James 2

Is it enough to just have faith in God? Or do you have to have something else for salvation? These questions have been asked for ages and debated by many men that are much smarter than I, and much of that debate has been centered around this seemingly contradictory passage. All that I can do is try my best to wrestle them out in a way that makes a bit of sense and see what I find about the nature of God.

It seems clear that faith is the only critical component of salvation, but this passage indicates that even the demons believe in God. We have to remember the definition of faith, from "Hebrews," to catch the subtlety of the wording. Belief is simply knowing that something is true. Faith is knowing that it's true and having a personal interest in it. Remember that faith has a component of hope tied to it. The demons know that God exists and the Jesus is His son, but they do not have any hope that they can be saved therefore they have no faith. They have no ability to transmute their belief into faith as we do.

Given that, then we see that this passage does not necessarily contradictory with the doctrine of salvation by faith, but it does still have a focus on works that we don't really find in most of the New Testament. Paul was all about preaching freedom from the Law and how you can't fulfill the Law and earn your way to heaven, but it seems, on the surface, that James is preaching that works are integral part of salvation. How can they be saying the same thing?

Paul preached salvation. Paul taught people that had never heard the gospel how to start a relationship with God, and that relationship starts with faith. There is nothing more to it. You can't work your way into a relationship with God. You either have faith or you don't.

James is preaching growth. James is speaking to all of the believers. His audience already has a relationship with God. They already have faith. James is pushing them to the next step, and the next step is works.

The works don't make a difference in whether or not you are a Christian. They are simply the next thing that happens. When you have genuine faith and a relationship with God, you are going to have good works. Paul says the exact same thing in "Galatians" when he talks about the fruit of the spirit. The fruits of the spirit are produced when the spirit is in you. You don't really have to try to produce it; it's just there. The same is true of a Christian's good works.

The evidence of a healthy relationship with God and a healthy faith is good works. If someone were to say that they were a strong, mature Christian and they didn't demonstrate that with good works, then that is an indicator that they are at least deceived in their walk and could be an indicator that they are not even genuine in their faith. We are warned over and over again to be careful to not allow false teachers into our churches, and we need a mechanism for identifying them. We can't see a man's heart to know for certain the condition of their faith and relationship with God, so God has given us a litmus test of sorts. A healthy mature relationship with God generates the fruit of the spirit and good works.

We can't use this as the end all test because there are plenty of people in this world that do good works without any relationship with God, and there are plenty of people that have a relationship with God that we may not observe doing good works for whatever reason. So don't replace building relationships with others and testing the doctrine of their teachings with this simple test. If you do, then you risk becoming the superficial judge that James warns about in the first part of the chapter. Mostly, use this for yourself. What does my relationship with God look like? Am I producing fruit of the spirit? Am I compelled to do good works? When those things happen on their own, then you on the right track in your spiritual growth.

James 1

I coach my daughter's softball team, and I know that the best way to figure out how they are going to perform in a game situation is to put pressure on them in practice. I've got to stress them a little. I've got to challenge them a little. I've got to push them right to the edge of what they think they are capable of before they can make it to the next level.

The same thing is true of the Christian life. It's not about being complacent. God doesn't want believers that are content with their salvation. He wants believers that will further His kingdom. We are His hands and feet on earth. We are the tools that He uses to care for the orphans and widows. We are the ones that He uses to reach the rest of the world. Just like in that softball game, though, we must be trained for the work, and the best training that we can receive is pressure and trials.

What good is faith if it is not tested? How can you be assured of something that you cannot see (Hebrews) if you don't test it? You can't. So God allows us to be tested in order to boost our own confidence in our faith, to mature our relationship with Him, and to remind us of our reliance on Him for salvation.

Be careful here, though. This doesn't mean that God puts temptation in our way. God doesn't toy with us and tempt us to sin just to see if we will or won't, and I don't tease my softball team into cheating to see how they'll respond. I teach the rules, and I test them within those rules asking them to perform as they should. God also teaches the rules through His word and applies pressure to incent us to perform to His standard, but He doesn't tempt us to cheat or sin. He's not even capable of such a thing. Any temptation to cheat or sin is the result of our nature, not God's nature.

