Partakers Christian Podcasts

Highlights in Hebrews 16

Highlights in Hebrews

(with Roger Kirby)
Part 16 - Hebrews 6:4-8
The perils of falling away.

 

It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned.

This is a tricky passage. It seems not to agree with what is said elsewhere in scripture. But here it is in front of us and we must heed what it says. To highlight the problem here is one famous type of theology, followed by Reformed churches, which indicates the alternative very forcefully. T.U.L.I.P. is the mnemonic used by some of the more extreme advocates of a Calvinistic theology. These stand for:

• T - Total depravity. This does not mean everyone is just as bad as they could possibly be but that everyone is naturally so sinful the initiative for their salvation must come from God, even when they think it is their own choice to follow him
• U - Unconditional election. God chooses us; we do not choose him.
• L - Limited atonement. Jesus did not die for all men and women, being only made effective for those who he chooses. Rather he only died for those who God knew he would call.
• I - Irresistible grace. If God decides to call us we are called. There is nothing we can do about it; we cannot refuse his offer.
• P - Perseverance of the saints. Once chosen, called and saved we cannot turn away from that. We are believers for ever.
  
  

There is much to commend in this view of faith. All these points can, and are, easily supported by scripture quotations. Reading through all these things is a useful reminder that becoming a follower of Jesus is not like joining the Boy Scouts or the local golf club. There we, or our parents, pay the joining fee and we are in. It is all our doing. But when we become followers of Jesus we are not the sole partakers in what happens. God has a part to play. In fact he has the major part to play. In particular we receive from him the gift of the Holy Spirit. Once we have received that gift can we back out of the arrangement? No, of course not says TULIP. But the verses in front of us in Hebrews say something different.
There is no easy way to reconcile the two. The easy, but rather unsatisfactory, way out is to say the one who is falling away was never really a Christian believer in the first place, but was just imitating the activities of those who are. But that doesn’t really fit. Our writer talks about a person being enlightened, tasting the heavenly gift (presumably meaning experiencing the power and joy of heavenly love), sharing in the Holy Spirit, becoming excited by reading the Bible and looking forward to the eventual life in the kingdom. These two things simply do not fit.
How you resolve this tension will depend almost entirely on your background and the sort of church you are in. I will say just this:the TULIP type approach gives us great confidence in the Lord and encouragement on our way; what our writer says is a strong warning against the perils of turning away from faith once embarked on the great journey it offers. Both points of view are found in scripture and we must heed both.

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Highlights in Hebrews 15

Highlights in Hebrews

(with Roger Kirby)

Part 15 - Hebrews 5:11 – 6:3

Poor scholars

We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.

Therefore let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken forward to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, instruction about cleansing rites, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And God permitting, we will do so.

The writer has a grumble about the poor level of knowledge of Christian things in many of the churches of his day. If your situation is anything like ours you will agree that nothing much has changed in nearly 2000 years!

I would place a lot of the blame on the idea of the sermon as it is commonly used in our country. What is the purpose of a sermon? The answer would seem to be something like this:it is part entertainment and part so that those attending may be convinced that good things have been said. They will therefore go home pleased by what they have heard rather than gaining anything from it. This is particularly true of the so called ‘gospel address’. This consists of a statement about the sinfulness of the average person, a call to repentance and conversion and an exhortation to ‘follow Jesus’. This is preached even if there is no one present who is not known to be a Christian or is a hardened listener to such things without the slightest intention that they should change their ways. Everyone goes home pleased that ‘the gospel’ has been preached even if there has been no effect, and no effect could ever have been expected. Any preacher who fails to follow this pattern will be in grave danger of never being asked again however Biblical what he, or she, said may have been. This is the pattern in thousands of churches, chapels and meeting houses in our country. What about yours?
No school teacher or university lecturer could expect to get away with such things. Only a minority of the population is capable of learning anything after about 10 or 20 minutes anyway so the preacher who goes on for a further 10 or 20 minutes is wasting their breath. There - I’ve had my grumble too to add to that of the writer!

