Partakers Christian Podcasts

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.

~

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.

~

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.

~

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.

~

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.

~

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.

~

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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Highlights in Hebrews 8

Highlights in Hebrews

(with Roger Kirby)

Part 8 - Hebrews 3:1
Jesus rules

The writer says “Therefore fix your thoughts on Jesus” (Hebrews 3:1) This reminds me very much of the old song that starts ‘fix your eyes on Jesus’. Both of them are very good advice.

The image they bring to my mind is that of a collie sheep dog. We, in this country, herd sheep with the help of dogs who race around the flock and move it in the right direction. A collie will walk alongside its master or mistress scarcely taking its eyes off them and so walking very awkwardly. At the slightest command they are away very fast to follow voice or whistled instructions. Not only are they very obedient they are also very intelligent - one of the most intelligent breeds there is. So if there is a fold in the ground that takes them out of sight of their master they will almost certainly continue to do the right thing.

In the previous chapter the writer has been explaining things about Jesus, how effective his death has been for us in making us acceptable to God in spite of our sinfulness and general waywardness. He has now come to a ‘therefore’, challenging us to live in a way worthy of Jesus. (He does this most of the way through his book, alternating descriptions of what Jesus has done for us with challenges of how we should respond to him.)

Here his ‘therefore’ indicates that we are being challenged to act towards him as a sheepdog does to its master: with complete obedience whenever possible and intelligence when it is not. That is an intelligence that has been well developed by our past history of concern for scripture reading whenever possible, studying it and developing a good working knowledge of what it says.

When and how we do this is important. It used to be that everyone was exhorted to start the day, everyday, with Bible reading and prayer. That is all very well if you are retired and come to life as soon as you wake up. If you have a young family, need to start work as soon as you can, or, like me, are quite hopeless until you have some breakfast inside you, that is not very good advice. What you need to do is to set yourself a pattern of activity with the Lord that will fit into your day or week. I remember one time in my life when it was one evening each week, always the same one, which I dedicated to Bible study and prayer. That fitted into my life in a way that an early morning daily ‘quiet time’, as we used to call it, would not. Don’t worry if you can’t fit into someone else’s idea of what you should do. Make up your own schedule and stick to it. The good Lord will surely approve of you if you do that provided you are consistent and persevering.

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Highlights in Hebrews 7

Highlights in Hebrews

(with Roger Kirby)

Part 7 - Hebrews 2:17
Jesus atones for us

For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.

A few days ago, as I write, Liverpool football club took on Real Madrid for the Champions of Europe cup. The game is remembered for two awful mistakes made by Loris Karius, the Liverpool goalkeeper. They might still have been beaten but he made sure they were. He threw the ball out far to close to an opponent who was able to score easily from it, then he let a very catchable ball slip through his hands into the goal. One can only imagine what he felt like in the changing room afterwards. He must have sat in a corner and wished the ground would open up and swallow him! Nothing he could do would remedy the situation. Nothing he could do would atone for his awful mistakes. They had lost and that was that. He will have been the outcast of the team. He will have been lucky if anyone was prepared to say anything kind to him. He will not have been at-one with the rest of the team. (Only much later did they realise he may have been concussed in an earlier incident.)
We too have made some awful mistakes. Nothing we can do will make us winners who can appear before the great Lord God. Although we may not have broken any of the greatest laws of mankind such as murder or adultery, we have failed to love the Lord our God with all our hearts and souls and minds. We have lost the game of life.

But we are not as Karius. We, amazingly, have been put at-one with the Lord God. Not through anything we have done or could possibly do, but because of what Jesus has done for us. Jesus has made at-one-ment for the sins of the people. He has done that by his death on the cross; by giving his blood as a sacrifice for us. Later our writer categorically announces that “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” (9:22) The reference is, of course, to the blood of animal sacrifices made for the forgiveness of sins. Why that should be is never completely clear but it is a fundamental background understanding through scripture. The writer to the Hebrews is going to go on to explain this background in great detail though he only uses the word ‘atonement’ once more in his book.

Rejoice then! We have been accepted into the favour of the Lord God through the action of Jesus. Charles Wesley’s great hymn starts, ‘And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Saviour’s blood’

 

Its answer is Yes, Yes, and Yes.

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Highlights in Hebrews 6

Highlights in Hebrews

(with Roger Kirby)

Part 6 - Hebrews 2:10
Jesus our pioneer

1 In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered.

Our main emphasis here is going to be on that word ‘pioneer’ but before we go there here is another thought from this verse.

Have you fully realised that you are a brother or a sister of the Lord of Creation? He is your elder brother. WOW and triple WOW!

