∆•∆•∆•∆•∆•∆•

ỌRỌ’S POV

His reply to the last question was longer than the others.

I read it slowly.

That is not a faith failure. That is what the process looks like. The transformation is real and complete in the spiritual dimension from the moment you receive it. But you live in a body and a mind that have been running certain patterns for a very long time. Those patterns have neural pathways. They have muscle memory. They have years of practice.

The new creature is true. The old patterns are also still there, working their way out. Both things are true simultaneously and neither cancels the other.

Think of it like this. If you spent twenty years walking with a limp because of an injury and then the injury was healed. The healing is real and complete from the moment it happens. But your body still remembers how to limp. You will catch yourself limping out of habit even when the injury is gone. That is not evidence that the healing didn’t work. It is evidence that you need to practise walking differently.

The faith is the healing. The work is your Coach Adaeze sessions, the recordings, the MAP group, the morning question, all of it — that is you practising walking differently.

I put my phone in my lap.

I looked at my journal.

At the verse, written out in full at the top of the page.

Therefore if any man — any person, any human being, Ọrọoluwa — be in Christ, he — she — is a new creature. Old things are passed away. All things are become new.

I picked up my pen.

I added two words to the verse in my journal, in brackets, in my own handwriting:

She is a new creature. Old things are passed away. Ọrọ has become new.

I looked at it.

Then I typed:

Me: The limp analogy. That’s yours too, right? Not from a book.

Mautin: Yes.

Me: How do you know about limping?

A longer pause than usual. The typing indicator appearing and disappearing twice before the message came.

Mautin: Everyone has something they were healed from that they still sometimes walk with, he said. Mine is just different from yours.

I sat with that.

I did not ask what his was.

Not tonight. Not yet. That was a door that was open but not mine to walk through uninvited.

Instead I typed again.

Me: Thank you for this. All of it. The footnote offer still stands.

Mautin: I want at least an acknowledgement page, he said.

Me: I’ll consider it.

Mautin: That means no.

Me: It means I’ll consider it.

A pause.

Mautin: Goodnight, Ọrọ.

Me: Goodnight, Mautin.

I put my phone down.

I picked up my Bible. The physical one. I picked it from the nightstand where it had been living since before I was ready to carry it out of the flat and I opened it to 2 Corinthians 5.

I read verse 17 one more time.

Out loud this time. In my flat. Standing up per Coach Adaeze’s instruction which was for the recordings but I had started doing it for other things too. I mean te body is learning that vertical was a valid position for things that mattered.

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new.

My voice in my flat.

Full.

No trailing off.

The period landing.

I put the Bible down.

I picked up my journal.

At the bottom of the page, under the bracketed additions and the footnote about ἄνθρωπος and Mautin’s limp analogy and all the questions answered and unanswered, I wrote one final line:

I am new. The old things are no longer the landlord. I am practising walking differently. This is what the process looks like.

I closed the journal.

I went to bed.

I fell asleep before 10:30 p.m.

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