142. Beginner Bible Course: the letter to the Hebrews

EPISODE 142:   Simple Bible overview:  THE LETTER TO THE HEBREWS

Come to the new Testament letter to the Hebrews. The audience on this letter is easy. A group of people, those Jews who had heard the gospel and had gone all in on Jesus as Messiah and Lord the author. Well, that's not so easy. This letter is anonymous. That's pretty rare getting along anonymous, personal letter. So that must have been intentional. Some argue it's Paul and there's good reason for that first it's brainy and deep that's Paul. Second, it's clearly an expert in the old Testament law and practices. Paul was a lawyer at law expert. Third. It suggests that it's coming from Italy.

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The letter writer States those from Italy send you their greetings. Italy suggests Rome, where Paul spent a lot of time at the end of his life. It mentions praying for those in prison. Paul had lots of experience there as well. It's also formatted like a lot of Paul's other letters, first theology. Here's what we need to know. Then practice. Here's what we should do about it. But there's also arguments against Paul. It's more eloquent than Paul normally is. This does not feel like Paul. Also, Paul had turned his attention primarily to the Gentiles by the middle of the second missionary journey we learned in Romans. He still cares very deeply for his fellow Jews.

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He actually said I would willingly be condemned. If my fellow Jewish brothers and sisters would come to Jesus and be saved. But writing to the Jews, this letter would be out of his normal scope. So who did write it? Apparently it didn't matter to God at all. If you pinned me down on it, I might go with a policy, the silver tongue, old Testament, Jewish scholar from Alexandria, or I might say how about Luke? That would explain the same themes as Paul, but it would also explain the eloquent nature of the letter as a Gentile. Luke might hide his identity because after all what right? Doesn't Gentile have to write a treatise to the Jews about following Jesus deep inside of me.

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I kind of wish it's Priscilla. No, seriously. She's the one that took a policy aside and explained the way of Jesus more accurately. That would explain why she didn't identify herself as the writer. Some of you are thinking, wait a second. Peter says, Holy men of God were carried along by the Holy spirit. As they wrote. I hope after 140 podcasts, you realize that term sun or men can often mean daughters and women as well. Right? I mean, Solomon wrote the entire book of Proverbs addressing his sons. He had to have a boatload of daughters to knowing how many wives and concubines he had. Clearly the principles of Proverbs are written to both boys and girls.

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And since I'm on the subject, I kind of hope when we get to heaven and God, the father speaks to us the first time he has a high tenor voice. We're so used to Hollywood and James Earl Jones, voice overing, the lines of God that I think it'd be a hoot. If God addressed us in a high pitch back to our story, what's important in Hebrews is what it says. And maybe this word picture will help to understand the big idea of Hebrews on a recent Easter three generations of families gathered for the traditional Easter meal, the granddaughter hosted and as a new bride, insisted that she be the one to make the families heirloom ham.

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Her mom came into the kitchen and peeked into the oven. She stepped back rather a gas saying, honey, you forgot to cut the ends off the ham. The bride got anxious. What do you mean mom? Cut the ends off the ham. Mom says your grandma taught me this recipe. And she said, you absolutely need to cut the ends off the ham before you bake it. Well, grandma happened to be in the living room, waiting for dinner. So the new bride walked into the living room and said, grandma, mom, why did you cut the ends off the Easter ham before putting it into the roaster? She said, because my mama taught me that your great grandma won the blue ribbon at every single County fair for that Easter ham. It just so happened that great grandma was still alive, living in assisted living across the country.

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So the bride grabbed her cell phone and dialed up the assisted living center. Hey, great, grandma. We're making your prize winning ham. Why did you cut the ends off the ham before baking it? She paused then said, I cut the ends off the ham honey, because my roasting pan was too small. Hebrews was written to a generation of Jews. Who'd gone all in on Jesus. And what Jesus said was a new covenant in his blood as with our Easter ham, the old recipes and procedures of Judaism died hard. Let's take a minute to review the old covenant, the old recipe of Judaism in the old Testament, God was Holy.

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And he selected the descendants of Abraham to be a special people for himself. Not better just selected his ups delivery boys. You might say bringing the scriptures and the Messiah, these set apart, people had a problem. God is Holy and they were sinful. So God created a temporary solution, an offering of blood of an innocent animal that would atone for sin. Remember a tone means at one with God, it was a bandaid that would allow them to draw near to a Holy God, God, then set up the tribe of Levi. One of Jacob's sons to be his worship ministers.

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They were to help the people know how to add one for their sins, to a tone for their sins individually and collectively as a nation through various offerings to God, how did they know they'd send? Well, God had given them clear laws, those 10 big ones on Mount Sinai and a whole bunch of smaller civil and ceremonial ones. God then sum them up under two cheat codes, the great commandment and Micah six, eight. The great commandment was love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and your neighbor as yourself and Micah six eight was what does the Lord require of you? But to act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with your God.

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When the Jews, God set apart, people sinned that is, they fell short of that standard or they trespassed that is they went outside, God's established boundaries, or they were wicked. That is the twist that God's standards or expectations. These priests were assigned to tell them how to temporarily patch the problem, but God had made it clear this old covenant, this roaster pan, as it were, was way too small and only a temporary solution. That one day a perfect once for all sacrifice would be offered and that God would remove their sin utterly. And remember it no more with the sin removed.

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God promised that the Holy spirit would move in and would write God's laws on their hearts, along with giving them a growing desire to obey these laws. That's the old covenant, the book of Hebrews is written to Jews to make it crystal clear. Jesus had brought in the new covenant and that to return to the old covenant was both foolish and dangerous. It would be that new bride in our story, continuing to cut the ends off her ham. When she now had a whole new pan as well. I might add as a convection oven, Hebrews addresses several parts of the old recipe. The old covenant that the readers were merging with their belief in Jesus under the new covenant.

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And this was both foolish and potentially dangerous to their walk with God. The writer begins with an odd recipe ingredient. People had added to Jesus. The Salma States, God would make the Messiah a little lower than the angels. Some of these Jews had placed angels or angel worship or praying through angels as a part of following God with Jesus. The Hebrew writer States it's true for a time. The Messiah was made lower than the angels. He was made human just like us. He was tempted and tested as a human in every way like us. Why? So he could be a substitute for us as our sin bearer and while doing it could be fully compassionate of what we humans go through.

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But the writer goes on saying Jewish audience. The resurrected Jesus is not lower than the angels heaven. No. He then cites old Testament passages stating this passages where God States to the Messiah, you are my son sit at my right hand. I will make the angels. You are messengers to do your will. The writer of Hebrews says under Jesus and the new recipe, the new covenant, you don't need angels as part of your salvation. No, they're, heaven's bellboys doing their part of his will while we do our part of God's will down here. The next recipe ingredient was the law. Some Jews were slipping back into gritting their teeth and trying externally to keep the law.

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They still had a real focus on Moses. The law giver, you know, Jesus and Moses, the dynamic duo as it were Batman and Robin. So the writer compares Moses to Jesus. Moses is like a building, but Jesus is the architect and builder of that building. I told you the writer's kind of deep. He goes on to say the law was a shadow of what was to come. I asked my students to imagine where outside having a little break and one of them hides behind a tree. They want to jump out and scare a fellow student. Who's walking by. When they see the students shadow come, they don't jump out from behind the tree and scare the shadow.

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They wait for the person, the laws, the shadow, the person who would fulfill it, who would write the law in our hearts is Jesus who needs the shadow. When the real thing is there. Paul wrote in Galatians that the law was a tutor to bring us to Jesus. Today, we would write the law was a school bus to bring us to school. You don't stay on the school bus. It's just a vehicle. The Hebrew writer then points the Jewish readers to the fact that Jews led by Moses in the wilderness. They couldn't even keep the laws of Moses, why they had hard hearts and the law made their hearts harder. Still remember our illustration of the grumpy neighbor who posts keep off my grass sign in his front yard because of their hard hearts.

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This generation with Moses would not believe God and his commandments and they never entered. God's promised land his rest. They died in the wilderness. The writer of Hebrews also points to God working six days. And when he was finished working, he rested Jewish readers. He writes, God did all the redeeming work through Jesus so we could enter God's promised land his rest. And now in this rest or promise place, Jesus, under this new covenant is doing what was promised. Writing the law of God on our human hearts. Some Jews were still relying on the priestly system. In the old recipe.

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The Hebrew writer says, Jesus is now our high priest. And he's way better than the old priest. He's a compassionate one. He was tempted like us. And he understands he's a Holy one. The Jewish high priest had the first offer a sacrifice for their own, sorry, sinful self. And then for the people. But Jesus is Holy. He offers once for all sacrifice for us. And not only that, he is both the priest and the sacrifice. When he died as sacrifice, God tore open the curtain, the temple veil, what symbolism that we were now no longer separated from God, but we could rush into God's throne room and call him daddy.

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And unlike priests who came and went, Jesus is a forever priest because he's God's son. The final old recipe ingredient, the writer addresses his sacrifice. Apparently some of the Jews following Jesus still wanted to make those blood sacrifices. The writer of the letter reminds them the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sin. It never did. It was a patch of band-aid until the once for all sacrifice came, Jesus, the sacrifice now risen and seated at the right hand of God shows that the sacrifice work is done as an aside, I've often wondered what it was like that Sabbath day, the day after Jesus' crucifixion, the day after the temple curtain had been torn from top to bottom, what was it like in the Jewish temple, in Jerusalem on that worship day?

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Who knows maybe they canceled services and sacrifices so they could sew up that 60 foot tall, four inch thick curtain. The writer then turns to application his. So what with such a sacrifice, such a high priest with the veil to God turn wide open so that we can now come to God, pure sinless with full assurance. We belong to him again. How should we, who've gone all in on Jesus as Messiah and Lord live. The writer gives us a tidy little list. First, definitely not living sinfully. As Paul said in Romans, shall we continue to sin that his forgiving blood might continue to cleanse us?

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And his grace might radiate. That's crazy. The Hebrews writer says that's trampling the son of God and despising the blood. He shed to bring the new covenant, no people under the new covenant should long to do his will second live with all in launch trust in Jesus, this faithful sacrifice priest and son of God. The writer gives us a tidy definition of faith. It's a surety it's white knuckle conviction. That God is who he is and would do what he promised the writer. Then marches us in to the old Testament hall of faith, a series of exhibits of men and women who believed who God was and that he would do what he said.

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He do were paraded by the display of Abel, the one who believed God and made the right sacrifice of Noah. The one who for a century built an Ark. When it had never rained, we get to Abraham and Sarah who moved when nobody ever moved. And they moved without knowing where they were going. They painted a nursery as old geezers because God promised to bring a son out of the deadness of their loins. The writer stops us in the hall of faith. And as a tour guide turns and tells us this, all these people in here died without receiving all God had promised. And because they trusted in him by faith, God is not ashamed to be called their God.

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Think about that. How would you like to hear God say, I am not ashamed to be called your guide. Wow. We continue through the hall of faith to the Isaac display. Frankly, Isaac didn't do many things that were faith worthy. He was kind of a dud actually, but there were times he trusted God and did the right thing. So God isn't ashamed to be called his God either. We get to the Joseph display, commanding that centuries later, when God fulfills his promise to give the Jews the promise land, they'll bring his mummy back with them. In the Moses display, we have both his parents trusting God and defying Pharaoh's orders and Moses himself siding with Israel and facing down Pharaoh over there as Ray Hab, the Canaanite harlot who having heard about the God of Israel, risks her life and hides the two spies who come to Jericho and believe it or not, some of the judges are in this place.

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Yeah. The judges, those delivers some of them real dirt balls who trusted God and through them, God was able to do great things. Remember the old Testament theme guys and gals are gross, but God is gracious. God asks us gross people to turn our eyes to him and go all in and belief in who God is and what he does for us. The writer continues with. So what's run the race, run the race. Well, rivet your eyes on the finish line on Jesus. Be a plotter. Keep going run. As if God is in the stands, make him smile. He adds learn from God's discipline.

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As you run God disciplines, us dads do that to the kids. They love how much more well our heavenly father do it to us be our running coach, as it were, the writer continues. Encourage your fellow brothers and sisters who believe care for the least in the left behind take care of those under your roof, holding gifts like marriage and high honor be people who are so journeyers who live here, but have a primary heart for living for the hereafter. While you're here. Be good citizens. Honor your leaders and learn self-control and humility. To be able to set aside your preferences for the good of others, be content and prayerful.

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And the litter writer closes by reminding them. God is our daddy, and we can burst in to see him, but he's also a Holy God, a consuming fire hold God, his standards and his children in respectful. Ah, the letter that follows Hebrews in your Bible is also written to Jews. This letter could hardly be more different. It's short, practical, and very bossy. It's written by Jesus' little brother, Jimmy, James, and we'll look at that amazing little bossy letter in our next wordpicture.