Today, I am reading and commenting on  Hebrews 1-5.

I am not sure that where I am going with today’s blog accurately reflects the message which the writer intended to convey, but I do believe it is a biblical thought.  The writer writes “See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. ”  As I initially read that, the writer is telling us to be careful that we do not rebel against God.  However, the next sentence after the one I quoted reads, “encourage one another daily, as long as it is called ‘Today,’ so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. ”  Which suggests to me that the writer is telling us to encourage and build up our fellow believers in order to assist them in resisting temptation.  The writer says a lot about the failure of those who rebelled to obey God’s instructions, but he also tells us that those who rebelled did so because they did not share the faith of those who did obey.  So, let me write out my take aways from this passage:  When God instructs us we must listen and obey, but our obedience will grow out our belief and trust that God has saved us.  Further, we need to build up and encourage the faith of those around us so that they do not fall short of what God desires for them.  We are each responsible for our own actions, but we should seek to take responsibility for helping others do good as well.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Hebrews 1-5.

Because those He wished to aid were flesh and blood, Jesus also became flesh and blood human.  Since He was flesh and blood as we are Jesus was tempted as we are.  And since He suffered temptation as we do, He is able to help us when we are tempted.  Therefore we should fix out thoughts on Him, listening to Him as He builds us into the House in which He will dwell.  Having laid out the reason why we should focus our thoughts on Jesus, the writer goes on to warn us against turning away from God.  Further, he tells us that we should encourage our fellow Believers in their faith so that their hearts, and our hearts, may not be hardened against God by sin.  Which brings me to one final point I want to make about today’s passage.  The writer tells us of the importance of studying the Scripture.  Often times we will struggle with understanding what a particular passage has to tell us (and the Book of Hebrews certainly ranks high among those where we will struggle).  However, just as an athlete needs to train their body by repeated exercise, so we must train our minds and spirits by repeated study of Scripture.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Hebrews 1-5.

The writer of Hebrews starts out by establishing from Old Testament Scripture that Jesus is equal to God.  I would argue that he actually establishes that Jesus is God.  He goes on from there to show that in Jesus, God was made fully human, subject to the same temptation and suffering that every other human experiences.  In the process of making these points the writer tells us that God has chosen to subject the world to come to us.  Everything will be put beneath our feet.  There will be nothing that will not be subject to our rule.  The writer reminds us that this has not yet happened, except that God has already subject everything to Jesus.  The knowledge that God has already subject everything to Jesus encourages the hope in us that He will do the same for us.  So, since Jesus has conquered death, He has saved those of us who put our trust in Him from death.  And when we face temptation we know that Jesus likewise faced the same temptation, which should give us confidence that He can guide us into overcoming that temptation.

I will stop writing here.  I feel that some of what I have written above fails to convey my thoughts as I intended, but re-writing those parts would require re-writing the whole.  So, I will leave it as it stands.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Hebrews 1-5.

I find the Book of Hebrews challenging because the writer chose to cover some rather advanced theology in his letter.  While Paul covers similarly advanced theology in some of his letters, we have more letters by Paul from which to learn to understand the way he words things.  The writer begins by pointing out that Jesus was distinct from the angels.  Jesus was not a special kind of angel, He was, and is, something completely different.  Angels are spirits sent by God to minister to and to serve those whom He has save by His grace.  The writer goes on from there to answer the question, “If Jesus is not an angel, what is He?”  Jesus became fully human. So, He was human, but He is also God.  More than any other writer in the Bible the writer of Hebrews tackles the fact that human comprehension cannot fully explain God.  We must be left with using metaphors and similes about God which we know do not fully explain any aspect of Him.  When the writer tells us that we need to work on consuming solid spiritual food rather than continuing to subsist on spiritual milk he is alluding to the fact that we must move beyond simple metaphors for God, that we must wrestle with explaining Him in better ways than that.  We may not succeed, but we should strive to wrap our heads around the infinite greatness which is God and His love.

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

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 1-5

As I started to read this I felt that Hebrews follows the letters of Paul in much the same way that the Gospel of John follows the other three Gospels.  The writer of Hebrews is concerned with the nature of Jesus and His relationship with God in much the same way that John is in his Gospel.  In fact, at some point I want to read the Book of Hebrews immediately after reading the Gospel of John.  I really think that the writer of Hebrews is saying the same thing about Jesus as the Gospel of John, just worded differently.  Both writers tell us that Jesus is God, but also a human being.  Together these two letters form the basis for the doctrine of the Trinity.

However, the writer of this letter wrote this to be about what that means for us, not to talk theology.  If Jesus is God, then we must pay even closer attention to what He taught than was called for by the teachings of the Law of Moses, which was communicated by angels (slight over simplification of his argument).  Those who spoke to Abraham, Moses, and the other prophets were God’s celestial messengers.  Jesus was God Himself.  So, on the one hand, Jesus’ teachings must be listened to because they are teachings directly from God.  But, Jesus was also a human being, so He understands how difficult following those teachings can be. 

I was hoping this would just follow on from the other things I wanted to write about this passage, but it did not.  Perhaps the most important part about the writer’s intent is what he writes at the end of this passage.  We need to stop relying on others to teach us again and again the basics of the Gospel.  We need to act on what we have learned and start teaching it to others.  Acting on what we have already learned about the Gospel is the only way to become able to understand and learn more.  The theology of the Trinity is only useful as it leads us to act, to do God’s will and show His love to those around us.