November 5, 2025 • 27 mins
We open the Book of Hebrews and find a letter written to Hebrew believers under pressure—public shame, seized property, and the easy out of slipping back into what once felt safe (Judaism). The writer won’t let them settle. With language that sings and arguments that cut clean, Hebrews makes one claim again and again: Jesus the Messiah is better.
The book’s first ten chapters build the case that Christ is greater than angels, Moses, priests, sacrifices, and even the Mosaic covenant they served. He is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact imprint of His nature, our sympathetic High Priest in the order of Melchizedek, and the once-for-all sacrifice who opens the true sanctuary. The final chapters turn doctrine toward daily life—faith that endures, discipline that trains, love that acts, and worship that overflows. Along the way, five warning passages act like guardrails, not to shake assurance, but to stop drift, dullness, and the temptation to trade long-term joy for short-term relief.
If you’re leading a group or studying solo, we’ve built free resources to help you teach and apply Hebrews with confidence. Come learn why the old system, good as it was, cannot match the living Christ who intercedes for us now. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs courage today, and leave a review to help others find the study. What’s one area where you sense the call to move from good to better?
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May God Bless you!! - Glenn and Steve
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:20):
Hello and welcome to Reasoning Through the Bible.
My name is Glenn.
I'm here with Steve.
Today we are starting the bookof Hebrews, a wonderful book
that talks about some greattruths of Christianity, a little
bit about our ministry.
We have a ministry where we notonly go verse by verse through
the entire Word of God, but weprovide free materials for you
(00:42):
so that you can teach ityourself at your church or in
your small group.
Tell your church leaders aboutus or your group leaders.
If you go to our website,reasoningthible.com, you'll find
that we have lesson plans therewhere you can teach this
material yourself.
We have student guides.
We have a great amount ofbiblical resources to help you
(01:05):
teach the Word of God in yourgroup.
In today's session, we're goingto just have an overview of
Hebrews before we get into thespecifics.
Steve, this is a great book.
It's a lofty book.
We're going to be in what I callthe rarefied air of theology
mixed with wonderful language.
SPEAKER_01 (01:27):
I always say this at the beginning of every book.
I'm looking forward to studyingthis book.
There's some great things here.
It's really a contrast of theNew Testament books versus the
Old Testament books.
The Old Testament books kind ofhave these long stories and a
little bit lengthy things thatwe can talk about.
(01:47):
These New Testament books, inmany cases, most of them, I
would say, are really condensedas to their theology and
doctrines and stuff.
So it's kind of a contrastbetween teaching Old and New
Testament.
You had to take the differentstyles and different ways to
teach them.
And so anyway, Hebrews, lookingforward to going through it.
SPEAKER_00 (02:08):
Hebrews is, of course, just that with the
title.
It's written to an audience thatwere Hebrew.
They're Jewish Christians thatbelieved in Jesus Christ.
That's somehow a concept thatgets lost today.
People that are Jewish that puttheir faith and trust in Jesus
Christ as the Messiah, theydon't stop being Jewish, just
like a French person or aRussian person or any person
(02:31):
like that don't lose theirnational ethnicity.
If a Jewish person puts theirfaith in Christ, then they're
still Jewish.
But it is written to Hebrewsthat had put their faith in
Christ and had been persecutedfor it.
Now the writer is giving themsome great truths so that they
can withhold and stand firm intheir faith.
(02:52):
A recurring theme in theseseveral books of the New
Testament that are written toJewish Christians, James and
Hebrews and Peter and a fewothers.
(03:18):
A lot of the themes in Hebrews,especially, but in the other
Jewish epistles as well, is thatJesus is a better way.
We have here in Hebrews a Christthat is a better sacrifice and a
better way.
He is superior to the old wayand the old sacrifices.
None of these epistles in theseletters like Hebrews have much
(03:41):
information about the doctrinesof the church, like we might
find in some of the otherletters, like some of Paul's
epistles.
The theme here is thesuperiority over Judaism.
A key verse that I would pickout is Hebrews 3:1 that says
this (03:55):
quote, therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a
heavenly calling, considerJesus, the apostle and high
priest of our confession.
That is the message here,really, is to consider Jesus.
Now, there is a question in thisbook about who wrote it.
It doesn't say anywhere in thebook, it doesn't give the name.
(04:18):
No one really knows who wroteit, but Steve, we can have some
clues.
I mean, over the years,different Christians have had
different theories.
What would be your comments onwho wrote the book of Hebrews?
SPEAKER_01 (04:30):
There's several clues that you could go.
Some people say Apollos wroteit.
Obviously, some people say thatPaul wrote it.
I have a little bit of an ideapersonally on who I think maybe
wrote it, but I really don'tdwell on it.
I think it's a rabbit trail thatpeople can go off and spend a
little bit too much time on.
I go with that the Holy Spiritdidn't lead somebody to leave
(04:55):
their name with it, and that'sgood enough for me.
I have my own personal ideas onwho wrote it, but I'm not going
to marry myself to that.
I'm not dogmatic about it.
I'm just going to go with wedon't know who wrote it and just
go with what the text says.
SPEAKER_00 (05:13):
There are some clues in the book that can give us an
idea of the author, but again,the author, nobody really knows.
One of the clues is in Hebrews13, 23, speaks of our brother
Timothy as being with the samecommunity as the author, and he
knows what's happened toTimothy.
