Thoughts on Hebrews 13: Immitating our leaders

In the closing statements, the author of Hebrews throws out a lot of quick admonitions.  The two that stick out at me today while I am writing this are: 1) Help those in need, and 2) Obey your leaders/imitate them.

The list of those in need aren't necessarily those we might think of today.  Show hospitality.  Remember those in prison and who are otherwise being tormented.  Bear the abuse Christ suffered. Share what you have (while being content with what you have).  I've said this before, but I think Christians in the West today are spoiled.  We never have to interact with those in prison (or recognize they are there).  We don't personally encounter the tormented (at least that we know of). I'm not sure we have any concept of what it means to bear the abuse Christ suffered.  We're generally not content with what we have and not willing to share what we have with others.

The other thing that might sound odd to our modern Western ears is that we are to obey and imitate our leaders.  From the context I am fairly certain this references spiritual leaders (although Peter and Paul in their writings certainly make it clear that we are not exempt from obeying political leaders).  Even outside Protestant circles, Western Christians tend to have a post-Reformation mindset.  We pay so much attention to the malfeasance of a few bad leaders that we fail to recognize the good in most of them.  If we don't recognize that good, it becomes very hard to both obey and imitate.

But I think there is a secondary problem as well.  In our post-Reformation mindset, we want to choose our own leaders.  As someone with a Ph.D. in Government, I can safely say that popularly choosing leaders is not always a good thing.  People tend to choose the most charismatic leaders, not those whose lives should be imitated.  A look at history shows the damage this can inflict (Hitler was popularly elected).  Why would we do this in the Church?  And we do we get up and find someplace else to worship if the leaders say something that makes us uncomfortable?

Again, these are just a few thoughts.  Take them for what they are.

Thoughts on Hebrews 12: God punishes us in love

It is entirely possible that I have written and taught more on this passage than any other passage in the Bible.  Having said that, I'm not sure my thoughts here are all that profound.  I think it's far more that this is a difficult passage to read and stomach.

When I was in college, I somehow was given the responsibility of writing a weekly devotional for the campus newspaper (it was a small, Christian college).  Every week I was supposed to meet with the chaplain to clear the devotional with him.  Things went fine until I wrote up a few thoughts on Hebrews 12.  He read what I wrote and wouldn't accept it, not because anything I said was wrong, but that "it might be too hard for college students to accept."  (I broke the rules and published it anyway.  I then didn't clear any others with him either.)

What makes this passage so hard?  Is it that we don't like to think about God punishing us?  Is it that punishment somehow is diametrically opposed to the concept of love in our minds?  Is it that we try to disavow a wrathful God from being part of the New Testament?

I think Hebrews 12 exposes us to some characteristics of God that don't match our sometimes "warm fuzzy" picture of Him.  We don't like to think of God as someone who still punishes.  "Didn't that all end with Christ's death on the cross?" we might like to think.  We tend to ignore that God is still holy.  That is one of the key themes throughout the book of Hebrews. He is completely set apart from sin and cannot stand to be in its presence.  We must come to Him on His terms.  He offered us a path.  The path won't be easy as He will still punish us as His children.  He won't accept us if we reject Him (thus violating the path He created).    Even when we follow the path, the path will be hard.

Maybe this is why so many of us have so much trouble with this passage.  We want the version of Christianity we might have heard as  a child, "God loves you and all you need is to accept Jesus into your heart and you can go to heaven."  While the words are true, the way they are presented might be misleading.  The "all you need to do" implies a simple, easy journey.  It isn't.  It is a hard, perilous journey.  This is why the author of Hebrews repeatedly warns his readers against falling away.  The warning is there because we need to hear it.

Thoughts on Hebrews 11: What does a faithful person look like in God's eyes?

Hebrews 11 has always been a humbling chapter for me to read.  This is for two reasons.  The first is the obvious that I look at the faith of some of the greats from the Old Testament and wonder if I could ever be like one of them.  This is particularly difficult for me over the past couple years as I've felt like I've been walking blind and the goals I thought God had laid out for me I don't see any path to achieving.  Looking at Noah and Abraham in particular is particularly humbling in this light.

