New Testament · General Letters
Better in every way, a greater priest, a better covenant, and a cloud of witnesses cheering.
Anonymous, brilliantly written, and unlike anything else in the New Testament. It calls itself a word of exhortation, which was the term for a sermon, and it is addressed to Jewish believers under pressure to go back to what was familiar. Its argument runs on one word, better: a better priest, a better covenant, a better sacrifice, better promises. The Day of Atonement supplies its central image, a high priest entering not a copy but the reality, and doing it once rather than annually. Chapter eleven is the roll call of faith, and it ends by admitting that these people did not receive what was promised. Its warning passages are among the hardest in Scripture, and Christians have never agreed about what they mean.
If you remember one thing
The word better runs through the whole letter. Chapter 11 then names people who died without receiving what was promised, and calls that faith.
“Let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith.”
Hebrews 12:1-2
Hebrews 6:4-6
The warning about falling away. Christians read this differently depending on their view of perseverance, and the passage has been argued over since the early church.
Named here rather than skipped. Where Christians read a passage differently, we say so instead of choosing for you.
Everyone here has a write-up, drawn from the same records that explain the names while you read the text.
The one righteous man of his generation, who built a ship on dry ground on the strength of a warning about weather he had never seen. After the flood God set the rainbow as the sign of a covenant made with every living creature.
The man God called out of Ur with a promise of land, offspring, and blessing for all nations, at an age when he had none of the three. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all trace their story back through him. Paul makes his trust in the promise, credited to him as righteousness, the pattern of faith itself.
Abraham's wife, who waited decades for a promised child and laughed when she finally overheard it announced. Isaac's name, which means 'he laughs,' keeps the memory of that laughter in the family line.
Jacob's favored son, sold into slavery by his brothers, imprisoned on a false accusation, and raised to second in Egypt because he could read dreams. When his brothers finally stood before him he said the line the whole story turns on: you meant it for evil, God meant it for good.
Moses' assistant and one of the two spies who came back from Canaan saying it could be taken. He led the crossing of the Jordan and the conquest, and at the end of his life made the whole nation choose openly whom they would serve.
A prostitute in Jericho who hid Israel's spies and asked for mercy for her household, and got it. Matthew names her in the genealogy of Jesus, and both Hebrews and James hold her up as an example of living faith.
Adam and Eve's firstborn, a farmer, whose offering was not accepted while his brother's was. The text never explains why, which is part of its difficulty. God warns him that sin is crouching at the door and must be mastered, and he kills Abel in a field anyway.
The second son, a shepherd, whose offering of the firstborn of his flock was accepted. Killed by his brother. God tells Cain that his brother's blood is crying out from the ground.
Seventh from Adam, of whom Genesis says only that he walked with God, and he was not, for God took him. One of two people in Scripture who do not die, the other being Elijah.
Isaac's elder son, a hunter, who sold his birthright to his brother for a bowl of stew and later lost the blessing to the same brother in disguise. Ancestor of the Edomites.
A Levite couple whose three children were Miriam, Aaron, and Moses. Jochebed hid her son for three months and then built him a waterproofed basket, the same Hebrew word used for Noah's ark.
The man Deborah summoned to lead ten thousand against Sisera's chariots, and who answered that he would go only if she went with him. She agreed, and told him the honor of the day would go to a woman instead.
Daniel's three companions, given Babylonian names in place of their Hebrew ones: Hananiah became Shadrach, Mishael became Meshach, Azariah became Abednego. Their Hebrew names all contain a word for God, and their Babylonian ones honor Babylonian gods, which is the point of renaming captives.
A quiz for Hebrews is on the workbench. In the meantime, the games for the judges, the kings, and the prophets are open.
