Introduction

The Church of St. John the Divine

Introduction

September 14, 2017 • Meg Rice

The book of Hebrews is a call for us to mature in our faith from milk to the meat of the gospel. Don’t we want all there is in life for us? Don’t we want to live a life in freedom? Then let’s journey together through Hebrews. Let’s leave the milk and Pablum of our faith and start to chew on the meat of the gospel. When we taste the mature faith, we’ll be enthralled with the person of Jesus, and our lives will never be the same.

Lesson 1

September 21, 2017 • Meg Rice

For a Jew living in the time of Jesus, the thought of dispensing with 2,000 years of tradition was traumatic. The prophets of the Old Testament were the lifeblood of Jewish knowledge. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus spawned a new religion that seemed to be threatening their age-old values.

Lesson 2

September 28, 2017 • Meg Rice • Hebrews 3—4

The next hurdle for the author of Hebrews is to convince the Jews who profess Jesus as their Christ that he is better than Moses. The religious leaders of Jesus’ day continually confronted Jesus with the teachings of Moses to show Jesus was not who he said he was. In chapter 3, the author compares Moses and Jesus to show Jesus is far superior. This is revolutionary thought for a Jew of Jesus’ day. This takes us back to our study of Exodus and the consequences of the ancient Hebrews when they did not believe the promises of the Living God.

Lesson 3

October 5, 2017 • Meg Rice

The author of Hebrews is slowly but surely arguing to the Hebrews that Jesus Christ is superior to those things that an ancient Hebrew held dear. The first focus was the superiority of Jesus to angels, then to Moses and Joshua. The Jewish priesthood with its sacrificial system is the next institution that was foundational to the Jewish way of life. The author will be proving that Jesus is superior to the high priest and turns his focus to a mysterious ancient biblical character named Melchizedek.