I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Hebrews 6-9.

    The writer tells us that those who once knew God’s salvation through Christ and have turned away can never be brought back to repentance. He is not talking about those who gradually fell back into sin after coming to know the Lord. I do not even think he was talking about those who came to know Christ at a young age and were later talked out of it by someone they respected. No, he is talking about those who, of their own volition, made a conscious decision to reject God. Those who rejected God because continuing to accept God meant accepting that there was someone they answered to for their actions. The thing about such people is that, once they have made such a decision, they will never be willing to consider the possibility that they were wrong to do so. I will say that we have to be careful not to assume that someone falls into this category because I have known people who I thought did who turned to the Lord.

    The rest of this passage is very intellectual (just like yesterday’s passage). One of the key things I get from this passage is that we no longer need any priest aside from Jesus. Jesus is our High Priest, who offered Himself, once and for all, as a sacrifice for sin. There is no longer a need for priests to offer sacrifices on our behalf, nor to act as intermediaries between ourselves and God. This means that the distinction we often make between the clergy and the laity is a false one. The creation of clergy is serves two purposes. It allows some people to lift themselves up as superior to others. And it allows many people to not hold themselves to the standard which Christ sets for us. We are all called to live by the standard of “priests” and if you think that you are better than others, you have missed the point.