What can we do about it? Not a lot has to be the sad answer. We need to think hard and carefully about what it is we are doing. I remember a church in a city containing a large number of students. The preacher catered for the students preaching in a university lecture style and many of them took notes as he spoke. But some of the older locals grumbled about that because it was not the conventional wisdom they expected. I also remember asking the pastor of a church in Pakistan, many of whose congregation will have been illiterate, whether he got them to learn passages of scripture off by heart. He was amazed at the very suggestion even although he was working in a culture where learning by heart the Qu’ran was an accepted and encouraged practice. Conservative Evangelical churches tend to be generally conservative so any change is frowned upon.

We need to learn these things our writer talks about. That is why Dave works away at these Partaker notes. Read them and learn from them every day. If possible go on to some of the study courses he also makes available.

Learn and teach to be a true disciple of the Jesus who ran a 3 year study course for his disciples and a true user of the Holy Spirit in your life and that of those you are able to disciple.

Two of the action words of the Great Commission in Matthew 28 are discipling and teaching. Go. Disciple and teach.

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Highlights in Hebrews 14

Highlights in Hebrews

(with Roger Kirby)

Part 14 - Hebrews 4:14–16

Jesus the great high priest

Here are the first 6 verses: “Every high priest is selected from among the people and is appointed to represent the people in matters related to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray, since he himself is subject to weakness. This is why he has to offer sacrifices for his own sins, as well as for the sins of the people. And no one takes this honour on himself, but he receives it when called by God, just as Aaron was. In the same way, Christ did not take on himself the glory of becoming a high priest. But God said to him,
“You are my Son; today I have become your Father.”
And he says in another place, “You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.”

Chapter 5 starts with what may be a somewhat idealised description of life with the original high priests. All too often a man appointed to a high position will forget his background and begin to lord it over people rather than ‘dealing gently with them’. Perhaps, you may retort it was different because these men were appointed by God, not man, but we must remember that although Aaron was appointed by God he became the prime mover at the incident of the golden calf so even that was no guarantee of always having a good man in post as the high priest.

Anyway, after quoting two Old Testament statements, our writer proceeds to talk about Jesus, where he was on firmer ground. And so we come to verses 7 to 10 which are indeed the central statement of the whole book.

Here they are, “During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek.”

The curious use of Melchizedek is a big subject, which comes to prominence in chapter 7, so we will look at it then.

There are 2 possible ways to see problems in these verses. Was Jesus originally disobedient if he had to learn obedience? And was he less that perfect if he had to be ‘made perfect’? These two things touch on the very central core of the Christian faith. It is the common view of people that it is best to be strong and dominant, to be one who does not give way or suffer being put down. Jesus taught otherwise. But his way is so different even he had to learn it in his obedience to his Father. It came to a pinnacle as he approached the cross. It was his supreme test. And as the perfect student only reaches perfection when he, or she, sits the exam and achieves 100% so it was only when Jesus was put to that final test that he could be shown to be perfect.

Paul puts it beautifully in Philippians 2:6 - 8 when he says,
“Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!”

Of course Paul then goes on to say, “Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

And that is it. The way up is down; our Lord and Master lowered himself, setting us an example which it is very hard to follow. If we are naturally not one of nature’s strong men or women it is not so difficult. But if we are one of them then it is very hard to walk as he walked. He is the “source of eternal salvation for all who obey him”. May the good Lord find us to be those who obey him.

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Highlights in Hebrews 13

Highlights in Hebrews

(with Roger Kirby)

Part 13 - Hebrews 4:14–16

Jesus the great High Priest

 

“Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” Hebrews 4:14-16

Apart from a passing mention in Hebrews 3:1 this is the first mention of Jesus by the writer as the great high priest - an idea which is going to dominate the next 6 chapters and thus forms the central core of his book.

He is going to talk of Jesus as high priest against the background of the Old Testament and not the current reality of his day. The high priest used to be the spiritual leader of the people of God. But by the times in which the writer lived he had become a political figure as well. The Romans appointed him and he was regarded by them as responsible for the way the people lived within the Roman empire - quite a difficult task.