(05:33):
The writer was in the communityof Christians that knew Timothy
and knew of Timothy and had beenwith Timothy.
We also have Hebrews 10.34, saysthe author speaking of himself,
my chains, or I am in chains,which means he had been arrested
for his faith, just as Timothyhad in 1323.
(05:54):
We have here someone that was inthe community of believers that
were hanging around with theapostles and Timothy, had been
most probably arrested for hisfaith.
People over the centuries havehad different theories, Steve,
as you alluded to.
Probably the most common view,at least anecdotally, that I've
heard is more people believe itwas Paul than anyone else.
(06:16):
To me, the style of the bookdoesn't really follow Paul's
common style.
But I also quickly follow thatby style of writing is not
really a good way to make a firmdogmatic conclusion simply
because the same writer canwrite with different styles.
We all know of authors thatwrote very different styles of
(06:39):
writing.
That said, I want to read onequote here that I think would
sum up my views.
There's a man named F.
W.
Farrar.
He gives a good description ofthe stylistic differences
between Paul and the book ofHebrews.
Farrar says this this writercites differently from St.
Paul.
(07:00):
He writes differently, heconstructs and connects his
sentences differently.
He builds up his paragraphs on awholly different model.
St.
Paul consistently mingles twoconstructions, leaves sentences
unfinished, breaks into personalillusions, substitutes the
syllogism of passion for thesyllogism of logic.
(07:21):
This writer is neverungrammatical.
He is never irregular.
He is never personal.
He never struggles forexpression, and he never loses
himself in parentheses.
We have some stylisticdifferences that all of us can
just read it and tell.
But again, that's a very weakpossible conclusion simply
(07:42):
because style differences are sodifferent.
I can easily imagine a veryyoung, energetic, young
believing the Apostle Paulwriting very differently than a
very older Apostle Paul that hadbeen through many experiences,
had been shipwrecked and beatenmany times, would probably write
very differently.
The style differences don't havea very good holding of who wrote
(08:08):
it.
We have some clues as to theauthor that I just gave.
We also have in chapter 2, verse3 and 4, has some stronger
clues.
Chapter 2, verse 3 says God'sword was, quote, confirmed to us
by those who heard.
And the next verse speaks of thesigns and the wonders and the
(08:28):
miracles that confirmed them,which is the original hearers
and doers, as the author was notpart of the original group.
So if you add these cluestogether, then we have the
author as being someone with aconservative interpretation.
That is, we have someone who isintimately acquainted with the
(08:48):
initial group of apostles andwho traveled with them.
We have a Jewish Christiansimply because there's so much
here on Judaism that the personmust be intimately familiar with
Jewish law and culture.
We have a highly educated personthat is familiar with Jewish
cultures.
We have someone that is workingalongside the initial group of
(09:10):
apostles and was willing to bearrested for their faith.
Next, we have a question of itbeing accepted into the canon of
Scripture.
There were four tests that theearly church fathers gave as
being a book that would berecognized as authoritative in
the canon of Scripture.
The book had to be written by anapostle or a companion of the
(09:33):
apostles.
It had to be universallyrecognized and read in churches
across the first century.
It had to have contents thatwere in line with what people
knew the apostles taught.
And the book had to have thesigns of inspiration, which were
clearly seen.
(09:53):
If you just read the inspiredbooks and the non-inspired
books, it's they're usuallyquite clear which ones are
inspired.
The only question there was theauthorship.
Because it is anonymous, thensome of the early church
fathers, in an attempt to bequite careful, questioned
whether it should be recognizedin the canon.
But once it was studiedcarefully and seen that the
(10:16):
author was either an apostle orwith the apostles, it was
accepted.
And after that, there really wasno controversy.
It falls into a spot in the NewTestament.
There's a pattern.
The New Testament has theGospels.
Then there's a continuation ofthe history of the Gospels,
which is the book of Acts.
Then we have Paul's epistlesgoing from the largest to the
(10:39):
smallest.
And then we have Hebrews that isput in between Paul's and the
others, and then the remainderof the epistles, such as Peter
and James.
The style of this book is quiteinteresting simply because the
language here is so grand and sowide and so deep that it's just
(10:59):
thoroughly impressive.
Steve, any comments you haveabout the language here and the
kind of contents that we'regoing to find in this book?
SPEAKER_01 (11:07):
Well, I think the main thing that's talked about
here is the methodology that theauthor goes through.
It's to show the superiority ofMessiah over the system of
Judaism.
When we say Jesus Christ, Christis translated from the Greek
Christos, which means anointedone.
(11:31):
And Messiah, the Hebrew wordbehind that is anointed one.
When we say Jesus Christ, we'resaying Jesus the anointed one or
Jesus the Messiah.
So the direction that the authortakes is to show the superiority
of the Messiah, who we would sayis Jesus Christ, over the system
(11:54):
of Judaism.
And it's not so much to contrastwhat is the difference between
good and bad, because God gavethe laws of Moses as something
as good.
Paul talks about it as being ourtutor, but it's really
contrasting between what is goodand what is better.
We're going to see those type ofthemes as we continue to go
(12:15):
through this book.
And I think that he does it in avery eloquent way.
SPEAKER_00 (12:19):
The scope and scale of the book of Hebrews cannot be
overestimated.
Hebrews is grand, it's immense,it is wide, and it is deep.
Hebrews contains doctrine thatcan only be compared to the book
of Romans and possiblyColossians.
