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.