Hebrews Prep for Chapter 3

Hebrews, with its insistence on the preeminence of Christ, here furthers the argument with a comparison of Christ and Moses.  The argument here is a simple development of what has already been established in the letter's line of argumentation.  Jesus is worthy of imitation, specifically in his demonstration of faithfulness.  He is worthy of even greater honor that Moses, because while Moses was faithful in his role as a servant in God's house, Jesus is not only a servant, but the son who rules over the house.  In the metaphor, the house represents God's faithful people.  The writer then includes himself and the reader as part of the house, with the condition "if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast."  

The thought here really is similar to the note at the beginning of chapter 2, "so that we will not drift away".  Here though, the author picks up the thread and develops it more substantially.  holding on to our courage, being sure that we don't drift away, forms the core rhetorical objective of the letter.  The author's purpose throughout is to encourage the readers, to support them against the possibility of drifting away from the faith.  In 2:7 the letter turns to address that theme more fully.   

Some thoughts that pop out to me in this latter section of the chapter:

1.  Perseverance (which is behavioral) is tied to the ideas of belief and faith in this section.  An unbelieving heart is one that turns away.  In 18-19, disobedience is tied to unbelief.  so there is a connection between the behavioral and the cognitive here.  

2. Communal encouragement is a weapon against this type of disobedience.  By strengthening each other we become more resilient.   We are less likely to be deceived by sin, hardened by it.  The implication is that part of what happens when people abandon their faith is that they become discouraged, and discouragement opens the door for deceit.  I think this bears true to my experience as a witness.  I think discouragement is more deadly than ignorance in matters of faith, and yet our primary modes of operation seem to strike at education rather than encouragement.  Not that I believe education, the formation of better understandings, to be wasteful, but the role of specific strategic encouragement may be understated.  

3.  It strikes me that belief is a process, involving faithfulness over many years.  The jury is out on whether we truly believe, until it has been seen whether or not we will remain faithful.  Coming to faith is one thing, but remaining faithful is another, and one that is absolutely critical if we are to enter the promised land.  

4.  The argument here has an interesting relationship with the Hebrew tradition of the wilderness wanderings.  It is argued that Moses was faithful as a servant in all of God's house, but clearly many of those who followed him did not share in that faithfulness.  Their fear of scarcity, other forces, etc, drove them to unfaithfulness.  They lost faith that God would take care of them, that their current struggles would be resolved by God's deliverance into the promised land.  It begs us, who do not experience dependence but avoid any semblance of it, to consider in what ways we build the trust of God into our lives.  In what ways do we expeience our dependence on God?  Or to ask the question negatively and more bluntly, what do we turn to to make sure that we are independent, that we need not feel dependent on God at all?

First Reading: Isaiah 1-6

This morning I took my initial foray into the text of Isaiah, beginning the process of preparing our adult curriculum for September-December 2009.  Isaiah is on the schedule, and I've been watching it growing larger on the horizon with a wary eye.  This is going to be a difficult study to coordinate on a congregational level.  The first step  seems to be an initial reading of the whole text, which is a fair task in and of itself.  Today I started.  

It was difficult to get going.  The Hebrew prophets and their poetic oracles require some focus and preparation to read.  My mind kept resetting, grabbing whatever distractions were around me and derailing my groove.  And this stuff does require a groove.  It seems to me that once I got some sound isolating headphones on and a little Mozart (Serenade no. 13 in G Major), I found the right place to read from.  

A couple of thoughts from the reading this morning:  first, I think one of the challenges of this study is going to be responding to the text emotionally, not just rationally.  the poetic form of the material insists on the involvement of the reader's emotions.  Our tendency to pick apart scripture and dissect it for it's rational bits may be a barrier to overcome for the digestion of these particular texts.  That being said, if we can tap into the emotional nature of the text, we are offered the opportunity to align not just our minds with the thoughts of God, but our hearts with the feelings of God.  

Second, how do we produce the right type of environments for these texts to be heard?  I had to work pretty hard to get in the right place to read this stuff, and I am one of those geeks who really truly likes it!  So how do we help people who already have some resistance to the material to experience it in powerful ways?    

Regarding Isaiah

Initial thought about the 2009 fall curriculum: we're following Hebrews with Isaiah? Teaching neither of these is for the faint of heart! PV's teachers have to be wearing their big boy pants in 2009!

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