The word translated ‘pioneer’ in the latest NIV or ‘author’ in the older one is quite tricky to get the full meaning of. Authors write down something that has not been written before; pioneers hack a new way through the jungle where no one has been before. I like to think of the word ‘pathfinder’ as a possible translation although I can’t find it in any version. A ‘pathfinder’ is a member of a unit of the British army whose dangerous job it is to go ahead of the main force; to identify where helicopters can land; to locate the enemy and where he can be best attacked. And those are just the things that Jesus did for us - with a bit of imagination.

 

What Jesus did was exceedingly dangerous - he actually had to die doing it. When the Lord God created our world he deliberately made it a chaotic place. It may seem strange to us but earthquakes, tsunamis, thunderstorms and so on are part of the very interesting place in which we live. Otherwise it would be a very boring place! He also ensured that we would not all be perfect, living to a ripe old age without any aches and pains or diseases on the way. But neither of those sets of chaotic problems are the worst part of life on this earth. No, the worst part is what men and women do to other men and women. The sinfulness of humans is the source of all the worst things that can happen to us. As a result suffering is a normal and almost essential part of our life experiences. Only in a comparatively few peaceful and quiet parts of the world can fortunate folk expect to live lives without suffering caused by humans.

It was the great and amazing intention of the Triune God that Jesus, the earthly embodiment of that Trinity, should be the pathfinder to force a way through the jungle of sinful humanity, to search out the enemy, Satan, and to die in doing so. In that victory his true people became his brothers and sisters. So, as the next verses say, “ Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.”(2:11) and “ Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil”.(2:14)

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Highlights in Hebrews 5

Highlights in Hebrews

(with Roger Kirby)

Part 5 - Hebrews 2:9
Jesus as representative man

“we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honour because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.”

Our writer quotes the psalmist (Psalm 8:4–6) in Hebrews 2:6-8:
“What is mankind that you are mindful of them,
a son of man that you care for him?
You made them a little[ lower than the angels;
you crowned them with glory and honour
and put everything under their feet.”

It is a tricky passage as is obvious from the lengthy footnotes in most English versions. The second line seems to be singular while all the other lines refer to mankind in the plural. It is the nearly unanimous opinion of modern translations that this is correct. The quotation refers back to Genesis 1:26 where God says, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” In an astonishing act God put the care of this world of ours in the hands of mankind. We haven’t done very well with it. As I write the main problem seems to be plastic in the seas. For centuries mankind has assumed that the oceans are so big we can dump anything we like into them and they will absorb it. It is now clear that there is so much plastic in the seas, which will break down into ever smaller particles without dissolving, that all the fish and other creatures in the seas will be poisoned by them. We have scarcely done any better with the land. We continue to fight over it with each other and generally mess it up.

But our writer can see good in even these problems. He goes on to say in Hebrews 2:9, “we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honour because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.”

 

Jesus has rescued all mankind from the consequences of their failures if they will only recognize that he has done so. Ultimately we, his people, will all end up in his New Heaven and New Earth. What exactly that means; what it will look like; how it will relate to our present experience; we do not know, but we can have confidence in our Lord and Saviour.

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Thursday with Tabitha - Malachi

Malachi

Welcome to the last installment in our series about the minor prophets. Our final book is Malachi, the last book in the Old Testament. There is something very exciting about this book! Perhaps it’s the sense of anticipation contained within it. The first book of the New Testament lies just over the page! But before we get there, Malachi has serious words from God to convey to his people. The name Malachi means “my messenger” and this theme is picked up during the prophecy. It is likely that Malachi was a contemporary of Ezra and Nehemiah, writing in the mid 5^th century BC.

To recap the history briefly, Judah had been permitted to returned from exile in Babylon in 538 BC by king Cyrus of Persia. Haggai and Zechariah had encouraged the people to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. God had promised his people great restoration and he had promised that he would dwell among them, but the political and social environment of the day remained very difficult. Judah was small in land area and in population; the second temple was an inferior shadow of the former magnificent temple; Judah was allowed some freedom to self-rule but they were still under the ultimate control of Persia and they endured a lot of hostility and opposition from their neighbours.

The people had become cynical and disillusioned and their worship had suffered as a result. Malachi’s prophecy is a loud wake-up call to the nation, urging them to turn back to God and renew their covenant commitment to him.

The prophecy consists of a series of charges that God brings against his people. God then anticipates the way the people will question the validity of the charges, defensively asking how they can be true. In each case, God explains why his accusations are valid.

The book opens with God’s declaration that he has loved his people. The people ask, “How have you loved us?”, showing their cynicism about God’s steadfast covenant love for them.