The good news is that when we go through these exercises, we can ask for help. We can ask for wisdom. My softball team sometimes asks me to stop practice so that I can explain why a play works a certain way or so that I can clarify what exactly I want them to do. When they do that, I don't make fun of them for not understanding. If I did, I wouldn't be a very good coach. They are learning, and I am coaching. God is the same. When we ask for help, He is not condescending about it. He doesn't judge you to be unworthy because you don't already know the answer. He simply responds with the help that you need.

God does have one caveat, though. He expects to be the one source of help that you turn to, and He expects that you ask in faith. He doesn't have patience for someone that worries about whether or not God heard his prayer or someone that turns to God and then turns elsewhere for a solution to the same problem as if they could hedge their bets.

In order to be effective with this we need to keep ourselves from getting in the way. That means that we need to spend more time listening – both to God and to others – than we do talking. They say that God gave us two ears and one mouth so that we could listen twice as much as we talk. It's good advice. The result of that listening is that we recognize God's direction in our lives because we are not in the way with our own opinions, and we are able to prevent conflict from escalating because we understand the perspective of others.

When we understand the perspective of others and recognize God's desire for us to act on the behalf of others then we start to live our faith and we've begun to achieve the end result of all the growth God pushes on to us through the trials. It's not enough to just hear or see the rules of the game. It's not enough to sit in the stands and watch the game. God wants us to be out on the field demonstrating our relationship with Him through our actions in the game. Just like my softball team. Those girls can't claim victory unless they play the game. Sitting on the bench doesn't make them any less of a softball team (so this is not salvation by works), but being on the field is the only way that they are going to identify themselves as a softball team.

Galatians 6

Where I grew up, it was common to hear something along the lines of, "Good Christian boys/girls don't do that." There was an expectation of what a Christian looks like on the outside. Either through behavior or clothing or tidiness, and while all of those things may be important socially, what do they have do with salvation? Does God really care what you look like on the outside? And who are you trying to impress with your outward appearance anyway?

Just like with the Galatians, there are churches today that want to project a certain image to society. They want their members to behave a certain way and look a certain way and dress a certain way to give the appearance of what Christians should be, but does that really reflect what God desires of us? I think it's generally a substitute for not inviting others to a relationship with God. If someone doesn't look like you or follow the same rules that you follow, then you don't have to talk to them or build a relationship with them because they are not "Christian," and we don't hang out with people of the world. It gets rationalized as that they will want to follow our rules when the "Spirit" convicts them, so until then it's not my fault, but is the Spirit ever really going to convict them of anything except needing a relationship with Christ?

To me it's like the boycotts that you hear about in churches from time to time. They say, don't shop at such and such store today because they are paying benefits to homosexuals, and we don't want to give the appearance of supporting that. There's that concern with our own appearance again rather than a concern with building relationships with those that need Christ. And there's that picking and choosing the Law again, too. Today we can't go there because homosexuality is a sin, but yesterday when they were paying benefits to liars, cheaters, thieves (every retail store has at least one), etc. it was okay because those parts of the Law don't apply?

You can't pick and choose and you can't earn your way to salvation by trying to impress other people. It's not a popularity contest and if it were it wouldn't be decided by the rest of the people that lost. This is all about God, Jesus, and an internal change in your heart to put your faith in Christ. Period. All of the rest follows on its own when you focus on Christ and not on the opinions of others.

Galatians 5

There are two choices for each person that desires to enter heaven: one, they can fulfill the enter law and be perfect; two, they can believe in Jesus and accept salvation from sin. Of course, no one except Christ can fulfill the Law and be perfect, so really it's just one choice. But we always want to make things harder than they have to be.

When you see an ad on TV advertising a great new product that will completely change your world and it only costs $9.95, you think it's too good to be true (and you might be right). You immediately believe that there must be a catch. There must be a hidden cost. Maybe it really costs more money. Maybe it costs more time to use than the advertised. Maybe it's not as easy to setup as they implied. It doesn't really matter. We are programmed to look for the catch. So if we don't even believe a guy on TV selling us something unimportant for $9.95, how much more unlikely is it that we simply believe that our eternal salvation is free?

It's a hard concept to grasp. How could that possibly be free? After all that I've done, how could it cost me nothing? It just doesn't seem real unless I have to put some work into it. I actually had a person tell me once that they wouldn't attend a certain church in the DFW area ever again because they preached salvation by grace. I was really confused, but this person told me that salvation couldn't possibly be that easy and that if it were it wouldn't be worth having so they were going to find a church that preached salvation by works. It's sad but true, and the Galatians seem to have fallen into the same trap.

