Hebrews - An Intoduction

Ok, going back to Onesimus from yesterday, I got a few insights from the book I’m listening to about Paul right now. First was that one of the draws to the gospel that Onesimus might have related to was that the purported Savior of all mankind had died a slave’s death on the cross. Since Onesimus was a slave himself and knew that he was facing the same fate as Jesus if he returned to Philemon, he might have found comfort in a leader who wasn’t “too good” for his status as a slave. The second insight was that apparently Paul’s request had worked out because 50 years after this event, the leader of the church in Ephesus was a man named Onesimus, either the same slave turned bishop or a man named after the original Onesimus. I just thought that those two insights were interesting because it gave some perspective to how the gospel can be viewed from different people in different circumstances and because it helped us kind of see the happy ending to the book of Philemon. As we begin with the book of Hebrews, what struck me first about it was that it isn’t written in the typical Pauline fashion. Usually Paul starts off by introducing himself and whoever was carrying the letter for him and wishing them good tidings and all that, but here, Paul just launches right into it. This difference in style has caused some to suggest that Paul is not the writer of this epistle, but for the IM accepts it to be a Pauline letter for the evaluation of the book. Hebrews was written to, wait for it… Hebrews, or more specifically Jewish Christian converts who were debating whether or not they should return to Judaism and abandon Christianity. I feel like the Jewish converts, unlike the gentile converts, had a much different expectation in how the Christ would show up that they had a lot more contradictory teachings that they had to reconcile before accepting Jesus as the Messiah. The book of Hebrews covers many topics that would have been particularly important to the Jewish Christians such as “the significance of many symbols found in the Law of Moses and their fulfillment in Jesus Christ.” The IM explains the purpose of this epistle saying, “These converts apparently wrestled with several questions: If we accept that the rituals of the law of Moses are not required of Gentile Christians, what is the true value of the Old Testament? If the gospel of Jesus Christ is the right way, why are we being persecuted so much for being His followers? If Jesus was the Messiah, why is Israel still in bondage to the Romans?” These Jewish Christians had the unique opportunity to realize that their whole life had been a lie. The Law of Moses wasn’t the lie, but what the Jewish people believed would happen when the Messiah came was incorrect. So imagine being someone who grew up Jewish in Jerusalem, then hearing the gospel and loving it, but having it not fit the mold that everyone told you to expect it to come in. There would be so much reconciliation needed before you could move forward in your belief in Jesus that it would take some time and education. Interestingly, with the format of this letter being different, the IM says that it “is more of a homily- an extended sermon that makes its points by repeated appeals to Israel’s scripture and practices.” Now, I don’t know a ton about Judaism, especially the ancient kind, but a few things that I believe were obstacles in the Jews accepting Jesus as the Messiah was that they believed he was just a man. They knew that the Messiah would come as a God, so they expected the great show and power that would presumably come with that. The article on this chapter on gospeldoctrine.com says, “Paul’s audience must not have fully appreciated the role of Jehovah in the pre-mortal councils in heaven. Rather, they knew of Jesus of Nazareth; they knew of his teachings in Galilee; they had come to believe that he was the long-awaited Messiah- and this is in spite of the fact that his mortal ministry did not usher in the anticipated political and military redemption of Israel. ‘What think ye of Christ?’ It would seem that the early Christians were too close to Christ to see him for who he really was. Like a man so close to the Greta Wall of China that all he can see is one brick, the Jewish saints were so close to Jesus in time and space that they could not see him for who he really was. Indeed, some would have been more impressed with an angelic visitation than with the Savior’s teachings. Was Christ greater than a prophet? Was Christ greater than Father Jacob? Was Christ greater than Father Abraham? Was Christ greater than an angel? Spencer W. Kimball declared, ‘The heavens may be full of angels, but they are not like the Son of God.’” I really liked this because it just shows how it is so hard to see the forest through the trees sometimes. They had known Jesus to be a man, even if he was a man who had been raised from the dead. Some might have even known Mary and Joseph, even Jesus’ own brothers did not accept him as the Messiah until after he was killed. But then again, I totally understand how being raised Jewish and learning that law of culture, then being taught something different would be very difficult to reconcile. It’s like N.T. Wright says in this book about Paul, he wasn’t teaching the people to be some completely different religion, he was teaching them how their old religion led directly into this new one. He wasn’t moving people across the country to a new house, he was remodeling the old house into something heaven sent. He was teaching them to not live by rules and rituals, but to live as human beings. He was teaching them to think, not to be some cog in the wheel. One of the reasons the IM gives for Hebrews being an important work to study is because it says we all have trials or times when things don’t make sense. This letter from Paul to the Hebrews is a guide on how to remain faithful to Jesus Christ while finding out the answers that we need to build a strong testimony of the gospel.