In those next few chapters we will have plenty of opportunity to think about the spiritual aspects of high priesthood. Here we will look at the political work of Jesus. This was that he had set up a new kingdom, the kingdom of God, of which he was the king or at least the Crown Prince under his Father God.

It is the kingdom to which we belong as citizens of heaven, as Paul said in Philippians 3:20 ‘our citizenship is in heaven’. If we are Christian we have two passports, representing two citizenships. One, the obvious one, is our citizenship, our membership, of a nation in this world, the one into which we were born. The second, less obvious but more important one, is our citizenship of the kingdom of God. We are here, now, members of it on earth. One day we shall become members of it in heaven when we die. What a huge privilege that is and will be.

It is hard to change your citizenship from one country to another. It is equally hard to change our citizenship and leave the Kingdom of God, which is just as well considering how easily we can be tempted to try to do so. That is what the writer means when he talks about how we are to ‘hold firmly to the faith we profess’.

And it is only from within the kingdom that we can ‘approach God’s throne of grace with confidence’. That is pretty obvious. The king does not go visiting other kingdoms, so we need to be members of his kingdom to approach him. The kingdom is not all pleasure and excitement. Many difficult things will happen within it but we need not worry because the king has been there before us ‘tempted in every way just as we are’. The prime temptation that the writer will have been thinking of was the way in which Jesus felt a natural human horror at the thought of the cross, and how he wrestled in the garden of Gethsemane with his wish that he could avoid it. Someone has said that the biggest miracle Jesus ever did was not to turn away from his destiny on the cross! But he didn’t, so we can ‘find grace to help in our time of need’.

What a king! What a kingdom! What a great high priest to lead his people not only in spiritual things but in all the many difficulties and troubles of their every day lives.

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Highlights in Hebrews 12

Highlights in Hebrews

(with Roger Kirby)

Part 12 - Hebrews 4:12-13
Under the knife.

For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

It is hard for us to see any benefit in the work of a sword. The writer will not have known anything about a surgeon’s scalpel so he could not have used that picture for what he wanted to say. But that does not stop us doing so. A surgeon’s scalpel, that little thin knife, is probably the sharpest sort of blade that there is around these days so it would make a good illustration.

‘The word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any surgeon’s scalpel ….’few of us modern people will not at some time in our lives had to willingly submit ourselves to a surgeon carrying out an operation on us. He (or it may have been a she) may have had to sort out some part: a finger, an arm or a leg, that got broken. He will cut to make it better, to ensure that things naturally heal in the way that they should and not in some twisted way that will leave us permanently crippled. Or there may have been something wrong with one of the major organs in our body and he has had to go deeper in and try to sort things out. Yes, a surgeon’s scalpel is a better illustration of what the writer wants to say than a double-edged sword because its purpose is beneficial

The word of God that the writer was thinking about would almost certainly have been mainly the Old Testament. It may, or may not, (we don’t know when this book was written) have included any of the New Testament we know, but will almost certainly have included information about the life and words of Jesus. Our Bible has both Testaments, of course. Paying close attention to these Words of God will not always be a comfortable process. Sometimes, it will cut deep in order to straighten us out, make sure we do not get twisted in our thinking, keep us long term healthy when things were beginning to go wrong.

Make sure that you live a long and healthy life by paying close attention to the wonderful Word of God that we have in the scriptures. Sometimes they may cut deep to sort us out so that we continue along the good and narrow way. That will then ensure that we reach the ‘rest’ we were thinking about a few verses back, the Kingdom of God both in this life and the next. Another psalmist said, (Psalm 119:11) “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.” The writer of Hebrews was thinking of what we should do; the Psalmist was more concerned with the outcome.

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Thursday Story - CS Lewis

Thursday Story

People meeting Jesus

The story of CS Lewis...

