Recently my mom has been taking charge in making sure that a Bible Quiz Bee hosted by the women's group she's in runs smoothly. One thing she's been doing is organizing all the suggested questions and putting them together per age group.
I decided to take a shot and try to answer as much questions as I could. Much as I thought I was doing a good job, it was pretty apparent that I needed to know more. There were some details that I thought I should have known by now; for instance, I only learned last night that the Bible has 66 books: 39 in the Old Testament, 27 in the New. I knew the 12 sons of Jacob and the 12 tribes of Israel but I couldn't name the 12 Apostles.
There was one question she asked that I didn't answer precisely. She asked, 'what was the first sin?' So I went ahead and answered, 'when Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil - wait, what is that in one word?'
She flipped to the answer sheet and said, 'Disobedience.'
Proverbs 6:12-15 A worthless and wicked person walks around saying perverse things; he winks with his eyes, signals with his feet, and points with his fingers; he plots evil with perverse thoughts in his heart, he spreads contention at all times.
Therefore, his disaster will come suddenly; in an instant he will be broken, and there will be no remedy.
The word 'perverse' shows up twice here. I imagine I would lean more to the sexual deviance associated to that word if someone asked me to define it.
I wanted to know if there was something more to that word, so I checked what the New Oxford American Dictionary had to say:
Perversity: A deliberate desire to behave in an unreasonable or unacceptable way; contrariness.
Then I thought, was there any other word replacing 'perversity' in another version of the Bible?
Proverbs 6:12-15 A naughty person, a wicked man, walketh with a froward mouth. He winketh with his eyes, he speaketh with his feet, he teacheth with his fingers; Frowardness is in his heart, he deviseth mischief continually; he soweth discord.
Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly; suddenly shall he be broken without remedy.
'frowardness' replaces perversity. I cranked up the NOAD App and found this:
Froward: (of a person) difficult to deal with; contrary.
Contrary? I went to the definition of that word to see if I missed out on anything there:
Contrary: perversely inclined to disagree or to do the opposite of what is expected or desired.
That sounded like disobedience.
A heart of disobedience is a heart of perversity, contrariness, and frowardness. A man with a perverse mouth has a disobedient heart, and according to Proverbs 6:15 "...his disaster will come suddenly; in an instant he will be broken, and there will be no remedy."
Disobedience leads to calamity. Sadly, this was the case with Adam and Eve as well. And we are all feeling the consequences of this sin today, and there is only one way out:
1 Corinthians 15:22 For just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.
Believe in Jesus Christ today. He died for you to live. He died so you can have a relationship with the Creator of the Universe. Nobody else can save you.
To God be all the glory. Have a good day.