The scope and depth and breadthof the theology here is just
(12:43):
impressive.
All we can really do is stand atthe feet of the book of Hebrews
and stare at the grandeur of theteachings in this book.
I really don't feel adequate toapproach it simply because it is
so profound and so deep and itcovers so much ground.
It really is amazing.
(13:04):
The writer here quotes somewherearound 86 times he quotes the
Old Testament, and he tiestogether just vast quantities of
the Old Testament showing thatChrist is better.
He is a fulfillment of many ofthese Old Testament things.
And we have, again, about 10chapters of doctrine.
(13:25):
Even when we get to theapplication section, much of
that is by example.
Chapter 11 gives us application,but it's really just examples of
people in the Old Testament thatare held up as faithful people.
Most of the book of Hebrews islofty and magnificent.
Studying the book of Hebrewsbrings us into very rarefied
(13:47):
air.
Hebrews is a magnificent bookthat teaches us a lot of
theology about how Christ fitsin with the rest of the Bible,
especially the Old Testament.
The amount of teaching that itpulls out of the Old Testament
is very impressive.
SPEAKER_01 (14:05):
We thought when we went through Colossians that
that was pretty dense intheology and doctrine.
I think Hebrews, if it doesn'tstand toe-to-toe with it, I
think it is even above it andhas more denseness of theology
in it.
SPEAKER_00 (14:21):
The audience of the book of Hebrews, as we've said,
are Hebrew Christians.
The writer assumes that thereader has an intimate knowledge
of the Jewish sacrificialsystems and history.
So we kind of give you a warningwith that in as we start this
book.
It really helps if you have aknowledge of the Old Testament.
(14:42):
We're going to, as we go throughhere, do our best to kind of
give a history of each of thesections, but you might want to
go back at the same time andstudy like some of the last half
of Exodus passages like that,because it really comes into
play in the book of Hebrews.
The writer of Hebrews justassumes that you know the
(15:02):
sacrificial system, many of theinstances that he's talking
about.
One thing you might do is wecovered much of the sacrificial
system when we were in the lasthalf of the book of Exodus.
You might go and look there.
It was in the chapters 20 and 30of the book of Exodus that we
taught.
We can refer you to there.
(15:23):
In Hebrews chapter 10, verses 32and 33 say the audience had
experienced salvation.
These were saved people.
They put faith in Christ, andthen they had experienced some
public suffering and reproach.
Their property was seized andtaken away, it says in 1034.
That verse also says that whilethey were prisoners, they showed
(15:46):
sympathy to the other prisoners.
The tone in this book suggeststhat the suffering was largely
in the past, in what it callsthe former days in 1032.
The writer is writing to a groupof Jewish Christians that had
been saved, they had put theirfaith in Christ, they had
suffered persecution for it,they had had their property
(16:10):
seized, possibly had otherpersecutions, and had gotten
past that.
Now they had settled in and werecomplacent.
The writer chastises this group,saying they should have been
more mature by now.
Chapter 5, verse 12, quote, bythis time you ought to be
teachers.
You have need again for someoneto teach you the elementary
(16:33):
principles.
The audience, therefore, hadbecome complacent.
And Steve, that very possibly amessage that I need to hear and
our listeners need to hear is tonot become complacent in our
faith.
SPEAKER_01 (16:47):
In Hebrews, we see some of the details of the
persecution that JewishChristians, Jewish believers in
Jesus, as the Messiah, weregoing through.
We have a little bit of Saul whowas persecuting the Christians
in Acts, a detail there that infact he was actually going up on
(17:09):
his way to Damascus to arrestand incarcerate, bring them back
to Jerusalem, some Christianbelievers that were up there,
Jewish Christian believers.
Here in Hebrews, we see moredetails of what was actually
going on.
While the author reprimands themfor not being more mature,
(17:31):
they're under great pressure togo back under Judaism in order
to relieve themselves from thispersecution.
That's one of the things thatthe author is going to address.
He's encouraging them yes, youshould move on with your
spiritual life and you should bemore mature.
He's telling them, don't go backunder Judaism.
(17:52):
He gives several reasons whythey shouldn't do that.
SPEAKER_00 (17:55):
It's quite a magnificent book.
And again, it's written topeople that's possibly just like
us that need to hear a messagethat Jesus is really superior to
anything that we see around us.
The writer is urging theseChristians upward and on to
maturity in Christ.
The readers had failed to grow,failed to move away from milk
(18:17):
and on to solid food, he talksabout in 512.
In Hebrews, Jesus is held up asour redeemer.
He's held up as better than theold system.
He's held up as our high priestin the Order of Melchizedek.
We get to meet him again in thisbook.
In this book, the opening of it,the first few verses are just a
(18:38):
masterpiece of literature andtheology.
There's about a dozen referencesto the deity of Christ in the
first half of the first chapter.
It really is amazing how muchteaching he can squeeze into a
small amount of space.
Yet the language here is that ofbeauty and it has rhythm and
(19:03):
pacing to it.
But it has a great deal ofdoctrine and theology, but the
language is couched in languagethat is easier to read.
It's beautiful language.
It's almost poetic.
So it's the only book thatfocuses so heavily on Jesus'
ministry in heaven and all ofthe theology that goes around
(19:25):
that, but also does so in alanguage that we just find so
beautiful.
The book has these loftytheological ideas, but five
times in the book, the authorpauses these lofty doctrinal
issues to give warnings andchastisements to the readers.