 

God’s first accusation against the people is that they are the ones who have not shown love, failing to honour God and despising his name. God outlines in more detail some examples of this in their behaviour.

The priests have been offering sacrifices that are offensive to God. The only animals acceptable for sacrifice in the temple were healthy, whole animals without sickness or defect. The priests were responsible for checking the condition of the animals that the people brought for sacrifice. They had neglected this duty and compromised their standards to allow the offering of blind, lame and diseased animals at the temple. God would rather that the temple doors were shut and no offerings brought at all rather than these half-hearted, second-rate offerings be made.

The people were trying to cheat God by keeping back the better animals for themselves and bringing the ones that were not fit for anything else to the temple. To use a lesser analogy, one way that we show our love for another person is the care we take over choosing a gift for them. How offended would your husband, wife, or friend be if you promised them a perfect gift, and they knew you’d bought it for them, and then on their birthday you gave them a second-hand, slightly damaged and rather dirty gift instead and kept the perfect one for yourself? How much worse it is to bring a defective offering to God, when the issue at stake isn’t someone’s birthday gift but the very serious issue of offering a sacrifice for sin!

In chapter 2 God makes a second accusation, this time regarding the way the people have abused the marriage covenant. Firstly, they have intermarried with people from pagan nations, who worship idols. Secondly, they have adopted a casual attitude to divorce, with men sending their wives away simply because they stopped feeling affection towards them. The people were perplexed and distressed that God appeared to have withheld blessing from them, not accepting their worship. God explains that their disobedience in regard to his standards for marriage is a part of the reason for this.

Another accusation follows quickly: the people have continually questioned God’s justice and doubted his ability to make just decisions. They have accused God of letting evil people get away with everything.

In chapter 3 God announces the coming of a messenger to prepare the way before him. The arrival of the messenger will be followed by the sudden coming of the Lord to his temple. In Old Testament history, the completions of the tabernacle and the first temple had both been followed immediately by the dramatic, visible presence and glory of the Lord filling the worship place. This hadn’t happened after the completion of the second temple but God promises that he will arrive suddenly, fulfilling the people’s desire for his presence in their midst. But God warns that this will not be a day of delight for all. As in the book of Amos, God tells his people that the coming of the Day of the Lord will bring judgement. The people of Judah had assumed that they were immune from judgement by nature of their identity as God’s people but God makes it clear that they will still be judged according to their faithfulness to him. Judah will be refined and purified through judgement.

God then accuses the people of stealing from him by not bringing him the proper tithe of their offerings. Similar to the situation with the animal sacrifices, the people were keeping back more than they should have done, causing offence to God. This charge is leveled against the whole nation, not just the priests. God challenges the people to test him, declaring that if they would only bring the whole tithe to him, he would bless them abundantly in return. The behaviour of the people in regard to their offerings demonstrates their lack of trust in God’s gracious provision. In chapter 3 verse 14 the people sum up their spiritual destitution by declaring that it is futile to serve God.

However, God takes note of a small remnant of faithful people who continue to worship him properly with a right heart. He carefully records their names to ensure that they are preserved.

The book ends in chapter 4 with the promise of the coming Day of the Lord, when evil will be judged and destroyed and those who have been faithful to God will be restored and healed. Malachi says:

“But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.” (Malachi 4:2 ESV)

The final words of the book declare that Elijah the prophet will come before the Day of the Lord. And there the Old Testament ends. So what happens next?

After Malachi put down his pen, there followed 400 years of prophetic silence. Seismic events occurred in the political and social landscape of the Middle East and Europe, and empires came and went. Then one day, an obedient priest called Zechariah had an extraordinary encounter with an angel of God whilst serving in the temple in Jerusalem. The angel announced the coming birth of Zechariah’s son, who was to be called John. After John’s miraculous birth to his previously infertile older mother, Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied over his newborn son. His song is recorded in Luke chapter 1. Strikingly, in verses 76-79 he says:

“And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” (Luke 1:76-79 ESV)

~

At last the promised sunrise of salvation was coming! When John the Baptist started his prophetic ministry, many Jews wondered whether he might be Elijah, returned to earth again, as Malachi had prophesied. John declared that he was not Elijah.

