Category Archives: Hebrews

Staying the Course Is Best

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Hebrews 12:1
…”run with perseverance the race marked out for us”
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The Lord has marked out a course for each of us. This passage speaks of the need for “perseverance” indicating that sometimes the course may be grueling. It will not always be an easy road but I can be sure that it is far better to stay on God’s path, no matter how difficult, than to leave His path and begin to blaze my own trail through the briers and brambles.

Proverbs 13:15
The way of the transgressor (the one who veers off the course and begins to blaze his own trail and create his own path) is hard.”

As tough as my course may get, I can be assured that it is still a more joy filled path than any of my own making.

During the grueling times of the race I must do what Jesus did when faced with a torturous part of His race. He did not focus on the pain (the cross) but looked beyond it to the joy on the other side.

Hebrews 12:2
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

By keeping my eyes fixed on eternity – the joy and reward awaiting me for a race well run – I can find the hope, strength, courage and endurance to continue running.

The road may get rough but stay on the path, stay the course and look beyond “the wall” to the joy awaiting you at the finish line.
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2 Corinthians 4:17-18
For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.

Romans 8:18
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.

Is God ashamed?

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Hebrews 11:39, 40
These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.
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Many of us see faith as the key to having our prayers answered, a tool that enables us to get stuff from God. But Hebrews 11, the “faith chapter” defines faith entirely differently. In fact, after listing several heroes of faith it says: (v.13) “All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised.” They did not lose their stuff because their faith had grown weak. They died in faith but still did not receive.

Here are some things faith did result in though:
Faith’s primary purpose is not to obtain things, even answers to our prayers. Faith is primarily to enable us to please God (v.6). “Without faith it is impossible to please God.”

Faith produces confidence and assurance (v.1)

Faith produces insight and understanding into areas we could never understand empirically (v.3). No one can unequivocally prove how the world began, neither creationists nor evolutionist, but we can know how it began because “by faith we understand” that which we could never know or understand otherwise.

Faith produces sacrificial worship and can cause the influence of our life to live on long after we are gone (v.4). Though dead, Abel still speaks.

Faith can spare us from death – certainly eternal death and sometimes physical death (v.5)

Faith demonstrated in our life can produce condemnation in those who refuse to believe (v.7). Noah, “by his faith condemned the world”.

Faith produces obedience (v.8). “By faith Abraham …. obeyed and went.”

Faith enables us to be fruitful beyond our own abilities (v.11). “Sarah, who was past childbearing age”, had children.

These all lived and died in faith but did not receive the promise from God. Does that sound like God failed them? The end of the chapter explains why they did not receive.

“These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better …”. (Hebrews 11:39, 40)

I love the bow that is put on this package to tie it all together. Because all these were not living as citizens of this world but were looking for a “better country”, “Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God.” (v.16)

May I live in such a way that God is not ashamed to be called my God.
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 Hebrews 2:11
Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers.

Was Jesus perfect?

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Hebrews 2:10
In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering.
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At first glance this is a confusing verse. Jesus was made perfect through suffering? Wasn’t He born perfect? What suffering? The cross? No, He had already lived a perfect life before He was crucified. Did the discipline he received as a child make Him perfect? That doesn’t make sense either.

Another passage in Hebrews speaks to this same difficulty: (Hebrews 5:8 NIV) – “Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered”. Jesus “learned obedience”? Didn’t He always obey the Father? Surely He had learned to obey before suffering on the cross. What suffering taught Him obedience? What suffering made Him perfect?

While these seem like complex problems, as is often the case, the best commentary on the Bible, the best book to help us understand Bible mysteries, is the Bible itself. We find the answer to these questions in Hebrews 2:18 – Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

The suffering that “taught” Jesus obedience and made Him “perfect” was being tempted. We don’t see temptation as “suffering”.  In fact, we usually enjoy it because it feeds our old nature. But being tempted to violate God’s will was a torturous battle for our Lord. We see the full depth of His agony, the suffering of resisting temptation, in Gethsemane where His whole being was crying out to avoid the cross and He actually sweat drops of blood.

He “learned obedience” because without temptation there can be no obedience. Only when He became man and struggled with the fallen flesh nature did He understand what it is like to have cravings contrary to God’s will. Only then could He choose obedience, “not my will but thy will be done”. Temptation gave Him the opportunity to choose to obey, to learn, to experience obedience just as it offers us the same opportunity.

Suffering temptation made him “perfect”, as Hebrews 2:10 tells us, not implying He was imperfect or sinful before being tempted. Rather it is a continuation of what is being talked about in the context of this passage. The passage is saying that to be a “perfect” High Priest for us He had to be one of us, “fully human” (Hebrews 2:17). It is saying His suffering temptation made Him the perfect High Priest because He then could understand the battle we face daily with our old nature.