We continue apace into the twentieth century and hear the story of perhaps one of the foremost Christian thinkers of our age – CS Lewis. Let’s look together at how and why he started his own Christian journey and the relevancy of Jesus Christ to his life! It may not be what you have heard it said to be! Come and listen to his story of faith...

Click or Tap here to listen to or save this as an audio mp3 file~

 

Highlights in Hebrews 11

Highlights in Hebrews

(with Roger Kirby)

Part 11 - Hebrews 4:11
Seeking rest

“Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience.” Hebrews 4:11

‘Rest’ now there’s a thing! I hope you manage to get some even if you are a young Mum with several children, a farmer striving to get enough to eat out of a patch of not very good ground, or a busy executive in industry. Our writer never says very much about what he means here, thus indicating that the expects us all to know what ‘rest’ is. He has at least four different sorts of rest in mind:

1. ‘Rest’ is an essential and totally necessary part of the world we live in because even the Lord God rested ‘from all his work’ (Genesis 2:2). Rest is an essential part of creation.
2. Having set this example to all creation it became part of the law set out for all the people of God in Exodus 20: 8 - 11. Leviticus 16:29-31 even associates the day of rest with the cleansing of atonement. Unfortunately it became, and still is, one of the walls built around Israel to keep others, Gentiles, out. So that, instead of being a good thing it became a bit of a bad thing.
3. The Psalmist in Psalm 95:8-11 thinks of the Promised Land, towards which they journeyed through the desert, as a place of rest. There they would be able to settle down, stop travelling and putting up tents every night, build houses, cultivate the land and by generating a little more than they actually needed become richer and be able to have some leisure. Unfortunately that did not go well. They were not obedient in all they did as they travelled; they ‘hardened their hearts and ‘tried’ the Lord making him angry with them, thus delaying their arrival in the land by forty years (Psalm 95: 9, 10) thus serving as a warning to those for whom the psalmist was writing not to behave as they did.
4. The writer to the Hebrews uses all this background as a warning to his readers, including us, about how to behave. He does this by laying emphasis on the word ‘Today’ thus connecting the words of the psalm with the situation of his readers, like us. It is not completely clear what he now means by ‘rest’. He calls it a Sabbath rest but seems to mean something rather more than a weekly day off. One way of thinking of it is as entry into the Kingdom. In the Kingdom of God we will be able to rest; we shall no longer be struggling to gain acceptance by God because Jesus has secured that for us by his death on the Cross; when our days here are done we shall move, still within the Kingdom, into the glory where we shall surely have the real and final ‘rest’.

‘Rest’ number 4 takes us back to number 1 and the greater glory. ‘Rests’ numbers 2 and 3 are but stepping stones on the way. In a practical every day way these things are important. There is a realisation amongst those who know such things that there is a limit to how much work a person can do in a week. If someone is overworked in terms of hours, or demand on them, they become less effective than if they have a reasonable amount of rest. In our society that used to be accomplished by most people taking a Sunday/Sabbath rest. Shops were shut. Fields were not ploughed. By far the greater number of people in our society did not have any work to do on a Sunday.

All that has now changed. In our society the urge to get as many sales and therefore as great an income as possible means many people now have to work on a Sunday. Since the same number of people have the same amount of money to spend (allowing for the increase in population and general levels of affluence) it is hard to see who has benefited by this change. It just makes it harder for ordinary people to get an adequate amount of rest. As so often the Biblical, God-given way of doing things was, and is, better than that developed by ever greedy human beings. I hope you do not have to work beyond gaining a reasonable amount of rest, day by day and week by week.

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Highlights in Hebrews 10

Highlights in Hebrews

(with Roger Kirby)

Part 10 - Hebrews 3:14
Hold on tight

Or as the NIV has it “let us hold firmly to the faith we profess”. That is very good advice, perhaps particularly for older folk, like me. (Sorry - if you can count yourself still young. Though it is probably worth while reading or listening on because one day we may all hope to become old if the Lord does not take us early.) It is very easy as our natural vigour slides away from us to begin to lose the vigour of our faith. Once we used to spend a lot of time working with the Sunday School or the young people of the church- now we are too old; or we used to do a lot of preaching but now our voice is beginning to betray our age, our memory is not as good as it was and it takes us many more words to say something than it used to do; or we have simply been active around the church but now we are too arthritic, or lazy, to do so.

