partsofspeaking

 What we must see in Hebrews 10 is that it is not so much a lead up to Hebrews 11, which we focus on and is my bedrock, go-to passage, but it is a logical extension of what comes before and meaningful for us in its own right. (that sounds dumb, but it's just so easy for us to cherry pick the Bible.) Verses 19-25. "Therefore" Actually this is a warning passage to not take the revelation and the grace (the cognitive and affective parts of our experience) for granted. How can we trample--by direct rejection or apathy--the sacrifice of Christ and expect anything but judgment? "Sin willfully" means the sin of unbelief. Hebrews is about this sin, not about a particular moral failing or sin. As Jonathan Edwards preached, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Fearful if one believes and if one does not.  However, "remember your faithfulness before" A very stunning change. They are wavering due to persecution, but the persecution will ...

 At first reading, and second, Hebrews 10 seems to be repeating the main argument of 8-9, but I think it's just going deeper, some looping back, with moe evidence, to re-emphasize that Christ's work was complete. It adds more information about eschatology (12-13) and repeats the all-important Jeremiah prophesy. Here is the core of Christology , soteriology , and eschatology . (If you don't know those words, please don't get put off with me; follow the links and expand your knowledge.) Most say go to Romans, but I will always have a deeper affinity for Hebrews as a seedbed of theology.  v. 19 is a big "therefore"--having boldness, not pride or conceitedness, but boldness based on what he has written--go straight to God and draw near with full assurance.   What follows is serious material. 

Verse 28: In the second coming, Christ comes "apart from sin." The second coming will not be about his conquering sin on the cross. He will not become "a sin offering." (I do not believe that Christ became sin on the cross; that is too mystical, like the Eucharist. But I know many disagree with me. They use II Corinthians 5:21 for the teaching. So be it.) v. 16: For a covenant (testament) to go into effect, someone has to die..." Chapter 10 continues to pour on the arguments about Christ's superiority. The writer doesn't hold back. I wonder, then, what is holding his readers back? 1. tradition? 2. the continual nature of the animal sacrifices versus the completion, finalness of Christ's? 3. the physicality of the acrifices, something they could see? 4. The fact that the bringing of the sacrifices depended on them? Yes. Verse 10 is a culmination: By that will (willingness to obey) we have been sanctified through the offering of Jesus Christ (an offer...

The writer had to be a Jew or a Jewish insider, describing in detail the rituals. "The way into the Holiest of all was not yet made manifest while the first tabernacle was still standing."  If the theme of Hebrews is that Jesus is better, then that means the First Testament system was innately inferior, incomplee, a representation but not the real. "They could not make him who perfomed the service perfect in regard to conscience .... (v. 14) "how much more shall the blood of Christ .... cleanse you conscience from dead works to serve the living God?"  The death of Christ is about what Jeremiah prophesied: "they shall know me." There is a deep spiritual--and otherwise--transformation that cleanses our conscience. It's not just a superficial forgiveness, a ritual cleaning we do to feel we met our requirements and paid through the sometimes hefty price of an animal sacrifice. It is a reckoning with God, or should be. How much the "conversion exp...

 This is my life group lesson (for the two or three who come) for November 15.  Philippians 2:12-30. I think we make a mistake in Bible Study of focusing on the larger than life characters/personages with many chapters about them. For example, Paul, Moses, David.   While that is understandable to some extent, I think it has some problems. First, it means we make them like heroes with no flaws, and they had a lot of flaws and are not meant to be replacements for the example of Christ. Second, we miss the everyday people in Scripture who were faithful, two of whom are mentioned here: Timothy and Epaphroditus.   Timothy: In this case Timothy is one of the few Paul can count on. Paul will send him to represent himself to the Philippians. Paul says something sad here in verses 20-21. This echoes what he says in the first chapter, that some people preach Christ in a way that still gives the gospel but has a motive of hurting Paul or discrediting hi...

 This very clear passage does not need explication; I will only summarize and make minor comments.   There was a covenant between God and Israel. Israel broke it over and over. God promised a new one through Jeremiah that included everyone; Jesus' death and resurrection confirmed it; the old one is obsolete "and vanishing away" (a reference to AD 70?)  This does raise the question of the theological status of Israel. I wrote in my journal something black/white and controversial about that, but I'll leave it out. Since I am at a point in my life where I question and reject a lot of evangelical party line "stuff" (with emphasis on the party), I will not get into that here.  Let's just ask--is God through with Jews as an ethnic identity, as a religion, or as individuals? God is never through with individuals, is my take.

 One could stay here for a while. There is indisputable logic here, assuming, as with the rest of the revelation, one accepts the premise of what is revealed in the First Testament concerning the purpose and history of Judaism of that time (not Judaism now).  "He always lives to make intercessions for us.  He lives (is not subject to death) to make intercessions. it goes on. The cross-death was once for all, yet it is continually applied, continually remembered, continually effective.  So what does it mean, He's making intercessions? We don't have to worry about the sufficiency, completeness, the efficacy, the eternality, or the NOW-ness of His redemption. There is therefore now no condemnation .... (Romans 8:1).  For me, I don't have to feel or experience the overwhelming guilt that my temperament naturally feels, and I know I am not alone. If I sin (when I sin), He intercedes. It is confessed and Ia m forgiven, but I don't have to bear he load as if I could, t...

I don't think it's because I'm getting tired of Hebrews--that's not possible, either for anyone because of its riches or for me because of my love for it. However, when I come to this passage, I am not sure I can add much to a reading of it.   Hebrews shows the superiority of Christ in many ways, but primarily over the Levitical priesthood system of regular animal sacrifices, which were a picture of the need for sacrifice and death due to the power of sin in individual and corporate lives of Jews and people in general. Everything about it is displaced, improved upon, completed, and perfected by the Mediator of the New Covenant, one of the names of Christ we often overlook.   In doing so the writer interprets the Old Testament for us. I don't believe we can understand the Old Testament without Hebrews; at the same time we can't fully understand what God wants for us in the Church age, or whatever one wants to call the NOW, without it. 9:24-28 summarizes it in a c...

I imagine this series will go on to about 60 or 70 posts.  I don't know what I will do with them afterward.  I hope there are readers--please comment or send me an email at btbarbaratucker11@gmail.com if you have questions, if you came across this and would like to talk.  Something that evangelicalism (a movement I have more or less stepped away from due to the political connections) has not communicated well, in my humble opinion, is that Christian faith is a journey, not a moment in time.  I don't like to use the word progressive, because, again, of its political associations, but there is a progression motif in the Christian experience that has been overlooked.  We hear it in experiential songs, that "something happened, and now I know, He touched me and made me whole." One time did it all. I decided it for Jesus and that took care of it.   I mean, didn't Jesus say, "It is finished" on the cross and then died? Shouldn't His death close this all ou...

After establishing Christ's identity as the perfect but non-Levitical priest, the writers establishes a list of all the way Jesus is superior to the typical human high priest. He piles on the evidence. The argument depends on the foundation. There were witnesses who saw the miracles of the resurrection, baptisms, even speeches of Jesus still alive at that time. He doesn't need to establish the historical record again.  This line of argument depends on the Old Testament types and connections to Judaism.  He lives forever (not like a human priest.  He does not have to offer sacrifices for Himself, because He did not sin.  He passed into heaven and abides with God. He makes intercession continually for us. (A thought to explore next time) I will let the passage speak for itself:  23  Also there were many priests, because they were prevented by death from continuing. 24  But He, because He continues forever, has an unchangeable priesthood. 25  There...