The problem with this trap is that it really does cost more than you think. Like Paul says, you can't pick and choose with the Law. If you are going to base your theology on the Law and works, that's fine, but you have to uphold the entire Law; not just the parts that you like. You can't add to it or take away from it. You've got to fulfill it as it is written or it doesn't do you any good. Neither the Galatians nor any of the churches that preach work based salvation want to hear that, though.

Mostly, they want to pull apart the rules and find the ones that they think they can do really well and make that the requirements for salvation while ignoring the ones that they don't like or that they aren't very good at. Fortunately for us, that doesn't matter for salvation. God doesn't look at how well we measure up to the Law because the Law has already been fulfilled. He looks at our faith in Christ and sees the fulfillment of the Law and the salvation that we have.

But what about good works? Does this mean that once we are saved we don't have to do any good works? Sort of. We don't have to do them for salvation, but they will happen by default. When you live by the Spirit, the fruits of the Spirit just happen: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Good works are the result of salvation, not the other way around.

Galatians 4

People like to have boundaries. We like to know the rules of the game that we are playing. Sometimes we like to break the rules and sometimes we like to play by the rules, but we always want to know where the lines are. God understands that, and there are rules by which we play. That's why we have been forgiven, but we still sin. You can't have sin without also having rules. The issue is when we trade a relationship with God for an opportunity to worship the rules; when the rules become more important than God.

We do the same with our children. We want to have a relationship with them, but we also have to maintain order in our homes. We make rules, and the kids break them or bend them or ignore them or follow them (some more often than others). How do we react when they break the rules, though? Of course we discipline them and we expect some sort of confession from them (just like our Father in heaven expects of us), but do we kick them out of our house? Never. At least not any parents that I know. Why not?

Because following the rules is secondary to building a relationship with your kids. The rules help guide your kids in that relationship and they help mold them into adults, but we aren't going to stop working on a relationship with our kids just because they broke a rule. God is the same way. He's put rules in place to help guide us in a relationship with Him. He's going to discipline us when we get outside of those rules, but He's not going to stop pursuing a relationship with us. He's not going to kick us out of the inheritance just because we broke a rule.

We are not slaves to the rules that God made (the Law) or to the rules that we make for ourselves. We don't have to worry about anything other than what our relationship with God looks like and how to keep it on track. If you are focused on anything else, then you need to recheck your priorities.

Galatians 3

It's interesting to me how many people don't go back any further than the Ten Commandments when they think about the Old Testament. They act like that's where it all began and that that was the way to have a relationship with God. Even some try to carry that forward to now believing that you have to follow a set of rules in order to be a part of God's family and have a relationship with Him.

The fact of the matter is, God had a relationship with man long before the Ten Commandments. He created this entire world. He spoke to Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, etc. all before the Law was anything that man knew anything about. So how did these men have relationships with God? How could they have been able to converse with God before they knew the "rules"? Obviously, the "rules" or the Law don't have much to do with a relationship with God.

Your relationship with God is based on faith. It always has been and it always will be. There is nothing more that you can do to enhance that. There is nothing that you can do to change that. God is not impressed by behavior or by attitude. He only wants your faith. The earliest believers in the Bible understood that and they walked in faith. The Law was not a concept that mattered because it couldn't improve their relationship with God at all.

So why was the Law even created? If it doesn't give you a relationship with God, and it can't give you life, then why have it? Why did God take the time to have the Jews write all of these rules out? Why did He take the effort to put the Ten Commandments on stone tablets? Why did He make such a big deal out of the rules if He really wanted faith? There are two reasons.

First, at the time that the Law was written the nation of Israel had just been born. The Israelites had been slaves in Egypt for some time and they had been under the rule of the Egyptians. They had their own beliefs but they weren't their own people. After they left Egypt, they became their own nation, and every nation must have laws. It's what holds the society together. So, there was a simply sociological reason for God providing the Law to the nation of Israel. The people need to know boundaries.

Second, humanity needed to understand their need for Christ. The Law instituted a system by which everyone had to die. It instituted a system by which only a select few could really know God, and it created a goal that could never be attained. We need someone to fulfill those Laws for us. Including the fact that atonement can only be granted through blood sacrifice. Jesus was that sacrifice.

