Post 14: Study of Hebrews 2:1-4

-

 Verse 3 also speaks to the methods of this salvation being communicated. To those who would say Jesus preached a different gospel than Paul (heresy; Paul is spinning in his grave over that one), the salvation being spoken of “was preached by the Lord and confirmed to those who heard Him.” They didn’t see a breach between what Jesus preached and accomplished and what the apostolic church proclaimed. It is of a piece. If we see a distinction between the kingdom and justification by faith, it is only because our cultural intellectual world view has made it so, specifically our extreme individualism, which plagues us worse than COVID.

Does the writer give something away here: Was confirmed to us by those who heard Him? Is the writer saying he was with Christ during the earthly ministry? (I’ll drop the gender argument for ease of writing and to avoid they, which I realize is acceptable now but grates against this old English prof obsessed with grammatical agreement).  Was this writer one of the original apostles, or at the ascension? I reject Paul as a writer; it really isn’t his style at all, nor his theology. Paul never really writes about the High Priesthood of Christ. I still say it could be John, but only could be.

To finish the paragraph, the writer talks about how the message was confirmed: signs, wonders, miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit. Those were central to the deliverance of the message, as revealed in the First Testament:  the Messiah would do these things, “according to His will.”

Friday: So, what is the personal lesson, the walk-away from 2:1-4?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Kallman's Syndrome: The Secret Best Kept

-
I went to my cardiologist yesterday.   Every year I have to wear a Holter monitor for a day because of a heart ablation I had in 2007.   If you don’t know what a Holter monitor is, it’s a 24-hour mobile, wires-hanging-off-your-body EKG.   The nurse practitioner saw me, (not the doctor, which is ok because his voice puts me to sleep).   She was very sweet.   She asked me if I was still taking Estradiol and Progesterin.   “No,” I said. “I’ve totally gone off those.   I was on them for a very long time and I wanted to be sure to stop.” What I didn’t tell her is how long I actually had taken those hormones.   37 years.   I started with HRT when I was 17 because I have Kallman’s Syndrome.   You may never meet a person who has this condition.   It only affects 1 in 10,000 people (or 1 in 86,000, according to one source) so that’s quite a range and far more males have it than females (as do most negative things).   So, being female, I am quite an oddit
Read more

Annie Dillard on Writing Advice and Some Observations

-
  https://getpocket.com/explore/item/write-as-if-you-were-dying-read-annie-dillard-s-greatest-writing-advice?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us I frequently listen to a podcast called THE HABIT. Its host is Jonathan Rogers, who for the most part interviews writers with a Christian focus. He is a better interviewer than I, and he runs a community of writers. I recommend him. I do have to say that the podcast makes me feel very shallow as a writer.  One reason is that Jonathan Rogers has a signature question, Who are the writers that make you want to write? If I ever land on his program (a dream), I will need an answer to that one, and right now I don't have one. Sure, there are writers I like, lots of them, but reading them doesn't send me to my computer to get cracking. They are more likely to make me think, you've got no business doing this writing gig.  Actually, bad or mediocre writers motivate me more although I am not exactly proud of that. And the fact that what I want to
Read more