Sunday, June 6th, 2015
Intro to Hebrews:
The theme of Hebrews is the absolute supremacy and sufficiency of Jesus Christ as revealer and as mediator of God’s grace. The prologue (1:1–4) presents Christ as God’s full and final revelation, far surpassing the revelation given in the OT. The prophecies and promises of the OT are fulfilled in the “new covenant” (or “new testament”), of which Christ is the mediator. From the OT itself, Christ is shown to be superior to the ancient prophets, to angels, to Moses (the mediator of the former covenant) and to Aaron and the priestly succession descended from him. Hebrews could be called “the book of better things” since the two Greek words for “better” and “superior” occur 15 times in the letter. (www.biblica.com)
Questions for this week:
- Those in the Hall of Faith are ordinary people who lived out extraordinary faith; are you living out your faith in a way that your faithfulness is known as being “extraordinary”?
- What are some modern day examples or people living out extraordinary faith, either in our own community, locally, or globally?
- Read versus 39-40: what does it mean that God had planned something better for us, and that only together with us would they (those faithful ones talked about in chapter 11) be made perfect?