week9&10 | exhortations: join the pilgrimage of faith || faithful living in community
Hebrews 12:1-29
Hebrews 13:1-25
We will be concluding this week. With these two concluding chapters, the author of Hebrews will lay out what it means to live out our faith, in light of everything he has said so far.
With the first half of chapter 12 the overarching theme is about running a race, with discipline from God the father being the way he instructs and trains us. This metaphor seems to dramatically {re}shape our understanding of what it means to be a Christian, a follower of Christ Jesus. A race has purpose, direction, drawing us into the needed training & discipline. It gives our life a meaning & focus.
Deeply consider what this metaphor means for you.
The second half of chapter twelve gives us an imaginative vision of the finish line—a great crowd joyful gathered with God the father & Jesus the Son. It is a celebration, the great banquet, that we are running towards.
The last chapter of Hebrews concludes with practical exhortation about how we are to live with others, in light of what Christ has done. Search for what the essential message is, what is our act of worship & sacrifice? Hebrews 13:20-21 are an encapsulation of the gospel, the message which he has taken thirteen chapters to unpack. Take some time and slowly read through it, trying to deeply understand each part of the verses.
week8 | by faith
Hebrews 10:19-11:40
Last week was our last week of heavy thinking. Now begins the time of heavy lifting. Just as classic liturgy has a call & response, Hebrews has given us the call and now he laying out what our response should look like. Chapters 11 &12 should be understood as a couplet of sorts, we look back on the faith of our forefathers to then look to the present at our own faith.
Look at the text of chapter 11 and try to identify all the sorts of ways faith is lived out. Do you remember the way I unpacked what faith was:
Faith = belief + hope + obedience + perseverance
Can you see each of these aspects being played out with the different characters?
Think about your walk of faith through the years. Can you think of how these different aspects have been present in your own life? How could Hebrews describe you? By faith, I have ________________…
week7 | earthly & heavenly sanctuaries
Hebrews 9:1-10:18
We will head deep into the heart of Hebrews argument, the nature of Christ’s sacrifice—the once for all sacrifice for our eternal salvation, the cleansing of conscience.
This text can easily seem strange or distant from our context. Historical context is important, if only to understand that God, the eternal being standing outside of history, comes into history to change the shape of history. We can’t talk about God without talking about Israel, a historical physical people and Jesus, the culmination of Israel’s history.
Beyond simply studying history, the author wants us to see an important distinction, between Jesus’ sacrifice and the Levitical priest’s sacrifice. He wants to point to a radical change that has happened in history. We see many sacrifices, regularly being done, without completion contrasted to the one sacrifice (the best sacrifice), with Jesus sitting down at the right hand of God after his sacrifice (his work of sacrifice was completed). The sacrifice of Jesus is able to clean the conscience where the earthly sacrifice could only clean the outside of things.
Focus on this contrast. The question for us is: do we continue to offer our sacrifices of the old order. For us it isn’t bulls & goats, but rather dead works of morality.
How often do we try to please God by our good deeds?
During Lent, are you giving something up to be/look pious or rather to throw off all hindrances to draw closer to the savior, our Lord Jesus Christ?
When we sin, do we live as if Jesus’ once-for-all sacrifice cover those sins, or do we try to make our own sacrifices & offerings of good acts, high moral works of piety to please God?
week6 | Old & New Covenants
Hebrews 7:11 – 8:13
Last week we transitioned into a deeper layer of study into who Christ is; the author began to unpack his justification for calling Jesus our High Priest. This exposition began by laying out the who of the Psalms 110 reference. He described the scene between Melchizedek and Abraham from Genesis 14 to give us a hint into how Christ as High Priest is justified and greater than the Levitical priesthood of the Israelite Temple service.
He is developing a line of thought on why the law isn’t necessary, why we as Gentiles don’t need to go to the temple for sacrifices, why what Christ did was a once-for-all event that changed everything.
Chapter 7 is developing Christ as a priest similar to that of Melchizedek. The author needs to establish how Christ is legitimately a priest even though he isn’t from the tribe of Levi (Jesus is rather from the tribe of Judah). So the author goes from Psalms 110—which he has cited numerous times already—that points to Melchizedek. To explain/examine Melchizedek, the author looks to Genesis 14 (the only other place in scripture to mention him). From this passage he gains enough information to establish an argument that Melchizedek as priest was greater than the Levitical priesthood because (1)he is without beginning or end, and (2) he gives blessings (the greater blesses the lesser) and receives tithes freely (the Levites have to tax the Israelites to receive their tithe). This then puts the author in the position to argue how Jesus is similar to Melchizedek, therefore a justified priest and of a greater order than Aaron.
Chapter 8 then develops upon the implication that Christ is a infinitely better priest that Aaron or any of the Levitical priesthood. He uses an extended quotation from Jeremiah to point to the new covenant which Christ establishes through his sacrifice. This opening comes because Jesus is a priest of a different order, meaning the laws/rules literally change when one follows him instead of the old system.
We will talk about all this on Sunday, slowly & in more detail. I just wanted to lay out the argument now, so hopefully you can begin to wrap your head it all.
week5 | order of melchizedek
Hebrews 5:11 – 7:10
This week will definitely be a hard reading for everyone. There are two difficult items which we will have to deal with: (1) lazy Christians in danger of losing their faith (if they even had it to begin with), and (2) tithes to Melchizedek—two difficult topics, for rather different reasons.
Both topics need prayerful consideration.
Please take ample time this week to study and pray over this text.
Hebrews 5:11-6:12 is one of the most fearful texts of scripture. While the scriptures tell us to fear not, scripture also tell us to fear God (cf. Psalms 34). Fearing God is the good kind of fear, while waking up at night because a fear of aging (as you get closer & closer to 40) is a bad kind of fear. Think about a kitchen knife, I’m not afraid of it per-say, but I do handle it with care so as to not cut myself. The blade is sharp and can cut me just as well as the dinner in front of me. {Think of the passage last week about the Word of God as a double-edged sword.}
The author is giving his readers—us—a wake up call. It should awaken us from our slumber of superficial living. Our spiritual life is similar to our physical bodies. If you aren’t exercising your body you won’t get stronger; even worse you get weaker. The same holds true for your spiritual life. It requires pumping the iron of scripture, the cardio of prayer, the obstacle course of obedient living.
God—as well as the author—doesn’t want us to go through the motions coasting through life. He is calling us to much more. So before the author can get into difficult material (like high priests of the order of Melchizedek) he needs to make sure we are awake and working towards deeper understanding.
