Read the Bible in 2023 ◊ Week 39: Sunday

Sunday’s Bible reading is Hebrews 1–4. I highly value this letter, and it has been of immense comfort to me with its encouraging words that challenge me to hold fast to Christ (The root of the word comfort means to strengthen. Notice the word fort within it!).

The focus of Hebrews is Jesus Christ. Indeed, the subtitle of Raymond Brown’s commentary on Hebrews is Christ Above All. Hebrews must be in the top three of books of the Bible that I’ve quoted for my posts. I’ve had two pastors who preached through this book, and I’ve taught it in a women’s Bible study. After spending two years teaching John, Philippians and Colossians, all books that contain some of the great Christological passages in the New Testament: John 1:1–18, Philippians 2:5–11, and Colossians 1:13–20, I decided to go through Hebrews because its opening chapter, on into its second and through the beginning of its third, provide us with words of awe and wonder about our Lord Jesus Christ.

Simon Kistemaker points out the author of Hebrews immediately begins to describe who Christ is rather than beginning with a greeting. Why did he do this? Kistemaker explains:

“The answer must be that the author wants to focus attention primarily on the ultimate revelation of God—Jesus Christ, his Son. This revelation is contrasted with the piecemeal revelation that God, through the prophets, gave to the forefathers for many centuries. The author stresses the theme of the person, offices, and function of Jesus, the Son of God.”²

Brown writes that in these opening verses:

“The author’s first task is to expound and exalt God’s Son. He reminds them of eight things about Jesus.

1. Jesus is God’s prophetic voice…
2. Jesus is God’s Son…
3. Jesus is God’s appointed heir…
4. Jesus is God’s creative agent…
5. Jesus is God’s personified glory…
6. Jesus is God’s perfect revelation…
7. Jesus is God’s cosmic sustainer…
8. Jesus is God’s unique sacrifice.”³

Kistemaker describes the writer’s portrayal of Jesus in the opening verses as:

1. the Prophet through whom God has spoken…
2. the Creator who made the universe…
3. the Heir of all things…
4. the Representation of God’s being…
5. the Upholder of all things…
6. the Priest who provided purification for sins…
7. the King who sat down at his place of honor…”⁴

This opening sets the recurrent theme in Hebrews of the person and work of Jesus Christ. In chapter 2 you can begin to understand the author’s rationale behind what he has chosen to write. The phrase that opens the second chapter, For this reason, refers back to the first in which he has described Christ crowned with glory and honor.

Hebrews was written to a group of Christians who had been faithful in their suffering in the past, but who now were faltering. The author wants them to hold fast firm until the end. In his commentary on Hebrews, subtitled Christ above All, Raymond Brown writes:

“This magnificent letter to the Hebrews was written to a group of first-century Christians who were in danger of giving up. It is clear from even a casual reading of the letter that the times were hard for Jewish Christians especially. Many of them had been exposed to fierce persecution…Many of these Jewish Christians had accepted all  this adversity joyfully. But others had ‘shrunk back’ from their earlier allegiance to Christ and became apostates. Without going that far, others were in danger of compromise…

“But how does one encourage such people in critical and adverse times? The author knows they must be urged to ‘hold fast’, to ‘strive to enter’, to ‘go on to maturity’, to ‘seize the hope’ set before them (3:6; 4:11; 6:1, 18)… Yet he can only make such eloquent and necessary pastoral exhortations because he has already done a far more basic thing…as a matter of the utmost importance, he has turned their eyes, not to themselves, hoping for sufficient inward strength, not to their agonizing troubles, not to their persecuting contemporaries, but to Christ. No believer can cope with adversity unless Christ fills his horizons, sharpens his priorities and dominates his experience.

“This letter’s primary exhortation is an appeal for endurance… How could these Christians endure? What would enable them to stand firm in hazardous times? They must look to Christ.”⁵

And so the writer continually focuses their attention on Christ. Because they are Jewish he will use many Scriptures from the Old Testament throughout the letter. As you read, look up these references because not only will he quote messianic passages, he will bring the weight of other Old Testament passages to bear upon exalting Christ as he encourages their faith by looking back to the history of Israel from Abel and Abraham; Moses, Joshua and the children of Israel in the wilderness; to David and the prophets.