Some of that is natural. In fact we can divide what happens into two parts: there is natural energy and vigour and there is spiritual energy and vigour. We quite inevitably lose some of our natural energy as we get older. For some of us this becomes evident to us, and other people, as we get into our 60s or even 50s. For some it is not so evident even as we get into our 70s or 80s. This we cannot fight or do much about apart from aiming to keep ourselves active and fit as long as possible by exercising or walking nearly every day, assuming you do not live in one of the parts of the world where you are expected to work until you are completely incapable of doing so.

But our spiritual energy is another matter. To some extent it will fade as our natural energy fades but it is also true that we can control it better. It may well change its shape as we get older. But we can hold on firmly to our faith. We can pray more when we pass retirement age, or the need to work everyday. We will have more time to explore the foundations of our faith. We can aim to become more knowledgeable about scripture and more loving towards our Lord as we gain an ever increasing understanding of what he has done for us and therefore what he means to us. We may become much better equipped to be a mentor to a younger person. Fundamentally we never know when we may not be called to use some skill in the Lord’s service even in our very old age. 

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What Christians Believe - Nicene Creed

This year, Christians around the world are observing the 1,700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea — an event that significantly influenced the Christian faith and continues to unify believers across centuries and traditions. Convened in 325 by Emperor Constantine in what is now modern-day Turkey, the Council of Nicaea resulted in the creation of the Nicene Creed: the first universal summary of Christian belief. We pray together and when Christians pray together, from different nations, different churches and different denominations - that reveals Church unity! Come! Let us pray and profess together!

Nicene Creed

What we believe as Christians...

 

We believe in one God,

the Father Almighty,

Maker of heaven and earth,

and of all that is,

seen and unseen.

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We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,

the only Son of God,

eternally begotten of the Father,

God from God,

Light from Light,

true God from true God,

begotten, not made,

of one being with the Father.

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Through Him all things were made.

For us and for our salvation

He came down from heaven:

by the power of the Holy Spirit,

He became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,

and was made man.

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For our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate;

He suffered death and was buried.

On the third day He rose again

in accordance with the Scriptures:

He ascended into heaven

and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,

and his kingdom will have no end.

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We believe in the Holy Spirit,

the Lord, the giver of life,

who proceeds from the Father and the Son.

With the Father and the Son,

He is worshipped and glorified.

He has spoken through the Prophets.

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We believe in one, holy,

catholic (universal), and apostolic Church.

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

We look for the resurrection of the dead,

and the life of the world to come.

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Amen

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Highlights in Hebrews 9

Highlights in Hebrews

(with Roger Kirby)
Part 9 - Hebrews 3:13

Working Together

Hebrews 3:13 tells us we should “encourage one another daily”. That was presumably good advice in those days when everyone lived on top of each other in very small and cramped accommodation. It does not work so well with many of us who may be living in one place, working in another and finding fellowship in a third place. In our last study I suggested that we should be careful to work out a schedule for our personal time with the Lord and stick to it - even if it was not the ‘approved’ version.

Exactly the same thing is true here. We need fellowship, preferably fellowship of the sort that encourages each other with the sort of friendly fellowship contact that a small group can give. We need to have a good schedule for such things and stick to it. Once a week in a big church building listening to a preacher is not really the best way to do this, popular though it is! If you live in one of those parts of the world where the small shops are closing and everyone does most of their shopping in big stores, supermarkets, then also driving to a big church once a week, or even less often, would seem to fit with that lifestyle. But we are people, naturally gregarious people, if not quite pack animals, who need human contact to live good and happy lives. Going in to a big church once a month for some entertainment is not what we were designed to do!

As our writer goes on to say,

“ See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end.” (Hebrews 3:12–14).

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