How many warnings have we heardfrom the pulpit in recent days?
(19:50):
How many times have we heard ourpastors and our leaders chastise
the audience for beingcomplacent and needing to move
on to maturity?
And Steve, that's some of thelessons.
I have here an outline of thebook and some of the topics in
it.
But Steve, what do you find isgoing to be coming up in this
book?
SPEAKER_01 (20:08):
As I mentioned before, that these Jewish
believers were under greatpressure and persecution.
That's the pressure from thepersecution itself.
To relieve that pressure, theywere thinking about going back
under Judaism because that wouldimmediately take this pressure
off of them.
(20:28):
The author uses a couple ofexamples of decisions that were
made in the past in the OldTestament.
One of them was with Esau.
He made an irrevocable decisionto sell his birthright.
Then another example were theIsraelites when they came out of
Egypt, whenever they came toKadesh Barnea, and Moses had
(20:50):
sent out the spies into theland.
The spies come back.
Ten of them say we can't takeit.
Two of them say we can.
There was a riot that came upthat almost killed the two spies
that said we could.
That was Joshua and Caleb.
Because of that unbelief, thatwas the tenth act of rebellion
that they had made.
(21:12):
That generation was told, you'renot going to go into the land.
It was an irrevocable decisionthat they would not go into the
land.
The author is making this casefor these Jewish believers to
not go and make an irrevocabledecision to go back into
Judaism.
Some of them might have thought,well, I'll just go back under
(21:33):
Judaism, take the uh pressureoff of me, and then at a later
date, I'll repent of that and goback and follow my belief in
Jesus Christ and get out of itthat way.
But the context as we go throughhere is to keep in mind, he's
not talking about personalsalvation.
The decision of Kadesh Barniaand the decision by Esau, there
(21:58):
was punishment and consequencesto those decisions.
And that's what the author istrying to get over to them.
That generation in their day wasunder an irrevocable decision
that had been made by theirleadership that they attributed
Jesus' miracles to Satanhimself.
(22:18):
That was known as the blasphemyof the Holy Spirit.
Because of that, that generationwas going to be judged.
And it was going to be judged inwe now know A.D.
70.
The temple was destroyed,Jerusalem was sacked, and the
people were dispersed.
The author is encouraging them,don't go back under Judaism and
(22:39):
be associated with that judgmentthat's going to take place.
We've often mentioned in some ofour other studies, Glenn, you
can control the decision youmake, but you can't control the
consequences.
As we go through here, we'regoing to see, he's not talking
about individual salvation.
These believers, he addressesthem as believers throughout the
whole thing, that theirsalvation is not in question.
(23:02):
They're believers in JesusChrist.
But whether or not they live andare prosperous and they have
blessings, that is underquestion if they go back under
Judaism and be associated withthis judgment that's going to
take place with the people.
So that's something to keep inmind as we continue to go
(23:22):
through the book.
SPEAKER_00 (23:23):
If we look at an outline of the book of Hebrews,
the first 10 chapters are adoctrinal section.
The last few chapters from 11 to13, that's a practical section.
In those first 10 chapters, thedoctrinal section, it's just
magnificent.
It talks about the glory of theSon, Jesus Christ.
It holds up Jesus being superiorto the angels.
(23:47):
Jesus is a better king that hasa better death.
Jesus is a better high priest.
Jesus gives us a better newcovenant and was a better
sacrifice.
Jesus, in all ways, is superiorand better to the old ways.
Even in the practical section,it presents the privileges of
(24:08):
the Christian.
What do we inherit as our rightsas believers and the triumphs of
a life of faith?
We can live in triumph becauseof our faith and the application
of faith to the present life.
There's many doctrinal andtheological issues and items
that are in this book, butagain, it's couched in language
(24:31):
that's just magnificent.
The book starts off at thebeginning of chapter one with
the inspiration of Scripture.
The Bible is inspired by God.
It is of utmost importance.
And as we said before, the first13 verses has at least 14 claims
to the deity of Christ.
Hebrews very solidly lays thefoundation of the deity of
(24:54):
Christ right out of the shoot atthe top of the page in the first
chapter.
Then chapter 2, verse 3 says,How will we escape if we neglect
so great a salvation?
Hebrews teaches that there issalvation in no one else but
Christ.
It gives us some informationabout whether miraculous sign
(25:14):
gifts are for today or whetherthey have ceased.
It talks a good bit about thenature of Jesus Christ.
How could it be that he is bothGod and human at the same time?
Chapter two of Hebrews mentionsthe answer to this.
Chapter two also presents Jesusas the creator of all things.
(25:37):
It teaches the substitutionaryatonement that Jesus died in the
place of everyone on earth.
Jesus presents Jesus as beingthe creator of all things, the
upholder of all things, and thereason for all things.
It includes sanctification ofthe believers, the setting apart
of Christians for God's service.
(25:59):
Hebrews explains to us thatJesus has power over death and
the devil.
The book speaks of the Christianbeing freed from the chains of
sin and empowered by the Lord tolive the Christian life.
How do we live the Christianlife?
Well, it tells us in the book ofHebrews.
The book reviews most of the OldTestament sacrificial system and
(26:21):
shows how it points to Christ.
Hebrews explains thedistinctions between the Old
Covenant and the new.
Hebrews ties an amazingly largenumber of Old Testament events
and teachings to culminate inChrist.