Don't get confused now. The Law itself has never changed, and the fact that a relationship with God is built on faith has never changed. The two are not mutually exclusive, but they are complementary. There is no value in Christ's sacrifice without it fulfilling the Law, and there is no need for the Law except to direct us back to faith.

So how does this apply to us? I was raised in the USA. I wasn't raised to follow the Law. I don't even know most of the rules. But we do, in our Christian culture, put up Laws of our own. We direct our church membership to do this and don't this and don't to that. We judge who is saved and who isn't by whether they drink or smoke. We have created our own system of Laws that weren't even laid down by God. We pull things out of the Law and say that these apply to us and we ignore others, as if we should be able to pick and choose which rules to follow. We don't have that choice, and we don't have that need. The Law is what it is, and we are not prisoner to it. Our relationship and redemption is based on faith alone.

Galatians 2

One of the things that we commonly hear from people outside of the church is that they do not attend church because of all the hypocrisy. People say and do one thing on Sunday morning and they say and do something completely different at work the rest of the week. It's a valid concern. How can anyone be sure of the gospel that we preach if we are not confident enough in it to live it every day?

Are we going to stumble? Are we going to fail? Are we going to be wrong? Sure. All of those things are true, but there is a difference between humbly admitting a mistake and living two different lifestyles at church and at home. It makes me feel a little better, though, to know that Peter was doing that very thing. It doesn't justify my actions, it just reminds me that we are all human. On the one hand, Peter was fellowshipping and eating with Gentiles – a violation of the tenets of the law – but on the other hand, when his friends from Jerusalem came to visit he tried to tell the Gentiles that they had to follow the law. Presumably, he was advocating circumcision based on contextual clues in the chapter, and a few were confused and led astray by this change in behavior.

How many people in our churches and our society are still trying to gain righteousness through the law? How many believe that they have to follow the Ten Commandments to be saved? And how many think these things because that's what they are being taught in churches? I grew up in a denomination that often preaches grace on hand and legalism on the other. Do these things really fit together? I think Paul's argument to Peter was that they do not. It's great to follow the customs of the law and to use it as a guide so that you recognize that you are a sinner, but it's never going to be something that you can fulfill and never something that Christians should be judged against. Christ died to free us from that and to fulfill the law for us so that we can obtain righteousness.

Note, though, that Paul also points out that this doesn't mean that our sin is rationalized. Christ doesn't promote sin by virtue of the fact that He's already paid the price. It's not like going to CiCis and getting to eat all the bad pizza you can stand because you paid the price up front. It's more like going to the golf range and getting to hit as many balls as it takes to get the right swing.

Galatians 1

It's a fine line to walk between being socially and culturally relevant on one hand and being true to the Gospel on the other. It's a line that many churches today have crossed and don't even realize it. I don't know what it was that the Galatians were turning toward when Paul wrote this letter, but I can see many churches in our society turning to the gospel of income (more money means we can serve God better), the gospel of construction (more space means we can serve God better), the gospel of emotions (if we make people feel good about themselves, they'll find God), the gospel of Bible knowledge (if I know more Bible verses, I'll know God), and many other false doctrines. This doesn't mean that we should be in a church where the members give their tithe or in a church with space for growth or a church that makes you happy, it just means that we need to be careful to not allow those things to get out ahead of being a church focused on sharing the Gospel.

It seems like every day almost that you hear of a church leader somewhere that's being accused of a crime, charged with a crime, or confessing to a crime. Sure, church leaders are humans and they are sinners just like the rest of us, but I still wonder if there is not a correlation between the downfall of these leaders and the lack of focus on the gospel that is becoming so prevalent in our society today. And this transition of focus then creates a situation whereby man is trying to direct the path of the church and man is appointing the leaders of the church and man is trying to please himself with the message of the church. Of course that is doomed to fail. Man, simply put, is a failure; only the redemption of God can change that, and by extension, only the perfection of God can direct the church properly.

Paul makes it clear to the reader that he is not sent by men, that no one thought this theology up on his own, and that he is not concerned with men think of him personally. He was assigned a task by Jesus Himself and he intends to see it through. In order to be sure that he was focused on the right thing and not just becoming a mouthpiece for the apostles, he secluded himself to study for three years before he went to Jerusalem to meet Peter.

Can you claim the same focus in your ministry? Are you following God alone or are you trying to please the men of your church? Have you taken the time to evaluate your message and found it to be clearly from God and not from man? These are the tough questions that we must wrestle with. It's okay to say the same thing as your pastor or others in the church. Paul preached the same Gospel as Peter. It's not okay if you preach the message just because it's what a man told you to say. You must be sure that it is the Word of God.

Hebrews 13

What must I do to be saved? Is there a laundry list of items that have to be accomplished in order to become a Christian and earn heaven? Of course not. The Bible clearly teaches that we only need to believe in Christ for salvation. So, what's the deal with this long list of things that the author of Hebrews is asking us to do?

There's a difference between just being a child of God and honoring God as one of His children. Any of my kids could behave however they liked and it would never change the fact that they are my children. They could lie, cheat, steal, etc. and they would still be my kids entitled to an inheritance from me. But those actions would not be honoring to me. Those actions would bring dishonor to me, and so I do not wish for them to behave that way.

It's the same with God. As a child of God, we are free to choose to behave however you want without fear of losing our right to the inheritance of salvation. The only real issue that is dealt with here at the end of Hebrews is whether your actions honor God or not. And if you want to honor God, then the author has given us some tips on how to do that.

• Love each other as brothers. Take care of one another. Especially those that have been imprisoned or abused for the name of Christ.
  
• Honor your marriage and avoid sexually immorality.
  
• Be content. God provides all that you need.
  
• Learn from your pastor.
  
• Remember that Jesus doesn't change, so don't be carried away by new theologies.
  
• Offer sacrifices of praise.

Hebrews 12

Why does God allow this that or the other to happen? It's a question that Christians are asked all the time. It's maybe even a question that Christians ask themselves from time to time. Generally, we answer that God allows Satan to do such and such because the day of judgment hasn't yet arrived or something along those lines, but I wonder if that isn't shortchanging God. We try pretty hard to put a friendly face on God and to make Him out as something kind and gentle, but that's not really Biblical.

God disciplines us, and sometimes things that we perceive as bad are the evidence of that discipline. I'm not saying that anything specific happened to you because God was disciplining you. I'm saying that it might have. It might have just been Satan messing with you like he did with Job. The challenge of this chapter is to really search deep and ask yourself if whatever happened is God's discipline, and ask yourself what you are going to learn from it. Either way, you've got to be sure that God gets the glory.

Whenever you identify that God is disciplining you, be grateful. Parents only discipline their own children. They tend to allow each parent to discipline their own and they try to stay out of each other's way. So, when you realize that God is disciplining you, then you should also realize that that makes Him your parent. And as your parent, He is not unapproachable. The last part of the chapter compares us with the Israelites in the desert, and while they were not allowed to even touch the mountain when God was meeting with Moses, we are encouraged to enter the presence of God. How then, can you not be grateful when the disciplines and the trials of life remind you that you are being disciplined and tested because you are a child of the Most High God?

Hebrews 11

Faith is the cornerstone of all religious belief, but what is it really? We who have it know that we do, but we can't always explain what it really is or what it's about. The author here helps us put it into words: "being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." Even those words, though, can get wrapped around the axle if you're not careful.

Let's break down simply into two parts. The first is that faith involves something that you cannot see. You have to be certain of it, though. That's really no different than me knowing that 2+2 = 4 or knowing that George Washington was the first president. Those are not tangible things for any of us. Numbers are really just ideas and no one alive today (unless Highlander is more than just a movie) ever personally met George Washington. But knowing these things and being certain of these things doesn't fulfill the definition of faith any more than knowing that Jesus lived or that God is in heaven fulfills the definition. It's important, but it's not complete.

The second part is personal. We're "sure of what we hope for." Being "sure" sounds pretty similar to the first part, and it is. It means that we have no doubt. The second part of that line is really the key, though: "what we hope for." That's personal. You can't really have faith until you have some personal interest in it. You have something to gain from it. That's the difference between the demons and the believers. That's the difference between the Christians and everyone else. We can all know that God exists and that Jesus lived, and up to that point we're all in the knowledge or belief category. To cross the line into faith – the prerequisite for salvation – you also have to put hope in that. You have to invest your life in it and put everything on the line.

Hebrews 10

It seems like it must have been hard for the Jews in the early church. The Gentiles didn't know one thing from another, so for them to accept salvation apart from the law was not big deal. They didn't know anything about the law in the first place. For the Jews, though, things were being turned on their ear. For as long as anyone could remember, the priest had to enter the tabernacle each year to make atonement for sins. And no one except the priest could do that job.

Now, Jesus has come along and the Christians are saying that He complements the Law. Only thing is: they don't see why the priest is important anymore. Jesus is the priest who went into the tabernacle of heaven with His own blood to make atonement for the last time. That's got to be a hard concept to get across when it challenges everything that you've been taught from birth, and it's the reason that the author continues to back to this same idea. Jesus only needed to make one perfect sacrifice and it was done for all time. There is no need to go through this process over and over again.

The catch, as in everything, is living into this, though. Once you get over the hump of believing in Christ and understanding at a high level how He fits with your traditions and beliefs, you've got to live that everyday. You've got to live that among people that haven't yet believed. You've got to live that in spite of everyone telling you that you're crazy. You've got live that even though most of the encouragement that you are hearing is asking you to come back to Judaism. Those guys had a huge challenge, and it's no wonder that the author is encouraging them to stick together.

So, what does that mean to us? Most of us are Gentiles living in the USA. Our country's tradition is Christianity, so how does this apply to us? Think about this. What if someone challenged your traditional view of the Bible? What if someone told you that Jesus wasn't born in a barn behind a hotel? Would it make a difference?

If it really shakes your world, then you might be clinging too much to traditions and laws just like the Jews. If, on the other hand, you are able to look objectively at that statement and see how it doesn't change a thing in the world about Christ and your salvation, then your focus is likely to be in the right place.

Hebrews 9

Don't judge a book by its cover. That's what they say. Whoever they is. But we just can't help it sometimes. When you go to buy a new car and you're wearing a ripped t-shirt and dirty blue jeans, you can bet that you're not going to get the kind of service that you probably wanted and you're almost certainly not going to get a good deal. On the other hand, if you're wearing a sport coat and slacks, you may get more attention than you want and everyone will be trying to make a deal with you. Either way, you're still the same on the inside. Under all of those clothes, you have the same income, the same money to spend, and same desire for a car. Nothing really changed except your outward appearance.

God is not so superficial as a car salesman, but the atonement and ceremonial cleansing of the first covenant didn't do much more than change your outward appearance. God could still see through that and recognize that no one was ever going to change on the inside as long as all that was happening was a change on the outside. That's why Jesus was so important. He didn't offer the blood of an imperfect animal to cover our sins on the outside. He offered His perfect blood to cleanse our sins from the inside. We are now free from sin, not slaves to sin who happen to have a nice set of clothes to try and hide it.

Do you see the difference? Have you experienced the change in your life, or are you still trying to hide your sin from God? Don't because you can't. God sees all, and the only salvation is to allow Christ into your heart so that you can be changed on the inside.

Hebrews 8

At first God created a covenant with Israel that provided access to Him through a proxy, the priest. He gave Moses the plans for a tabernacle that would resemble the tabernacle of Heaven, and He instructed the priests in the manner through which they could commune with God in the tabernacle. It was good, but it was incomplete. It was a copy and the people did not have direct access to God.

With God's new covenant, He declares that things will be different. He is not external to the people ("I took them by the hand") anymore. He is now internal ("…write them [his laws] on their hearts"). And there is no longer a need for an intermediary human priest to enter the tabernacle because "they will all know me…[and] I will forgive their wickedness." That's the better promise of the new covenant: we have direct access to God through Christ and our hearts have become the tabernacle on earth so that each man can know God intimately and personally.

Hebrews 7

Abraham had the promise of God that had been directly spoken to him, and yet he still gave a tenth to Melchizedec. Why? Because Abraham recognized that earthly wealth was not the path to salvation and that the wealth he attained was the direct result of God. Through the priest and his tithe, he could demonstrate that knowledge. Interestingly, Melchizedec is not recorded to have had a birth or death and so he often is described as at least an archetype of the coming Messiah, distinctly different from the Levitical priests.

Part of the reason for setting up the Law and the Levitical priesthood, by extension, was to demonstrate that we cannot save ourselves and that an earthly priest cannot provide forgiveness for our sins. In spite of the fact that the Levitical priest was elevated to the highest possible level in Judaism and was responsible for providing atonement for the sins of the people, he still had to provide atonement for himself and he still died. That meant that the priest was imperfect and that the job was constantly being handed from one imperfect person to another.

Jesus wasn't from the tribe of Levi. He was from the tribe of Judah, and He turned the priesthood on its ear. He demonstrated that, like Melchizedec, there could be a priest with not beginning and no end, with no sin to atone for and with no death to fear. Once he provided atonement for the people it was done and never needed to be done again, and since He had defeated death, there would never be a need or reason to ever replace Him.

Hebrews 6

The Jews should have been ready for a deeper relationship with Christ since they've heard about God and the Messiah all of their lives, but for some reason they are still just on the very fringe of an understanding of Christ. The author, though, is determined to take this deeper and encourages the reader to come along for the ride.

Right off, he explains that if you have tasted the heavenly gift and intentionally turned away from Christ, that you will not be brought back to repentance. "But hang on," you say, "I thought that you couldn't lose your salvation." True, and this passage isn't talking about anyone losing their salvation. I would argue that those that are saved don't merely "taste" the heavenly gift, but they drink it in and live it. The ones that have only tasted have not yet fully believed and while they may have felt the pulling the Holy Spirit ("shared in the Holy Spirit"), they haven't made the choice. If they are so bold as to actively deny Christ and to stand before Him in judgment having not believed, then they cannot be saved.

It's like a group of guys going to the Baskin and Robbins for ice cream. Most of them order an ice cream cone of their favorite flavor, and one of them chooses to only get a sample of the vanilla. This one never buys an ice cream cone, though. Once they've left the store, you can say that he "tasted" of their experience, and he shared in the experience, but he can't now go back and get an ice cream cone with them, it's too late. Right now we're still in the ice cream shop and either you're eating ice cream or you're thinking about it. Once we leave the shop (the end of the world, or your death), you're decision is made and you can't go back.

Hebrews 5

Apparently, the intended recipients of this letter, the Christian Jews, were having a hard time connecting the dots between the Old and New Testaments, and the author seems a little frustrated by it. You can go so deeply into the theology of Christ, but only if you have a strong foundation. How similar are we in our churches today. We send our children to their Sunday School classes every week, but are they really gaining a foundation theologically. I think not, in most cases, judging from my observations of adults in the church, and I think it's sad that we still, like the author of this book, have to go back to the basics week after week to be understood.

Part of the basics in this passage is to further explain Christ's relationship to man. The author reminds the reader that God originally placed men in the role of high priest. God selected these men, and they were the intermediary. Being men, they could empathize with the believers, but being men, they also had to offer sacrifices for their own sins. Each year they could enter the presence of God to offer an imperfect sacrifice for themselves and for the people, but they would have to repeat the process the very next year. When God appointed Christ as a high priest, He created a situation where a perfect offering for sin could be made. Since Christ was man, He still had the connection with the people that allows Him to "deal gently with those who are ignorant and going astray," and since He was perfect He did not have offer any sacrifice for Himself. That means that His sacrifice would not expire in a year. His sacrifice is eternal.

Hebrews 4

It's really taking a good bit of thinking this morning to wrap my brain around the logic flow in the first part of this chapter. There's a lot of writing about rest and entering God's rest, and it kind of gets confusing. I think that I've got it figured out, though.

Just as God rested after creating the world, He promised to give us a rest from our toils when we die. Of course, that depends on us having faith in Him, and that is the reason why the children of Israel who had no faith will never enter God's rest. God is already at rest, and He wants us to join Him there, but only some will make it. Those that are obedient to His word and do not harden their hearts to Him. The good news, though, is that this is a living promise; it is open-ended. The promise to enter God's rest by faith wasn't extended only to the Israelites in the desert. It didn't end with Joshua. The promise is open "today." That means that each day we have the opportunity to hear God and choose faith in Him. I'm not talking about needing to renew your salvation every day; that is a false doctrine. I'm saying that if you happen to have ignored God yesterday, you get another chance today. Just don't run out of todays before you make the choice.

