Post 9 of Study: Hebrews 1

 It might be time, as we will have a couple of posts wrapping up Hebrews 1(and it may be a few days before I start into chapter 2), to step back and ask a few questions. 

1. Why these posts? Ultimately, for the edification of anyone who comes across the blog or reads it more regularly, which is only a handful of people. I always define handful as the number of fingers, so maybe it's two handfuls. 

2. To process my own thinking and put it in more permanent form. 

3. To engender discussion. 

4. Honestly, in hopes it will draw people to my other writing. Sorry not sorry. 

I am not writing these because I think I'm an expert or have anything much new or profound to say. I do not. However, I will say this. Hebrews is, and I think has to, challenge our thinking. I don't like the cliche about the box, but it's making me think that way. My theological life has been risk-averse: don't go outside the lines of what the "conservative evangelical John MacArthur Moody Bible Institute crowd" would espouse. I don't want to make anyone mad or think I'm not one of them. 

If one honestly studies a text, it might take you in a different direction. Now, don't worry; the book of Hebrews has been studied and analyzed and written about for close to 2000 years, and I've read the sources, took a class in college on the book, have taught it, etc. I love this book probably above the others, if that's possible, except maybe John's gospel. I would never teach anything off-the-wall about it. But this reading is making me see that our neat Western world view that puts ideas in outlines and says "here and no further" can get in the way. 

We face this, as I mentioned yesterday, when we get into how the writer argues for the superiority of Christ over the angels. One, why is that even necessary; context, context, context--Colossians shows us there was angel worship in the early church, maybe tied to gnosticism, and Old Testament and Jewish lore were replete with angels. Second, how do all these verses relate to that argument?

First they relate because the audience is Jewish and Messiah-centric, not "send me to heaven savior if I ask Jesus into my heart"-centric. The audience is steeped in the Old Testament, which we are not. I say steeped here and think about the coffee pot I had to clean yesterday. No matter how much I scrubbed the Pyrex pot on my cheap Mr. Coffee, I couldn't get all the coffee stains out of it. I think it will always be a slight brown. We treat the Old Testament as a place we visit; they would have known it as a place they live. 

Second, they relate because Creator/Messiah/Son/Savior are categories or roles or names for the same person, but we struggle with that because they seem to have little connection. 

Third, we struggle because we just don't use the concordance and cross-references, which is the only way to study the text. Thousands of scholars have worked on these references, so we are foolish not to use them. When the writer quotes Psalm 2:7, he is also quoting Paul in Acts 13:33, and I imagine Paul is citing it as a common connection made in the early church. Any time we study Scripture, we have to remember John's parting lines: Jesus did a lot more than is recorded or even recordable (at least at that time; today we would think we have truth because of video recording, which is a conceit). I have to conclude Jesus taught them this in all that time He was with them. I think it unlikely that the apostles would make up doctrines not revealed to them. 

In short, the superior Jesus who the writer explicates in Hebrews 1 is not the martyr of the cross but the Messiah/King/Son, is mighty, victorious, begotten as the firstborn. We know that Muslims reject our faith because of this doctrine of God having a Son, but the Jews would also have rejected "God with a kid" idea even more, and did. This doctrine lies in the context of something bigger, and that's where it gets "messy" and outside the box.