I just can't wait to get in thisbecause it's just so vast, it's
so wide and high and deep, andit focuses on the premier person
(26:47):
in all of creation and all ofthe heavens, which is the Lord
Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01 (26:54):
I absolutely agree with you, Glenn.
It's going to be a great study.
I know I say that every time,but we've already started
digging into it, and I'm justlooking forward to it once
again.
SPEAKER_00 (27:06):
Join us again next time as we start with Hebrews
chapter one, as we will reasonthrough the book of Hebrews.
Thank you so much for watchingand listening, and may God bless
you.
Hello and welcome to Reasoning Through the Bible.
My name is Glenn.
I'm here with Steve.
Today we are starting the bookof Hebrews, a wonderful book
that talks about some greattruths of Christianity, a little
bit about our ministry.
We have a ministry where we notonly go verse by verse through
the entire Word of God, but weprovide free materials for you
(00:42):
so that you can teach ityourself at your church or in
your small group.
Tell your church leaders aboutus or your group leaders.
If you go to our website,reasoningthible.com, you'll find
that we have lesson plans therewhere you can teach this
material yourself.
We have student guides.
We have a great amount ofbiblical resources to help you
(01:05):
teach the Word of God in yourgroup.
In today's session, we're goingto just have an overview of
Hebrews before we get into thespecifics.
Steve, this is a great book.
It's a lofty book.
We're going to be in what I callthe rarefied air of theology
mixed with wonderful language.
SPEAKER_01 (01:27):
I always say this at the beginning of every book.
I'm looking forward to studyingthis book.
There's some great things here.
It's really a contrast of theNew Testament books versus the
Old Testament books.
The Old Testament books kind ofhave these long stories and a
little bit lengthy things thatwe can talk about.
(01:47):
These New Testament books, inmany cases, most of them, I
would say, are really condensedas to their theology and
doctrines and stuff.
So it's kind of a contrastbetween teaching Old and New
Testament.
You had to take the differentstyles and different ways to
teach them.
And so anyway, Hebrews, lookingforward to going through it.
SPEAKER_00 (02:08):
Hebrews is, of course, just that with the
title.
It's written to an audience thatwere Hebrew.
They're Jewish Christians thatbelieved in Jesus Christ.
That's somehow a concept thatgets lost today.
People that are Jewish that puttheir faith and trust in Jesus
Christ as the Messiah, theydon't stop being Jewish, just
like a French person or aRussian person or any person
(02:31):
like that don't lose theirnational ethnicity.
If a Jewish person puts theirfaith in Christ, then they're
still Jewish.
But it is written to Hebrewsthat had put their faith in
Christ and had been persecutedfor it.
Now the writer is giving themsome great truths so that they
can withhold and stand firm intheir faith.
(02:52):
A recurring theme in theseseveral books of the New
Testament that are written toJewish Christians, James and
Hebrews and Peter and a fewothers.
(03:18):
A lot of the themes in Hebrews,especially, but in the other
Jewish epistles as well, is thatJesus is a better way.
We have here in Hebrews a Christthat is a better sacrifice and a
better way.
He is superior to the old wayand the old sacrifices.
None of these epistles in theseletters like Hebrews have much
(03:41):
information about the doctrinesof the church, like we might
find in some of the otherletters, like some of Paul's
epistles.
The theme here is thesuperiority over Judaism.
A key verse that I would pickout is Hebrews 3:1 that says
this (03:55):
quote, therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a
heavenly calling, considerJesus, the apostle and high
priest of our confession.
That is the message here,really, is to consider Jesus.
Now, there is a question in thisbook about who wrote it.
It doesn't say anywhere in thebook, it doesn't give the name.
(04:18):
No one really knows who wroteit, but Steve, we can have some
clues.
I mean, over the years,different Christians have had
different theories.
What would be your comments onwho wrote the book of Hebrews?
SPEAKER_01 (04:30):
There's several clues that you could go.
Some people say Apollos wroteit.
Obviously, some people say thatPaul wrote it.
I have a little bit of an ideapersonally on who I think maybe
wrote it, but I really don'tdwell on it.
I think it's a rabbit trail thatpeople can go off and spend a
little bit too much time on.
I go with that the Holy Spiritdidn't lead somebody to leave
(04:55):
their name with it, and that'sgood enough for me.
I have my own personal ideas onwho wrote it, but I'm not going
to marry myself to that.
I'm not dogmatic about it.
I'm just going to go with wedon't know who wrote it and just
go with what the text says.
SPEAKER_00 (05:13):
There are some clues in the book that can give us an
idea of the author, but again,the author, nobody really knows.
One of the clues is in Hebrews13, 23, speaks of our brother
Timothy as being with the samecommunity as the author, and he
knows what's happened toTimothy.
(05:33):
The writer was in the communityof Christians that knew Timothy
and knew of Timothy and had beenwith Timothy.
We also have Hebrews 10.34, saysthe author speaking of himself,
my chains, or I am in chains,which means he had been arrested
for his faith, just as Timothyhad in 1323.
(05:54):
We have here someone that was inthe community of believers that
were hanging around with theapostles and Timothy, had been
most probably arrested for hisfaith.
People over the centuries havehad different theories, Steve,
as you alluded to.
Probably the most common view,at least anecdotally, that I've
heard is more people believe itwas Paul than anyone else.