The second reason that this chapter is always humbling to me is that I realize some of the things I focus on are not exactly God's.  I consider myself a "good person".  I authentically live a very clean life and don't commit the big, obvious sins that most people do.  This chapter reminds me that I should not be proud of that.  Take a look at the list of people applauded for their faith, especially in vv. 31-32.  Included in this list we have a prostitute, an adulterer, a murderer, someone led to do really stupid things by his sex drive, and someone who sacrificed his daughter after making a stupid vow.  That's a list of people who commit some sin whoppers that we should avoid.  Yet they got into the "Hall of Faith".  This shows me that God does not emphasize the same things that I do, and that I need to watch my attitude.

Thoughts on Hebrews 10: Living in repsonse to proper theology

Today, rather than writing more on the shadow of the old covenant in contrast with the reality of the new, I want to focus on the Christian response to these things, as highlighted in verses 19 to the end of the chapter.

The author of Hebrews is very concerned with living in response to proper theology (something I think most of us should probably do a better job with--either on the living side or on the proper theology side).  As a result of Christ as the high priest of the new covenant, we are able to draw near to God (v. 22) which at least partially happens through meeting together with other believers (vv. 24-25).  And why should we continue meeting together?  To prevent the warnings in verses 26-31.  In other words, we meet together to encourage each other from falling away so that we will be able to take advantage of the access granted to us through Christ's sacrifice.

In the modern West, not attending church tends to be an issue driven by laziness more than anything else.  However, the end of chapter 10 indicates that was not the problem for these readers.  They were being actively persecuted for meeting together and thereby identifying themselves as Christ followers.  For them, meeting together was a very serious matter.  Yet they were encouraged to meet together.  How much more so for us today when our biggest obstacles are sleeping in or catching the football game?

Thoughts on Hebrews 9: New covenant is superior to the old

In this chapter, the author of Hebrews really puts a lot of emphasis on the idea of the "new covenant" as being superior to the old and making the old covenant obsolete.  There is a lot of theological controversy over how far "obsolete" extends (is the OT still relevant in matters of law and morals, should signs of the new covenant mirror the signs of the old, etc).  We won't be getting into those.

What I do want to note is the superiority of the new covenant over the old.  The author of Hebrews briefly described the rarity and difficulty of entering the Most Holy Place, even if you were a priest.  That most holy place was designed as a mere copy of the throne room of God.  Priests had a hard time entering the copy of God's sanctuary.  Jesus stands in the real thing, mediating on our behalf.

Beyond this, we don't have a lot of clues as to what makes this new covenant better.  We do get a brief mention of it being enacted on "better promises".  We don't know exactly what these better promises are, but one thing that jumps out at me is the promise in the old covenant of a promised land vs. the promise in the new covenant of heaven.  I'd say that was a step up.

Thoughts on Hebrews 8: Christ is the superior mediator

Christ is the superior mediator (compared with earthly priests) because he has immediate access to God. The sacrificial system was a mere shadow of the reality of Christ's mediation.

I confess that this isn't something I've thought much about.  This is probably due to my privileged status of being able to just assume this is always the case, and therefore something I take for granted.  But, this really is a very big deal.

Think about it this way.  We are stained with sin, so we cannot enter the very presence of a holy God.  God could not bare it.  There was an impenetrable barrier between us and God.  Christ broke down the barrier, stands in the very presence of God himself, and intercedes on our behalf.  That's a big deal and something I should take more seriously.

I'll discuss more on the new covenant discussion that shows up at the end of chapter 8 while discussing other chapters.

Thoughts on Hebrews 7: The stench of the holy

Continuing our walk through Hebrews, we see a repeated discussion comparing Jesus as high priest to the Levitical high priests.  Chapter 7 emphasizes how Jesus as high priest was higher than the Aaronic priesthood.  The author's claim is that this is because Jesus was high priest in the order of Melchizedek.

In case someone is unfamiliar with the reference from Genesis, Melchizadek was a priest and king from what became known as Jerusalem.  When Abraham encountered him, he tithed 10% of all he had to Melchizadek.  The author of Hebrews points out that this makes Melchizadek greater than Aaron because Aaron's ancestor tithed to Melchizadek.