He experientially “learned obedience” through suffering temptation and that experience made Him the “perfect” “author” of our salvation, the perfect High Priest for us.
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Hebrews 4:15
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin.

The Holocaust and The Cross

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Matthew 27:40-43
Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God! … He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.'”
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I heard a Jewish woman say that she was an atheist because of the holocaust. Her reasoning went like this: “If God is real He would not let those He loves suffer.” Many in the church today echo this sentiment: “Serve Jesus, speak positively and you will always prosper, always be well, never suffer.”

We see this same line of reasoning in those who mocked Jesus: “If He is the Son of God surely God will rescue Him.” And God did rescue Him and Jesus did triumph but not in the way they expected. God had a higher purpose at work that those with only an earthly perspective could not fathom.

Notice that no one in Scripture avoided trials, hardship and suffering. It is the way of Christ. It is the way of the cross. Why should we think we will be exempt? A first century Christian explained the heavenly perspective of this problem when he wrote to a pagan critic:

“You think we are being punished when we suffer but it is not punishment – it’s warfare. Fortitude is strengthened by infirmities [James 1:12]. Virtue and suffering usually go hand in hand. Think of all the heroes you admire. Wasn’t it their afflictions that made them great?

“God is able to deliver us but through trials He tests us and searches us. He tests the quality of all of us through adversity, often to the point of death itself. He can test us to the point of death because nothing can perish with Him. No one receives a reward before the trial. God’s people are neither forsaken in suffering nor brought to an end in their death. In fact, in our death we win the prize for which we were battling.”

In the New Testament, the Greek word “witness” is the same word as “martyr”. A “witness” is a martyr and a martyr is a witness. The one who lays down his life, either literally or through embracing suffering, is being a true “witness” to his faith.
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Hebrews 12:7-8
Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons.

Can God make a rock so big He can’t lift it?

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When I was in the Navy I remember a young lieutenant asking me this “profound” puzzler.  “Can God do anything?  Can God make a rock so big he cannot lift it?”

This is a rather common question asked by pseudo-intellectuals who think they have stumbled across a great chink in the Christian’s belief about the omnipotence of God. The answer to the question is quite simply, “No, there are many things God cannot do.”

For one thing, he cannot do something that is logically impossible such as make a rock so big He cannot lift it. Neither can he draw a square circle. For that matter, He can not do something that is impossible. Because the moment he accomplished the feat, it would no longer be impossible since He proved it was possible for Him.

But we don’t have to stoop to such nonsense to find things God cannot do. The Bible clearly says it is “impossible for God to lie” (Hebrews 6:18) and that “He cannot deny himself” (2 Timothy 2:13), meaning violate His own nature or integrity. He can not stop being God. He can not stop being good. He cannot cease to exist – since existence is a component of goodness. I could go on and on listing things God can not do but I think you grasp the concept.

When Christians speak of God’s omnipotence or when Jesus assures us that “with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26) we are not referring to either ludicrous scenarios that parade as profound discoveries of truth nor to things that would violate God’s very nature and character. Omnipotent is understood to be “possessing all power”. Simply put, that means God can do anything that can be done. He has the ability to perform any feat consistent with His character and nature.

This is one reason it is vital believers study the Word to know what God says about Himself and the world around us. As believers, we appear foolish when we try to defend God and ascribe to Him attributes that He does not even claim for Himself.
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2 Timothy 2:15
Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

The Bible Promotes Slavery

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Ephesians 6:5
Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.
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There are more people trapped in slavery today than during the height of the Afro-American slave trade industry.  Slavery is definitely not a thing of the past.  Pro-slavery forces used to point to the Bible to justify this horrific practice but does the Bible promote Slavery?

This passage in Ephesians might appear to endorse slavery, but it is simply acknowledging the fact that throughout history, today included, there will be people caught in this evil. This passage addresses that person telling them how to conduct themselves. There is a vast difference between acknowledging something exists and helping someone do right when in the situation and endorsing the situation. The Bible just recognizes that man’s heart is filled with sin and slavery will be a result of his selfishness and cruelty. The Bible also tells Christians how to respond when persecuted or attacked but no one would say it is endorsing persecution of Christians.

Furthermore, the type of slavery practiced in early America where Africans were kidnapped and sold as slaves to slave traders was clearly forbidden and punished by death. “Anyone who kidnaps another and either sells him or still has him when he is caught must be put to death.” (Exodus 21:16)  In 1 Timothy 1:9-10 the New Testament also condemns those who would traffic in the lives of human beings comparing them to adulterers and perverts. Clearly the Bible does, and always has, even before society at large did, condemn the evil of slavery.
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Hebrews 3:10
Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do always err in their heart; and they have not known my ways.
Matthew 22:29
Jesus replied, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God.