Hebrews 11:1-16.  This is really one of my favorite parts of the New Testament.  Many authors call Hebrews 11 the “Hall of Faith” sort of a “Hall of Fame” with respect to people living for God, or at least trusting him.  The word “assurance” or “substance” in verse one is a Greek word which means, “to stand under”.  It can mean “substance, reality, nature, or assurance”.  It can also mean “foundation”.  I like that one (since I build houses).  A foundation is the thing that supports something; in this case faith supports the hope believers have about God’s eternal kingdom (as we will see).  The second word used to describe faith can be translated as “conviction, evidence, or proof.”  So we see that the faith of these guys is proof of what they are hoping in.  Verse 2 tells us that because of their faith they “obtained a good report” or that they were “approved”.  In Acts 1:8 Jesus told his followers that they would receive power when the Holy Spirit came into their lives and that they would become witnesses to the whole world about what he is and what he had done (the God who died to deal with the sins of mankind (See 1 John 2:2)).  The word “witnesses” in Acts 1:8 is the same word “be approved” in Hebrews 11:2.  So they became witnesses and God or Jesus, in return, had good things to say about them.  It is interesting though to realize that in Hebrews we are talking about people from the Old Testament while in Acts 1:8 Jesus is talking to his original followers (and to all followers after them).  One time I was in a Bible class that was trying to prove that the church (believers in Jesus) had a local side to it; that individual churches were complete and independent.  In the Bible the church appears as both the big group of believers in Jesus; everyone from all of history, and it also appears as little local groups in cities.  Some people like to believe that the local parts have to be part of one big controlling group.  I agree that individual churches have the right to govern themselves but the teacher tried to prove that by saying that part of the job of the church was to encourage believers in living for God.  The teacher argued that a dead guy could not do that and so was not a part of the “local” church.  It seems to me that these “dead” guys are being used as an encouragement to the church (or churches) that the Hebrew Christians were a part of.  All of the authors of the Bible do the same thing for each of us; local churches are responsible for themselves but they are still part of a bigger thing, the universal church that will one day be together in Heaven under it’s supreme ruler, Jesus.

Verses 3-5 give us a couple of examples of the particular faith the author is talking about.  In this case the faith relates to things God is doing.  By faith we believe that God created the world from nothing.  God told us so but we did not see him do it, so to some degree we need to believe.  The next example is Abel.  Cain and Able were brothers, the first two children of Adam and Eve.  Both of them made offerings to God but God rejected Cain’s offering.  We do not really know the details but according to the author of Hebrews,  Cain was not acting with faith when he made the offering and that is why it was rejected.  In some way Abel was being faithful when he made his offering but Cain was not.  The third example is a guy named Enoch who, again, was faithful to God.  He was so faithful in fact that he was taken directly to Heaven without dying (Genesis 5:22-24).

In verse 6 we learn that it is not just any kind of faith or belief that pleases God but it is believing the story we read in the Bible.  Lots of people think it doesn’t matter what you think about god or who your god is; they think all gods are the same.  Verse 6 tells us we need to believe that God exists and we need to believe the story the Bible tells about him; that he has standards and a plan to help us because we broke those standards.  Not all gods are the same and you need to choose which one you believe in.

Verses 7-12 give us some more examples of people who were approved by God and the kind of faith they had.  Noah was warned about judgment coming to the world and obeyed God.  Abraham is commended because when God told him to leave the place he was living and go, he went.  He didn’t know where he was going but he went.  It’s kind of like the story we are reading at Friday Night Alive about Bruce Olsen, God lead him day by day and he followed, and the result was thousands of South American Indians finding a new relationship with God.  In verse 9 we see that his obedience had an affect on his son and grandson too.  Verse 10 helps us understand how we can all live by faith, we need to look beyond the “here and now” to the future God has for us.  Abraham was looking forward to God eternal kingdom and so he lived day by day according to the things God was asking him to do.  Verses 11-12 are an interesting example because if you know the story of Abraham and Sarah you know that Sarah laughed when God said she would have a child.  Abraham was 75 years old when God sent him to the land of the Canaanites (Genesis 12:4).  It was 10 years later when God promised Abraham that he would make his descendants into a mighty nation (Genesis 15:1-16:3).  Sarah had had no children so she followed a common custom of the day and had one of her servants sleep with Abraham.  That girl, Hagar, became pregnant, Sarah was angry and abusive and so Hagar left.  God sent Hagar back where she remained in Abraham’s care for several years.  When Abraham was 99 years old (14 years later, 13 years after Hagar’s son was born) God appeared to Abraham again.  God repeated his promise that Abraham’s descendants would become a great nation.  Abraham assumed Hagar’s son, Ishmael, was the beginning of that promise but God indicated that Sarah would have a child and it would be that child who would receive the promises.  Abraham laughed at the though of having a child when he was 99 and Sarah was 90.  A short time later God appeared again and reaffirmed that Sarah would have a child, this time Sarah laughed at the though and was confronted by God for her unbelief (Genesis 17:15-18:15).  So it is odd that Sarah is commended for her faith.  It is clear from Genesis 18 that Sarah did not believe what she heard when she heard it but according to Hebrews 11:11 she evidently came to believe that God could make it happen.  As a result she fairly quickly became pregnant (The angel told Abraham that she would bear a child within the year).