(06:16):
To me, the style of the bookdoesn't really follow Paul's
common style.
But I also quickly follow thatby style of writing is not
really a good way to make a firmdogmatic conclusion simply
because the same writer canwrite with different styles.
We all know of authors thatwrote very different styles of
(06:39):
writing.
That said, I want to read onequote here that I think would
sum up my views.
There's a man named F.
W.
Farrar.
He gives a good description ofthe stylistic differences
between Paul and the book ofHebrews.
Farrar says this this writercites differently from St.
Paul.
(07:00):
He writes differently, heconstructs and connects his
sentences differently.
He builds up his paragraphs on awholly different model.
St.
Paul consistently mingles twoconstructions, leaves sentences
unfinished, breaks into personalillusions, substitutes the
syllogism of passion for thesyllogism of logic.
(07:21):
This writer is neverungrammatical.
He is never irregular.
He is never personal.
He never struggles forexpression, and he never loses
himself in parentheses.
We have some stylisticdifferences that all of us can
just read it and tell.
But again, that's a very weakpossible conclusion simply
(07:42):
because style differences are sodifferent.
I can easily imagine a veryyoung, energetic, young
believing the Apostle Paulwriting very differently than a
very older Apostle Paul that hadbeen through many experiences,
had been shipwrecked and beatenmany times, would probably write
very differently.
The style differences don't havea very good holding of who wrote
(08:08):
it.
We have some clues as to theauthor that I just gave.
We also have in chapter 2, verse3 and 4, has some stronger
clues.
Chapter 2, verse 3 says God'sword was, quote, confirmed to us
by those who heard.
And the next verse speaks of thesigns and the wonders and the
(08:28):
miracles that confirmed them,which is the original hearers
and doers, as the author was notpart of the original group.
So if you add these cluestogether, then we have the
author as being someone with aconservative interpretation.
That is, we have someone who isintimately acquainted with the
(08:48):
initial group of apostles andwho traveled with them.
We have a Jewish Christiansimply because there's so much
here on Judaism that the personmust be intimately familiar with
Jewish law and culture.
We have a highly educated personthat is familiar with Jewish
cultures.
We have someone that is workingalongside the initial group of
(09:10):
apostles and was willing to bearrested for their faith.
Next, we have a question of itbeing accepted into the canon of
Scripture.
There were four tests that theearly church fathers gave as
being a book that would berecognized as authoritative in
the canon of Scripture.
The book had to be written by anapostle or a companion of the
(09:33):
apostles.
It had to be universallyrecognized and read in churches
across the first century.
It had to have contents thatwere in line with what people
knew the apostles taught.
And the book had to have thesigns of inspiration, which were
clearly seen.
(09:53):
If you just read the inspiredbooks and the non-inspired
books, it's they're usuallyquite clear which ones are
inspired.
The only question there was theauthorship.
Because it is anonymous, thensome of the early church
fathers, in an attempt to bequite careful, questioned
whether it should be recognizedin the canon.
But once it was studiedcarefully and seen that the
(10:16):
author was either an apostle orwith the apostles, it was
accepted.
And after that, there really wasno controversy.
It falls into a spot in the NewTestament.
There's a pattern.
The New Testament has theGospels.
Then there's a continuation ofthe history of the Gospels,
which is the book of Acts.
Then we have Paul's epistlesgoing from the largest to the
(10:39):
smallest.
And then we have Hebrews that isput in between Paul's and the
others, and then the remainderof the epistles, such as Peter
and James.
The style of this book is quiteinteresting simply because the
language here is so grand and sowide and so deep that it's just
(10:59):
thoroughly impressive.
Steve, any comments you haveabout the language here and the
kind of contents that we'regoing to find in this book?
SPEAKER_01 (11:07):
Well, I think the main thing that's talked about
here is the methodology that theauthor goes through.
It's to show the superiority ofMessiah over the system of
Judaism.
When we say Jesus Christ, Christis translated from the Greek
Christos, which means anointedone.
(11:31):
And Messiah, the Hebrew wordbehind that is anointed one.
When we say Jesus Christ, we'resaying Jesus the anointed one or
Jesus the Messiah.
So the direction that the authortakes is to show the superiority
of the Messiah, who we would sayis Jesus Christ, over the system
(11:54):
of Judaism.
And it's not so much to contrastwhat is the difference between
good and bad, because God gavethe laws of Moses as something
as good.
Paul talks about it as being ourtutor, but it's really
contrasting between what is goodand what is better.
We're going to see those type ofthemes as we continue to go
(12:15):
through this book.
And I think that he does it in avery eloquent way.
SPEAKER_00 (12:19):
The scope and scale of the book of Hebrews cannot be
overestimated.
Hebrews is grand, it's immense,it is wide, and it is deep.
Hebrews contains doctrine thatcan only be compared to the book
of Romans and possiblyColossians.
The scope and depth and breadthof the theology here is just
(12:43):
impressive.
All we can really do is stand atthe feet of the book of Hebrews
and stare at the grandeur of theteachings in this book.
I really don't feel adequate toapproach it simply because it is
so profound and so deep and itcovers so much ground.
It really is amazing.
(13:04):
The writer here quotes somewherearound 86 times he quotes the
Old Testament, and he tiestogether just vast quantities of
the Old Testament showing thatChrist is better.
He is a fulfillment of many ofthese Old Testament things.
And we have, again, about 10chapters of doctrine.