However, John was the fulfilment of Malachi’s prophecy about the coming messenger who would prepare the way for the Lord. Jesus himself identifies John as the promised Elijah. In Matt 11:11-15 he says:

Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force. For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John, and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. (Matthew 11:11-15 ESV)

In fact, this is just what the angel had promised Zechariah about his future son:

And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.” (Luke 1:16-17)

~

Shortly after John’s birth, Jesus was born to Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem. The new parents took their little baby to the temple in Jerusalem to present him to God, as the law required for a first-born son. Mary and Joseph were quite surprised to be greeted by Simeon, a devout man who was waiting for the promised Messiah. Simeon was filled with the Holy Spirit and declared:

“Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.” (Luke 2:29-32)

~

The Lord had suddenly come to his temple, in the rather unexpected guise of a human baby. Simeon knew that this was the fulfilment of God’s promise.

No-one anticipated how Jesus would bring about that salvation. Even his own disciples didn’t understand it despite Jesus explicitly telling them that he would be killed and then raised from the dead and that he had to die for the sins of the world.

The forgiveness of our sins no longer depends on us offering sacrifices of animals to God. Praise God that we can have forgiveness of our sins through our identification with Jesus’ sacrifice of himself on the cross!

But now we are called to be living sacrifices (Romans 12:1)! Our whole lives are now meant to be lived as an act of sacrifice and worship to God. Perhaps Malachi’s words about half-hearted, inadequate offerings need to stir us today! If our attitude to our service to God and our giving of resources is focused on what we can get away with keeping, rather than what we delight to give, Malachi challenges us to consider how we are honouring God.

I really hope you’ve enjoyed this series. I’ve learned so much by reading and studying these fascinating books of prophecy and I’ve come to appreciate them in a whole new way. I pray that you’ve been encouraged to read them with me.

 

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Highlights in Hebrews 4

Highlights in Hebrews

(with Roger Kirby)

Part 4 - Hebrews 2:3
Escaping salvation

“How shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation?”

Already the writer is warning his readers. This is a recurrent feature of this book. The warnings against turning away from faith having once started to follow Jesus are stronger in this book than any other in the New Testament. They cause considerable difficulty for those whose basic theology is strongly Calvinistic. Those people say: once saved always saved, which this book seems to contradict. We have to take scripture as more significant than any systematic theology so we need to heed what the writer says.

This first warning comes so early in the book it might be thought hard to justify. It raises the question: why do we come to faith? Many people in our culture, and perhaps yours too, come to faith and start to attend church because something has gone wrong in their lives or they feel a gap in the way they live. Those are not good reasons for starting to believe because they are ‘I’ centred. They come from the needs and the thinking of the individual. The true reasons we should come to faith are because of who Jesus was, and is, his death and resurrection. That is what the writer has emphasised in those first few verses of chapter one.

The reality is that most people do not come to faith for that good reason. What is hugely important is that they should then receive teaching that convinces them of the way it actually was. If they know that the Lord had the main guiding hand in what happened, that it was his initiative that brought them to faith in the first place, that the gift of the Hoy Spirit was his doing, then they are unlikely to try to leave faith because it is convenient for them. It may well be that if they are taught to do so they will be able to look back and realise that the Lord had for many years and in a quiet and non-aggressive way been leading them towards faith. Few people take the leap of faith when it is first placed before them. Most need many a nudge and suggestion before they get there. Our God is a gracious and kind God who deals tenderly with his people.

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Highlights in Hebrews 3

Highlights in Hebrews

(with Roger Kirby)

Part 3 - Hebrews 1:8, 9
Jesus on his throne

“Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever;
a sceptre of justice will be the sceptre of your kingdom.
You love righteousness and hate wickedness;
therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions
by anointing you with the oil of joy.”
Hebrews 1:8-9

These verses are one of the many places where the very first words of this book are demonstrated. The writer started by saying God spoke through the prophets. In the second part of this first chapter he uses that fact to explain how Jesus was greater than the angels with some 7 quotations from the Old Testament. This is one of the most striking. It is drawn from Psalm 45: 6, 7. The ancient writer of the psalm will have thought he was writing a psalm of praise for a new king, possibly Solomon. It is a thoroughly secular piece, probably written to order, and greatly exaggerating the likely attributes of any earthly king and queen. It is hard to see what those reading it after the complete collapse of the Davidic dynasty after the exile can possibly have made of it.

But the writer to Hebrews can see its meaning centuries later. He can even use the rather curious reference to God in the first line of that quotation that makes little sense in the original. The gross exaggerations of the original make perfect sense applied to the perfect man, Jesus.

Attention is not often drawn to the quite amazing way in which things said centuries earlier referring to all sorts of situations and people suddenly come to life in the person and work of Jesus. Counting only those places where the NIV indents the lines there are 28 references back to the Old Testament in this book of Hebrews alone, most of them before the history of chapter 11. Our wonderful God, knowing what would happen, organised it so that his servants said things relating to their own circumstances that would be of use to other servants writing about his glorious Son.

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