Verses 13-16 return to the idea in verse 10 about a future place with God.  In verse 13 we learn that all of these faithful followers of God died before God’s promise was fulfilled.  Interestingly Sarah did have a son a year later, Issac, so the promise the author is talking about was something different.  Issac was one step in a process leading to a future kingdom filled with people who had put their trust in God.  According to verse 16 the promise is about a kingdom that is not really a part of this world

I like it that the people who are mentioned are not perfect, Noah got drunk after he got off the ark and both Abraham and Sarah laughed at God’s promise to give them children.  They also took matters into their own hands with the whole Hagar thing.  But they are still mentioned as being people of faith who will have a part in God’s forever kingdom.  It is also interesting in the case of Noah that he was drunk after the Ark ride, so it’s not like God only forgives things we do wrong before we are believers (that’s what Augustine of Hippo, an early church leader, thought).  It is also interesting that Sarah became pregnant 14 years after the promise was made.  That shows me we need to be patient.  We also see that in the fact that the people mentioned didn’t get the ultimate promise before they died.  In 2 Peter 3:3-9 we see that God is not slow about his promises but that he is being patient too.  He is being patient with us, waiting for as many people as possible to turn (the meaning of repent) to him.  Eventually there will be a last person to turn to him and then he will take over the world forever.  If you are not a believer maybe he is waiting for you.  If you are a believer maybe he is waiting for you to tell that one person who will be the last one.  As we wait we need to be God’s ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:20).

God help me be a good ambassador for your forever kingdom.  Help me be bold and beg people to turn to you.  Help me have real faith and live each day with my eyes on that eternal kingdom.  Give me faith and perseverance.

Hebrews 10:19-39.  Today’s reading ends is the beginning of a new section of this Letter to the Hebrews but it is not disconnected from the previous section.  In fact some scholars include it with the last section while others put it with the next.  I understand the value of trying to group ideas so we can better understand what is being said but then again this is a letter so in some sense doesn’t that make it one big whole?  The reason some scholars want to put today’s reading with the stuff we just read is because it acts as a conclusion, but it also encourages the readers to certain action and the following part of Hebrews gives a helpful perspective in following through on the action.  In fact the next chapter of Hebrews is one of my favorite parts of the New Testament.

This post was actually “due” yesterday.  I got up early and studied the passage but didn’t quite finish my study before I needed to go to work.  I know you are probably tired of my excuses but it was a long work day (16.5 hours) near the end (still have to work today) of a long week (over 80 hours so far).  So when I got home near 11 PM I couldn’t finish the reading left to do and write.  Maybe I could have skipped the rest of the study but I am glad I did not.

This part of Hebrews is difficult.  In the more recent history of Christianity (since the Reformation) Christians have often been polarized (like the two ends of a magnet) on certain issues.  Today’s reading is about one of those issues, in fact is the source of the issue.  The question is, “Can a believer in Jesus become unsaved?”  One group, often identified as Arminians (named after an early leader Jacobus Arminius, not Armenians who are an ethnic/political group) recognizes that the author of Hebrews is talking to believers in Christ and, in light of Hebrews 10:19-39, believe that a true believer can “lose” their salvation.  The other side includes a group of believers who identify with a theologian named John Calvin.  These Calvinists rightly realize that the rest of the New Testament indicates that it is impossible to “lose” your salvation and so they claim that Hebrews 10:19-39 is about “so called believers” who were never saved in the first place.  So who is right?  And who is wrong?  I’m so glad I finished studying because both groups are.

