In Genesis 3:13 the Lord asks Eve why she ate the fruit that was forbidden, and she replies, “The serpent deceived me.” The word for deceive in Hebrew is “nasa.” It also means to enslave through usury which is payment of a debt with interest. In Bible times, a person who couldn’t pay a debt could become a slave as a way of paying it off. By adding interest, the time you’re a slave to your debt is increased. When the devil deceived Eve and both she and Adam ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they were made debtors to God because of their sin.…
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The Day of Atonement
The Bible makes an astounding promise: “Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:17-18). Contrary to the American dream, we don’t work hard to get this new life through our own effort. It is a gift from God. Why would he give us a new life as a new person? Because he loves us so much that he’s willing to do for us what we could never do for ourselves, which is to make ourselves righteous in his sight.…