Truthfully, if one of my students made an argument like this, I would probably tell him that he was really reaching--except for one thing.  Out of nowhere in one of the Psalms, the psalmist makes this odd statement, "I have made you a priest forever in the order of Melchizadek".  Although I am not an expert on Jewish scholarship (or anything else I write about on this blog, for that matter), my understanding is that Jewish scholarship didn't really know what to do with this odd Melchizadek reference in the Psalms.  That is what the author of Hebrews is trying to do here...explain that which wasn't understood.

The more important point here, though, is that after Christ's priestly sacrifice, there is no need for continued sacrifice for sin.  I think this is something modern Christians take too much for granted.  Because we are so removed from the sacrificial system, we have become desensitized to what this means.

I got a small glimpse of this when I was in college and read C.S. Lewis's Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold..  In this work there is a detailed description of the reaction of the main character walking into a temple where animal sacrifice is still practiced.  If I recall, the line Lewis used was, "the stench of the holy".  There were dried blood stains all around.  It smelled of incense and animal slaughter.  It was a stark reminder of the penalty for displeasing God (or the gods in the case of the novel).

As modern (and especially relatively wealthy) Christians, we are far removed from the stench of the holy.  We don't truly appreciate the weight of our sin and the weight of the sacrifice.  Perhaps that is one of the benefits of Christ's "once for all" sacrifice, that we no longer have to contemplate such things.  But I can't help wondering if we would take our sin more seriously if we did.

Thoughts on Hebrews 6: Abandoning your birthright

Hebrews 6 is one of the most controversial chapters in the Bible.  It contains stark language on the issue of whether one can lose salvation.

Today I'm going to take a look at this passage from a different angle.  Although I'm not generally sympathetic to "covenant theology", I think it might be helpful in this case.  After the blunt discussion of apostates not being able to return to repentance, the author of Hebrews returns to a discussion of the Hebrew people--the people of promise.  Clearly, throughout history, many of the Hebrew people, who had a promise as God's chosen people, abandoned the faith and did not return.  This may be partially what Paul refers to in Romans when he speaks of Jews who are no longer Jews.  They had extra opportunities and left their birthright.  This may be what the author of Hebrews is saying--those who were so involved in the Church as to actually taste the Holy Spirit, but left.  (Of course, I freely admit even more than usual to the possibility of being wrong here.)

I think of more practical value is the discussion of the evidence of having left.  Chapter 6 makes special emphasis (after encouraging readers that he expects better things of them than apostasy) of endurance and what Paul called "fruit".  I think our emphasis in this chapter should not be fear of losing our salvation, but rather perseverance in living the Christian life.

Thoughts on Hebrews 5: Learning obedience through suffering

This is the first in what I hope to be a series of personal meditations on my daily scripture readings.  The purpose of this series is for my benefit far more than it is for the wider audience.  My goal is that readers will get on my case if I don't publish here regularly. ;)

This chapter is probably best thought of as being in two parts: Verses 1-10 and then the theme from verses 11 on continue into chapter 6.  Today I will look briefly at the first part (and hopefully be disciplined enough to do the second part when I do chapter 6).

Chapter 5 provides some comparisons between earthly priests and Christ's priestly ministry.  Since my goal is not to provide an exhaustive examination of the passage, I'll just emphasize some things the jumped out at me.

First, the earthly priest is able to be compassionate toward sinners because he is a sinner.  He is reminded of this at every sacrifice as he must atone for his own sins before he can offer a sacrifice for the sins of the people.  Christ, obviously, cannot have compassion grounded in this, as he was without sin.  So, what is the grounds for Christ's compassion?  Suffering.

Verse 8 really jumped out at me in this regard: "Although he was a son, he learned obedience through the things he suffered."  One might think that a passage on Christ's role as a priest would focus on his sacrifice as a replacement for the traditional animal sacrifices.  Instead we get this somewhat strange thought thrown in that obedience in performing the sacrifice was learned through suffering.

Perhaps I am making too big a deal of this, but it is an important lesson for me.  I have felt a lot of suffering recently.  To put it bluntly, I feel like I am being punished by God, without being quite sure what I did wrong.  I wonder if the suffering is to teach me obedience.  And if so, obedience in what area?  I suppose this is something I need to contemplate moving forward in Hebrews as I know this theme will come up again.