There's an important word in the Bible that's connected to the Exodus story.

It's the word redemption.

Israel was a slave to Egypt, and God redeemed them.

So what does this mean to be redeemed?

I mean, you can redeem a coupon.

You can redeem a day.

But people can be redeemed? Really stop and you can redeem a coupon. You can redeem a day, but people can be redeemed.

Really stop and think about that.

Why are we talking that way?

To be redeemed is to be reclaimed.

You were lost, but now you're found.

You are a slave to death, but now you're a son of God.

And this reclaiming occurs when you're transferred from one state to the other. That transfer, that is the redemption.

There's something the biblical authors want us to see,

that human beings are the rightful possession of their creator.

God calls Israel his treasured possession.

In the story of the Bible, humanity becomes the possession of something else.

This is illustrated in the Exodus story where Israel wrongfully becomes the possession to Egypt as slaves.

But the Bible takes this idea further and thinks about how all of humanity has become slaves to some other ruler called sin and death.

And so the act of bringing people back to where they belong, that's what the Bible calls a redemption.

And this word is not simply an interesting way to think about the story of the Bible.

This word gets to the heart of how Jesus saw himself as a redeemer.

...