(13:25):
Even when we get to theapplication section, much of
that is by example.
Chapter 11 gives us application,but it's really just examples of
people in the Old Testament thatare held up as faithful people.
Most of the book of Hebrews islofty and magnificent.
Studying the book of Hebrewsbrings us into very rarefied
(13:47):
air.
Hebrews is a magnificent bookthat teaches us a lot of
theology about how Christ fitsin with the rest of the Bible,
especially the Old Testament.
The amount of teaching that itpulls out of the Old Testament
is very impressive.
SPEAKER_01 (14:05):
We thought when we went through Colossians that
that was pretty dense intheology and doctrine.
I think Hebrews, if it doesn'tstand toe-to-toe with it, I
think it is even above it andhas more denseness of theology
in it.
SPEAKER_00 (14:21):
The audience of the book of Hebrews, as we've said,
are Hebrew Christians.
The writer assumes that thereader has an intimate knowledge
of the Jewish sacrificialsystems and history.
So we kind of give you a warningwith that in as we start this
book.
It really helps if you have aknowledge of the Old Testament.
(14:42):
We're going to, as we go throughhere, do our best to kind of
give a history of each of thesections, but you might want to
go back at the same time andstudy like some of the last half
of Exodus passages like that,because it really comes into
play in the book of Hebrews.
The writer of Hebrews justassumes that you know the
(15:02):
sacrificial system, many of theinstances that he's talking
about.
One thing you might do is wecovered much of the sacrificial
system when we were in the lasthalf of the book of Exodus.
You might go and look there.
It was in the chapters 20 and 30of the book of Exodus that we
taught.
We can refer you to there.
(15:23):
In Hebrews chapter 10, verses 32and 33 say the audience had
experienced salvation.
These were saved people.
They put faith in Christ, andthen they had experienced some
public suffering and reproach.
Their property was seized andtaken away, it says in 1034.
That verse also says that whilethey were prisoners, they showed
(15:46):
sympathy to the other prisoners.
The tone in this book suggeststhat the suffering was largely
in the past, in what it callsthe former days in 1032.
The writer is writing to a groupof Jewish Christians that had
been saved, they had put theirfaith in Christ, they had
suffered persecution for it,they had had their property
(16:10):
seized, possibly had otherpersecutions, and had gotten
past that.
Now they had settled in and werecomplacent.
The writer chastises this group,saying they should have been
more mature by now.
Chapter 5, verse 12, quote, bythis time you ought to be
teachers.
You have need again for someoneto teach you the elementary
(16:33):
principles.
The audience, therefore, hadbecome complacent.
And Steve, that very possibly amessage that I need to hear and
our listeners need to hear is tonot become complacent in our
faith.
SPEAKER_01 (16:47):
In Hebrews, we see some of the details of the
persecution that JewishChristians, Jewish believers in
Jesus, as the Messiah, weregoing through.
We have a little bit of Saul whowas persecuting the Christians
in Acts, a detail there that infact he was actually going up on
(17:09):
his way to Damascus to arrestand incarcerate, bring them back
to Jerusalem, some Christianbelievers that were up there,
Jewish Christian believers.
Here in Hebrews, we see moredetails of what was actually
going on.
While the author reprimands themfor not being more mature,
(17:31):
they're under great pressure togo back under Judaism in order
to relieve themselves from thispersecution.
That's one of the things thatthe author is going to address.
He's encouraging them yes, youshould move on with your
spiritual life and you should bemore mature.
He's telling them, don't go backunder Judaism.
(17:52):
He gives several reasons whythey shouldn't do that.
SPEAKER_00 (17:55):
It's quite a magnificent book.
And again, it's written topeople that's possibly just like
us that need to hear a messagethat Jesus is really superior to
anything that we see around us.
The writer is urging theseChristians upward and on to
maturity in Christ.
The readers had failed to grow,failed to move away from milk
(18:17):
and on to solid food, he talksabout in 512.
In Hebrews, Jesus is held up asour redeemer.
He's held up as better than theold system.
He's held up as our high priestin the Order of Melchizedek.
We get to meet him again in thisbook.
In this book, the opening of it,the first few verses are just a
(18:38):
masterpiece of literature andtheology.
There's about a dozen referencesto the deity of Christ in the
first half of the first chapter.
It really is amazing how muchteaching he can squeeze into a
small amount of space.
Yet the language here is that ofbeauty and it has rhythm and
(19:03):
pacing to it.
But it has a great deal ofdoctrine and theology, but the
language is couched in languagethat is easier to read.
It's beautiful language.
It's almost poetic.
So it's the only book thatfocuses so heavily on Jesus'
ministry in heaven and all ofthe theology that goes around
(19:25):
that, but also does so in alanguage that we just find so
beautiful.
The book has these loftytheological ideas, but five
times in the book, the authorpauses these lofty doctrinal
issues to give warnings andchastisements to the readers.
How many warnings have we heardfrom the pulpit in recent days?
(19:50):
How many times have we heard ourpastors and our leaders chastise
the audience for beingcomplacent and needing to move
on to maturity?
And Steve, that's some of thelessons.
I have here an outline of thebook and some of the topics in
it.
But Steve, what do you find isgoing to be coming up in this
book?
SPEAKER_01 (20:08):
As I mentioned before, that these Jewish
believers were under greatpressure and persecution.
That's the pressure from thepersecution itself.
To relieve that pressure, theywere thinking about going back
under Judaism because that wouldimmediately take this pressure
off of them.
(20:28):
The author uses a couple ofexamples of decisions that were
made in the past in the OldTestament.
One of them was with Esau.
He made an irrevocable decisionto sell his birthright.
Then another example were theIsraelites when they came out of
Egypt, whenever they came toKadesh Barnea, and Moses had
(20:50):
sent out the spies into theland.
The spies come back.
Ten of them say we can't takeit.
Two of them say we can.
There was a riot that came upthat almost killed the two spies
that said we could.
That was Joshua and Caleb.
Because of that unbelief, thatwas the tenth act of rebellion
that they had made.
(21:12):
That generation was told, you'renot going to go into the land.
It was an irrevocable decisionthat they would not go into the
land.
The author is making this casefor these Jewish believers to
not go and make an irrevocabledecision to go back into
Judaism.
Some of them might have thought,well, I'll just go back under
(21:33):
Judaism, take the uh pressureoff of me, and then at a later
date, I'll repent of that and goback and follow my belief in
Jesus Christ and get out of itthat way.
But the context as we go throughhere is to keep in mind, he's
not talking about personalsalvation.
The decision of Kadesh Barniaand the decision by Esau, there
(21:58):
was punishment and consequencesto those decisions.
And that's what the author istrying to get over to them.
That generation in their day wasunder an irrevocable decision
that had been made by theirleadership that they attributed
Jesus' miracles to Satanhimself.
(22:18):
That was known as the blasphemyof the Holy Spirit.
Because of that, that generationwas going to be judged.
And it was going to be judged inwe now know A.D.
70.
The temple was destroyed,Jerusalem was sacked, and the
people were dispersed.
The author is encouraging them,don't go back under Judaism and
(22:39):
be associated with that judgmentthat's going to take place.
We've often mentioned in some ofour other studies, Glenn, you
can control the decision youmake, but you can't control the
consequences.
As we go through here, we'regoing to see, he's not talking
about individual salvation.
These believers, he addressesthem as believers throughout the
whole thing, that theirsalvation is not in question.
(23:02):
They're believers in JesusChrist.
But whether or not they live andare prosperous and they have
blessings, that is underquestion if they go back under
Judaism and be associated withthis judgment that's going to
take place with the people.
So that's something to keep inmind as we continue to go
(23:22):
through the book.
SPEAKER_00 (23:23):
If we look at an outline of the book of Hebrews,
the first 10 chapters are adoctrinal section.
The last few chapters from 11 to13, that's a practical section.
In those first 10 chapters, thedoctrinal section, it's just
magnificent.
It talks about the glory of theSon, Jesus Christ.
It holds up Jesus being superiorto the angels.
(23:47):
Jesus is a better king that hasa better death.
Jesus is a better high priest.
Jesus gives us a better newcovenant and was a better
sacrifice.
Jesus, in all ways, is superiorand better to the old ways.
Even in the practical section,it presents the privileges of
(24:08):
the Christian.
What do we inherit as our rightsas believers and the triumphs of
a life of faith?
We can live in triumph becauseof our faith and the application
of faith to the present life.
There's many doctrinal andtheological issues and items
that are in this book, butagain, it's couched in language
(24:31):
that's just magnificent.
The book starts off at thebeginning of chapter one with
the inspiration of Scripture.
The Bible is inspired by God.
It is of utmost importance.
And as we said before, the first13 verses has at least 14 claims
to the deity of Christ.
Hebrews very solidly lays thefoundation of the deity of
(24:54):
Christ right out of the shoot atthe top of the page in the first
chapter.
Then chapter 2, verse 3 says,How will we escape if we neglect
so great a salvation?
Hebrews teaches that there issalvation in no one else but
Christ.
It gives us some informationabout whether miraculous sign
(25:14):
gifts are for today or whetherthey have ceased.
It talks a good bit about thenature of Jesus Christ.
How could it be that he is bothGod and human at the same time?
Chapter two of Hebrews mentionsthe answer to this.
Chapter two also presents Jesusas the creator of all things.
(25:37):
It teaches the substitutionaryatonement that Jesus died in the
place of everyone on earth.
Jesus presents Jesus as beingthe creator of all things, the
upholder of all things, and thereason for all things.
It includes sanctification ofthe believers, the setting apart
of Christians for God's service.
(25:59):
Hebrews explains to us thatJesus has power over death and
the devil.
The book speaks of the Christianbeing freed from the chains of
sin and empowered by the Lord tolive the Christian life.
How do we live the Christianlife?
Well, it tells us in the book ofHebrews.
The book reviews most of the OldTestament sacrificial system and
(26:21):
shows how it points to Christ.
Hebrews explains thedistinctions between the Old
Covenant and the new.
Hebrews ties an amazingly largenumber of Old Testament events
and teachings to culminate inChrist.
I just can't wait to get in thisbecause it's just so vast, it's
so wide and high and deep, andit focuses on the premier person
(26:47):
in all of creation and all ofthe heavens, which is the Lord
Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01 (26:54):
I absolutely agree with you, Glenn.
It's going to be a great study.
I know I say that every time,but we've already started
digging into it, and I'm justlooking forward to it once
again.
SPEAKER_00 (27:06):
Join us again next time as we start with Hebrews
chapter one, as we will reasonthrough the book of Hebrews.
Thank you so much for watchingand listening, and may God bless
you.
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