Tuesday, June 19, 2007

The Letter to the Hebrews

I have been busy reading and re-reading Hebrews, because I love it, because I'm trying to memorise it, and because I will be preaching on it at our church for two weeks while our minister takes a well-earned holiday.

I'm now in Hebrews 7 in my memorisation, and am listening to Don Carson's Hebrews talks from the 2002 John Bunyan Conference. If I can squeeze it in, I would also like to listen to Professor Carson's talks on The Use of the Old Testament in Hebrews. You can find these talks and download them for a very cheap price at Christwaymedia.

I hope to speak on The Superiority of Jesus in Hebrews 1:1-2:4 and on Becoming a Mature Christian from Hebrews 5:7-6:20. After choosing these topics and passages, I was interested to see what Raymond Brown says in his introduction to Hebrews in his Bible Speaks Today exposition, Christ Above All. [Raymond Brown, the former principal of Spurgeon College, not Raymond Brown, the eminent Roman Catholic commentator.]
The letter appeals to severely tested believers, some of whom have been physically assaulted, had their homes plundered, been cast into prison and been exposed to fierce persecution, to keep their faith firmly anchored to the moorings of truth, to maintain their steady confidence in Christ and to press on to mature Christian stability.

The author encourages these folk to persevere, to keep going, to take hold of the hope set before them, but before he does this, he firstly tells them to look, not to themselves for inward strength, not to their contemporaries, but to Christ. No believer can cope with adversity unless Christ fills his horizons, sharpens his priorities and dominates his experience.
Please note that the above is a slight rearrangement of Brown's words and not a direct quote.
Brown shows that the writer begins with an exposition of Christ as prophet [1:1-2], priest [1:3] and king [1:8-14]. He sees the book's message as gathered around two themes:
Revelation: the word of God
Redemption: the work of Christ.
The word of God dominates chapters 1-6 and 11-13, whereas the work of Christ has priority of place in the central section, chapters 7-10.
Brown has another way of putting this, which is
a. What God has said to us through human channels, and different historical contexts, and in Christ, God's greatest and final message to us

b. What Christ has done for us, by fulfilling and transcending and making obsolete the priesthood and sacrifices of the Old Testament.

Monday, June 04, 2007

Meeting with the author

Partly in view of my ever-closer meeting with the author, I'm continuing to pursue reading the bible quickly and slowly. Reading the New Living Translation, 2nd edition is continuing to be enjoyable, and I have now read
Genesis
Exeodus
Leviticus
Esther
Job
Proverbs
Ecclesiastes
Lamentations
Joel
Obadiah
Nahum
Habakkuk
Zephaniah
Haggai
and
Malachi
from the Old Testament
and Mark
Romans
Galatians
Philippians
1 and 2 Thessalonians
Titus
Philemon
Hebrews
James
2 and 3 John
and Jude
from the New Testament.

I'm working on Jeremiah, reading through Psalms a few psalms at a time and have nearly completed Matthew.

Reading Jeremiah is being done in conjunction with listening to Philip Ryken's 66 sermons, which I downloaded via Itunes, via Preaching the Bible. I wish Mr Ryken's sermons were preceded by the bible reading each one is based on, but I don't think our minister's are, either!

And, I am now working on the last verses of Hebrews 6, which takes me to only one third of the way through Hebrews, as chapters, 7,9-12 have so many verses. What a huge emphasis on the greatness of Christ and on keeping going as a Christian!

I used to recite the chapters I had been working on when I went for a walk, but now it is colder, I'm using a treadmill for exercise, and find it hard to concentrate on the memorising and using the treadmill.