God used the spiritual gifts of the author to help them, and those gifts shine throughout Hebrews. With his gift of teaching he brings out these Old Testament passages to teach them about Jesus. His gift of encouragement and exhortation blends perfectly into his teaching as he bolsters them to hold fast to Jesus and stand firm.

In God’s loving provision for His children there are those within the church to whom He has given the spiritual gift of παράκλησις, paráklēsis. This is a Greek word for which we have no exact English word so it’s translated in various ways in the New Testament according to context: encourage and exhort are frequently used. The roots of this word explain its rich meaning. It’s a compound word of two other Greek words, “para, to the side, kaleō, to call.”⁶ It’s “primarily a calling to one’s side, and so to one’s aid.”⁷ Those with this spiritual gift are those to whom God has given the ability to speak the right word according to the need of another believer, whether it is to comfort or to warn.

The warning and exhortation in the above verses from Hebrews 2 are not the only ones in the letter, and you will find with the serious warnings great encouragement, for the writer is a pastor who truly cares about these people. In his comments on Hebrews 6, Brown quotes John Calvin:

“Certainly anyone who wants to be a good teacher ought to treat his pupils in such a way as always to encourage rather than discourage them. There is nothing that has a greater effect in alienating us from listening to teaching than to see that we are thought of as hopeless.”⁸

On Hebrews 10, Brown writes:

“Our writer is far too gifted and devoted a pastor to concentrate for too long on negative, though necessary warnings. His earlier warnings are always followed by compassionate encouragement and he does the same here.”⁹

In Hebrews 3 and 4 the example of the tribes of Israel doubting God during their exodus out of Egypt is used to seriously warn the readers. This leads into a challenging exhortation to believe God’s Word and not sin against Him in disobedience with an evil, unbelieving heart. Then chapter 4 ends with some of the most compassionate and encouraging words in the New Testament:

Years ago I was in a Christian bookstore when I saw this painting by Ron DiCianni of Jesus praying. I was intrigued by it, but when I saw the title and Scripture reference I was touched to the heart and tears came to my eyes. I realized he was depicting Jesus’ time in the wilderness when He was tempted by devil (Matthew 4:1–11, Luke 4:1­–13) and connecting to Hebrews.

This is our Jesus, the Son of God who came to suffer and die for us. This is our Jesus who sympathizes with our weaknesses; who is able to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for us. The writer of Hebrews exalts Jesus because he knew that in our hardest times, in our most difficult circumstances, in our greatest sorrows and griefs, knowing Jesus, remembering who He is and all He has done and does for us, is the greatest encouragement we can have to endure, to hold fast to our hope, to stand firm.

There is so much more I could write. Don’t miss this letter—read it; study it; pray through it.

Let us hold fast our confession, our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end.

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Silvesterzug Laterne: Bk muc. (CC BY-SA 4.0).
^1,2,4Simon J. Kistemaker, Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews (Baker Book House, Grand Rapids MI: 1984) Hebrews 1:1–3 translation, 25; 25; 31.
^3,5,8,9Raymond Brown, The Message of Hebrews: Christ Above All (InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove IL: 1982) 27–32, 13–14, 123, 191.
^6,7W. E. Vine, Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words, Old Testament edited by F. F. Bruce (Fleming H. Revell, Old Tappan NJ: 1981) vol. 2, 60, 60.

I’m using Michael Coley’s Bible reading plan (one page PDF to print) to read through the Bible in 2023. Each day my posts are on different books because he divides Bible readings into seven categories, one for each day of the week: Epistles, The Law, History, Psalms, Poetry, Prophecy and Gospels. There’s more information on his plan and other ones at Read the Bible in 2023.

Copyright ©2011–2023 Iwana Carpenter