HE-BREWS: A Better Blend

He-brews: A Better Blend

I hope you are excited about studying the book of Hebrews with me in 2012. Honestly, I need to give you a disclaimer up front: Hebrews is not an easy book to study. There are challenging portions of the book that esteemed scholars cannot agree on. You and I are not esteemed scholars so let’s agree not to get into heated battles over some of those passages. Don’t worry about them now, though. I’ll tell you when we get to them.

Our first assignment for January is simply to read the first chapter of Hebrews. I’d love for you to grab your own Bible and read from it, but in case you are Bible-less at this very moment, here is a link to the chapter.

The writer of Hebrews opens the very first chapter with such a powerful description of God’s work that I feel breathless each time I read it. He covers Genesis to Revelation in the short span of 4 verses. It was almost as if he felt a sense of urgency to make his point before someone called ‘TIME’. Take a minute and go back and read verses 1-4 again. What do you think? Are those not four powerful verses that cover creation, the prophets, the gospels and the Revelation? The writer is saying that God invaded our world in the person of Jesus, and He provided the salvation the ancients longed to see.

Why would the writer of the book of Hebrews feel so compelled to cover all of history in the space of 4 verses? We can only guess that it had something to do with the fact that his readers were slowly slipping back into the ways and customs of ancient Judaism, despite the fact they had apparently received Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

I think it is important for you to know that we do not know with certainty the identity of the author of Hebrews. Nor are we certain of the exact makeup of the audience to whom he or she is writing. Lots of scholarly debate has swirled around those two subjects and we will not join in the swirl. Let’s agree that the ultimate author is the Holy Spirit and leave it at that.

For all we do not know about the writer and audience of the book of Hebrews, I believe we can agree with the following from Word Biblical Commentary.

“Hebrews is a sermon rooted in actual life. It is addressed to a local gathering of men and women who discovered that they could be penetrated by adverse circumstances over which they exercised no control.” (WBC p. xlvii)

Hmm, maybe Hebrews is more applicable to our lives today than we originally thought.

Here are a couple of thoughts to ponder as we wrap up this session:

MEDITATION MOMENT: