Jewish believers were being persecuted and were considering going back to Law-keeping. The writer of Hebrews wrote this letter to those believers in order to warn them that it is a terrifying thing to be disciplined by the Lord. Thus, there is no going back!
Stay engaged with new and up-to-date content, including newsletters, articles, podcasts, etc. Download the Teach Me the Bible App from any app store or Apple TV/Roku device.
Jewish believers were being persecuted and were considering going back to Law-keeping. The writer of Hebrews wrote this letter to those believers in order to warn them that it is a terrifying thing to be disciplined by the Lord. Thus, there is no going back!
Stay engaged with new and up-to-date content, including newsletters, articles, podcasts, etc. Download the Teach Me the Bible App from any app store or Apple TV/Roku device.
Intro/Outro:
You're listening to Teach Me the Bible podcast, where we unpack the meaning of books, passages and themes from Scripture. Join us each week as Dr David Klingler walks us through God's Word and teaches the Bible. Each episode has a study guide available in the show notes. This is Teach Me the Bible podcast.
Alex Wolfe:
Hey everybody, welcome back to Teach Me the Bible podcast, where our mission is helping the people of God understand the Word of God. We're thankful you're here with us today as we begin our study in the book of Hebrews. So we're going to spend a little time today introducing the book, as we do all these books, and then we're going to over after this week we're going to kind of dive into it a little bit deeper, chapter by chapter. We might take some chapters together, but we're going to split it up a little bit and spend some time actually digesting the details of this book. But before we do that, just in case you're brand new with us today, if you've been with us for a while then you'll know everything I'm about to say.
Alex Wolfe:
But if you're new, I want to encourage you to check out TeachMeTheBiblecom. We have all kinds of resources over there that it's an ever growing database of podcasts and blog posts and different papers and all kinds of different things to help you understand the Word of God, and so we love putting that out for you and we hope that you go over there and engage with it. You share it with your friends and your family. But today we are in Hebrews and so we're going to kind of kick this thing off, orient ourselves to what's going on, and then we're going to dive in next week to chapter one. So let's take it away.
David Klingler:
Yeah, so Hebrews. Hebrews is written to Hebrews. There we go, all right, problem solved.
Alex Wolfe:
Episode over yeah episode over.
David Klingler:
There you go. That's good Now if we orient ourselves a little bit on what was going on at this time and we learned this. You don't have to go into any kind of inter-testamental literature or early church history. I think you can just pick this up from the storyline.
David Klingler:
Christ has appeared, he does the signs that demonstrate that he is the Promised One of the Old Testament. It was witnessed by his disciples who were sent out. So now they're called apostles and they proclaim Christ. And Israel rejects the Lord. Now, not all of Israel does, but for the most part, and increasingly so as the New Testament times progress, israel is increasingly rejecting Christ, and you get this in the book of Acts right. And so now the gospel is going to the Gentiles. But there are Jews, israelites, who have believed.
David Klingler:
And when you believe and you can pick this up in the Gospel of John, in the uproom discourse, john is recording that Jesus is explaining what's going to happen to his disciples. But these things they will do to you for my namesake, because they do not know the one who sent me he continues that's in chapter 15, verse 21, verse 16, chapter 16, verse one. These things I have spoken to you that you maybe kept from stumbling, they will make you outcast from the synagogue. And this is playing out in even in the gospel of John, that anyone who was confessing Jesus to be the Christ are gonna make him an outcast in the synagogue. That's a problem. You know we think. Well, you know, just go to local, you know Baptist or Presbyterian church, whatever you know. Go to the local Catholic church, whatever it is. Walk a couple blocks further?
Alex Wolfe:
Yeah, just go to the Christian church, you don't?
David Klingler:
have to go to the synagogue. But you know, the synagogue was the only place where you could go and get a copy of the scriptures. The scriptures were taught fellowship with God's chosen people, and so it was a big deal to be banished from the synagogue, and the Pharisees were. You know we're saying that if anyone was believing in Christ, they were gonna put him out of the synagogue. This is a gospel of John. Think about Paul's ministry. Paul's going around. He's not going around to, you know, you know local Christian churches. He's going from synagogue to synagogue cleaning out this. What he viewed to be. This is Saul of Tarsus, right Before he came to know Christ. He was going from synagogue to synagogue cleaning out this, what he viewed to be, this cult, this false teaching that was teaching that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ, and so this is the problem.
Alex Wolfe:
I think that's an interesting point. Sorry to interrupt, but it's so easy for us and I imagine for our listeners as well, to just read our current circumstances into the text all the time, and it's really challenging. You have to really be disciplined to carry the context of that time, namely that people didn't have copies of scripture as we do today, little pocket Bibles and things like that these things were On their phone or whatever.
Alex Wolfe:
Yeah, I mean he's saying like I worked in a biblical museum and we had a Torah scroll, just the first five books of the Bible. That thing weighed hundreds of pounds, you know what I mean. It contained in these synagogues, and so you don't just carry around Bibles with you or take them home and study them. You had access to them only through traveling to the gather.
David Klingler:
No, podcasts yeah, no, you went to the synagogue where the word was taught yeah, and they had a you know, and the word was read.
Alex Wolfe:
Yeah.
David Klingler:
And so this was a big deal. So these Israelite Jewish believers, first century under persecution, and they're apparently considering and why wouldn't you, I mean, I think that this would only make sense for them to consider this to say, well, can't we just believe in Christ and continue to do the law thing, continue to participate in the sacrificial system and continue to, you know, to just go along with the teachings of the synagogue?
Alex Wolfe:
So that we're not outcasts.
David Klingler:
Yeah, so they're not persecuted and outcasts and all that? And the short answer is no. And let me explain why that being kicked out of the synagogue is worth it. And let me explain why. So the author of Hebrews and we don't know who it is and I won't speculate on who it was all that we would say is it's someone in Paul's inner circle. Some say that it maybe was even Paul himself, but certainly very Paul-lined in his thinking.
David Klingler:
For sure is explaining why these readers should stand firm in their faith in Christ. And the argument's really pretty simple, right? It goes something like this If the Lord judged Israel in the Old Testament for rejecting the words of angels, or rejecting the words of Moses, and of no angel did God ever say this is my son. Moses was just the keeper of the house. He didn't build it right. And so if Christ is greater than angels, and when they rejected the words of messengers, angels, they were laid low. The Lord disciplined them. The Lord that looked like he killed them. When they rejected the words of Moses, it didn't go well for them.
Alex Wolfe:
He killed a whole generation in the wilderness.
David Klingler:
Yeah, wipes out a whole generation in the wilderness. If you know he's gonna say this if this one is greater than angels, if he's greater than Moses, if he's greater than the priest, if he's greater than bringing a greater covenant, a better covenant, and if God judged all those things in the Old Testament and this one's greater, do you think it will go better for you to reject him? Oh, I don't think so. No, no, there's only one path, and it's the path forward, and it's the path of endurance. Right, and so endure. And so chapters one through 10 are gonna lead you to chapter 11, that's how it works. Right, there's a logical progression here. And so in chapter 11, he says but we are not of those who shrink back to destruction that's how he sums up, end of chapter 10, but to those who have faith to the preserving of the soul. So let me give you some examples by faith Abel, by faith Enoch, by faith Noah, by faith Abraham, by faith Isaac and Jacob, by faith Joseph, by faith Moses, by faith Joshua and all the others. And if none of them, right, he says you know, time would fail me if I went on to Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah and David and Samuel and the prophets we'd be here all day who, by faith, conquered kingdoms and performed acts of righteousness and obtained promises and shut the mouths of lions. You think of Daniel there Quenched the power of fire. Shadrach, meshach and Minnigot escaped the edge of the sword from weakness, were made strong, became mighty and warm. We're going oh, this is all sounding pretty good.
David Klingler:
Women received back their dead by resurrection. You can think of the first kings and Elijah and Elisha stories. And others were tortured, not accepting their release in order that they might attain a better resurrection. And others experienced mockings and scourgings and all of a sudden it turns pretty dark. And chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sold in two, they were tempted, they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskin and goat skin, being test, destitute, afflicted and ill treated. Think of John the Baptist, for example. Men of whom the world is not worthy, wandering in the deserts and mountains and in caves and holes in the ground. All of these and here's this point all of these, having gained approval through their faith, approval from God through their faith, never received what was promised, because God had provided something better for us. So, apart from us, they should not be made perfect. So endure, consider Christ.
Alex Wolfe:
So they didn't receive what was promised, but they endured through the suffering, they endured in spite of it.
David Klingler:
Yeah, and so you're in need of endurance as well, and so that's his point. So, whatever you're doing with chapters one through 10, if you don't get to chapter 11 and you're understanding them one through 10, then you're not understanding one through 10.
Alex Wolfe:
Right.
David Klingler:
And if chapter 11, he gives the examples of faith, chapter 12, then he's going to say therefore, you're in need of endurance. It is for discipline that in you endure, for God deals with you as sons. For what son is there that the father doesn't discipline? If you're without discipline, of which you become all partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them, and they disciplined us for just a short time, but he, the Lord, disciplines us for holiness.
David Klingler:
So no discipline is fun while you're in it, but it's not joyful but sorrowful. Yet those who've been trained in it. Afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. There's some message for our culture broadly but specifically, therefore strength in the hands of the weak and the knees of the feeble, and make straight the paths of your feet.
David Klingler:
And so now, in the end of chapter 12 and chapter 13, it's all of these imperatives to encourage the fellow believers who are in need of endurance. And so endure, endure, stay the course, run the race, keep the faith, fix your eyes on Christ, the beginner and finisher of the faith, right. And so all of this book is gonna just make real simple sense, but in each of these passages. We're gonna get into talking about warning passages and we're gonna talk about did they lose their salvation or not lose their salvation? The point is, those who rejected the word were disciplined. Right, and if you reject the word of the Lord, if you hear the word as long as today is today, if you reject it, you'll be disciplined as well, and that will not go well for you. So don't do it.
Alex Wolfe:
Yeah Right, that's a good point to be made too. With what we talked about. He laid that whole generation low in the wilderness. He disciplined, chastised them, but right before that we talked about in other episodes we've done, and they were delivered out through faith in the Passover lamb. And so these were people who had placed their faith, but then they rejected.
David Klingler:
They were walking, they were delivered by faith, they were called to walk faithfully, and they chose not to Right, and so the Lord disciplined them. Yeah, so don't put yourself in that camp, right? I reminded of 1 Corinthians in chapter 11, and Paul talking about these people who tearing down the body of Christ, dividing the body of Christ, and they're under the discipline of God. This is why some of you are sick and some of you sleep, and so it's a real simple letter. It's written to believers who are considering going back to the sacrificial system. They're being warned not to, and if you do, you'll be disciplined. And if you get that, you got the letter, and so that's what we'll be talking about for the next several weeks.
Alex Wolfe:
Good yeah, there'll be some practical stuff here. Sure, we're not Jews being tempted to go back to the sacrificial system and I'm willing to bet most of our listeners are not either but there's a lot of this stuff we need to hear in terms of enduring in our faith in midst of trials and persecutions, things.
David Klingler:
Yeah, this has been the marching orders of every believer, from able till the end of this story Indoor, absolutely Persevere. And so we'll find the same things here.
Alex Wolfe:
Very good, I know I'm excited. Thanks for tuning in this week. Next week come back. We're gonna jump into chapter one and we're gonna just take it bit by bit through this book so that you understand it. We want you to see not just what we said today, we want you to see how the author makes that argument in the text, so that you know that. You know that. You know so Absolutely. We'll see you next week.
Intro/Outro:
Thanks for listening to Teach Me the Bible podcast. Our desire is to use the power of God's word to change lives. For more information, download our app. Join us next week for another episode of Teach Me the Bible.