Both groups are partly right and partly wrong.  Let’s look at the reading and see why I think that.  The first part of this section is verses 19-25.  Notice what the author calls the readers in verse 19; brothers.  He also includes himself with them by using “we” and “us”.  The “we” and “us” have confidence to have a relationship with god because of the blood of Jesus who is their “great priest”.  Also he encourages them to hang on to their belief inn Jesus.  In verses 24-25 he includes all of them as one group.  So, in this case, it looks like the Arminians are right; the people are actual believers in Jesus, actually “saved”.

The next part of the reading is where it gets difficult, especially if you believe that the author is talking to actual Christians and if you believe the rest of the New Testament about eternal life being, eternal.  In verse 26 it says that if we continue to sin willfully that there is no sacrifice for sin.  If we take tht verse by itself we might think Jesus’ sacrifice doesn’t count anymore for us if we deliberately sin and keep doing it.  But there is more to this section than just verse 26.  In verses 26-27 the author brings up a part of the Law of Moses that required a person be put to death for deliberate “in God’s face” sin, even working on the Sabbath.  Earlier in Hebrews we saw Jesus compared to the high priest who had to make a sacrifice once a year for his sins and the sins of the people.  This sacrifice was only for unintentional sins, for intentional sins there was no sacrifice.  In the history of Israel there were times when the people were deliberately disobedient.  In some of those cases God would bring a judgment; open the ground and swallow some of them, fire from heaven, or some other sort of deadly plague.  There is no indication that this meant that the people who died were not a part of God’s people, that the destruction was eternal, it was just physical.  We need to remember that our existence involves an eternal soul in a physical body.  Physical death does not necessarily mean spiritual death.  In the book of 1 Corinthians we see another letter written to one of the early church’s that was having a problem with “cliques”.  One place they were playing favorites was during communion (a time of remembering what Jesus had done for them).  Part of their communion meeting was a meal.  During this meal people were not sharing but eating their own food.  The rich were eating better than the poor.  It was not a very good example of what Jesus was about.  In 1 Corinthians 11:28-30 Paul (who wrote 1 Corinthains) informs them that because of their un-Christ like actions that some of them had become sick and some were “asleep”, a polite way of saying they had died.  These people were real Christians who God had punished (some with physical death) for their bad actions.  Back when we read through Isaiah there was a lot of this rebellion and judgment thing going on but there were also parts of Isaiah about the hope to come, about God fulfilling his promises for David’s forever kingdom.  The punishment did not mean the people were no longer Israelites nor that they would not be a part of David’s eternal kingdom.  We need to be careful not to read into what the author has said.  He never says that fire or vengeances is an eternal thing.  Notice too, that in verse 30 (quoting Deuteronomy 32:35) that God calls the people he is punishing “my people”.  I think this section is about more temporary consequences for our sins and not about eternal consequences.  So in that respect both the “Calvinists” and the “Arminians” have been wrong.

In the last part of today’s reading the author either quotes or hints at Isaiah 26 and Habakkuk 2.  Those passages deal with staying faithful in the face of persecution.  In Isaiah 26:20 the people were encouraged to “hid out” in their houses during a time of judgment.  In our current situation it appears that some of the Hebrew believers were doing a similar thing, they were avoiding trouble by not associating with each other; they were “forsaking” the assembling together (ditching church).  In this case though that was the wrong decision.  In verses 32-38 the author is telling them not to “shrink back” but to “remember” the earlier days of their faith in Jesus when they were open about their faith and openly suffered for it.  In 1 Corinthians 3:11-15 we see that there are rewards in Heaven based on how we lived our lives for God.  It is clear from those verses that Heaven itself is not the reward for the actions, every one in those verses gets to be in Heaven for ever.  Verse 39 was a little troubling to me since it talks about destruction but the author says we are not part of the group who hid and are destroyed, and notice he is still saying “we”.  What group are “we” a part of?  The one who has faith and lives by it.  Although this understanding is not the simplest one for these verses that does not make it wrong.  And what is difficult for us may have been obvious for the original Hebrew readers.  The author is telling the believers to quit neglecting each other; to suck it up and stay with the team.  The consequences for hiding out are not eternity in Hell but the missed opportunities to be “light to the world”.

God help me not “shrink back”, help me be bold as a believer.  Help me be a giving participating part of your team.  Give me courage and endurance.  Let me consider how to stimulate others in their faith in you and then do it.  Let my life please you.