You can't fool God either. This promise is real, but so are the consequences for disobedience. You can't hide from that, and you can't trick God into thinking that you have faith. Nothing is hidden from Him. He can see right through you like an X-ray machine, but even beyond that, He can see into your soul and spirit and heart. Knowing that might make it a little scary to approach God. What if He thinks I'm holding something back? What if He sees what I'm holding back? Truth be told, you probably are holding something back; we're all human. That's what makes Jesus such a key element. He's the high priest through whom we can approach God, and He is sympathetic to our weaknesses since He lived as one of us. When you realize the truth of that, and you realize the connection that that creates between humanity and Christ, you approach God with confidence and He is faithful to provide mercy and grace to help overcome our weaknesses.

Hebrews 3

The Jewish people were excellent students of history. Their feasts, celebrations, and worship was centered around a remembrance of things past so that they were all familiar with the prophets and stories of God. They all understood, at least intellectually, how God freed the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt and they all revered Moses as one of the greatest leaders ever. Now, the author here is again trying to help them put Jesus in context around this history.

He describes Moses as being in the house and Jesus as being over the house. Moses was just a man blessed by God, Jesus was God appearing as a man. A very distinct difference, and one that the both the Jewish believers and we need to understand. Those that heard the word of God from Moses and turned away from it angered God and were punished with forty years in the desert and no chance to enter the Promised Land. What happens with those that hear the word of Jesus and turn from them? They get an eternity apart from God.

It's a steeper price to pay, but it's also a more serious act of freedom from bondage. It's not just freedom from slavery to a Pharoah, it's freedom from slavery to death and sin, and when you turn away from that gift, the price you pay is more than dying in a desert, it's eternity without God. What a great analogy, though, when the author shows the Jewish believers how they are like the children of Israel escaping Pharoah, and when he also warns them not to follow too closely to their ancestors and rebel against God. Will you be turn away? Or will you hold on to your "courage and the hope of which we boast"?

Hebrews 2

The old saying goes, "Do not judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes." Thankfully, God both understands and applies this principle in His dealing with man. In order for God to offer salvation to humanity, He must become a man and walk in our shoes. He must suffer as we suffer, be tempted as we are tempted, and die as we die, but through overcoming each of those things, He creates a path through which we can also overcome them. And when you have God creating the path and offering the salvation, why would you ignore it?

In the Old Testament, God frequently sent messages to His people through angels, and the people treated those messages as direct from the mouth of God. A good idea, I think, but the author makes a point around it. If you listen to the word of the angels, why wouldn't you listen to the word of Jesus. In the first chapter of Hebrews, the author established that Jesus is more than an angel, and in this chapter he reminds the reader that the earth is not subject to the judgment of angels but to the judgment of Christ. Basically, we've come face-to-face with the one guy that we most need to get in good with. We've met the head ref on the playing field of life and He's just told us about the rules. Why would you not pay attention to those rules? It would be foolish.

Further, the author establishes that the guy who is ultimately going to judge us is not someone who never lived through what we live through. He's a man that had to suffer, He had to be tempted, He had to be hungry, He had to be cold, He had wants, He had desires, and He died. He lived every part of life that matters, and He's not ashamed of that. He's like Spartacus in a sense, He's infiltrated the enemy camp where humanity was held prisoner to death and fear and showed us a way past all that to a relationship with God. In the movie, Spartacus rallies support because he's one of the gladiators, he can identify with their dilemma and he offers a chance at freedom. It wouldn't be the same if Caesar had just released the gladiators. If that had been the case, each of those gladiators would have been suspicious that something else was going on, and they would not have ever trusted their benefactor as having been just. God doesn't want that suspicion cast on his actions because He wants a relationship with each of us, and to prove it beyond a doubt, he walked in our shoes.

Hebrews 1

This book was written to the Christian Jews to encourage them in their faith, and to help keep this in context, let's remember that the Jews, in general, were expecting a warrior Messiah. They wanted another king like David that would kill their current Goliath – the Romans. What they got was Jesus – a guy that's telling them to turn the other cheek and wait for the kingdom of God. It wasn't what they had been expecting, but some of them believed anyway. Over time, though, doubts probably started to creep in. I'm sure that they started to wonder if the rest of the Jewish community had been correct and if they should have continued waiting for the Messiah that they had imagined all of their lives. Jesus still wasn't exactly what they had been hoping for.

The author of Hebrews starts off by trying to address those doubts. He wants to remind the reader of exactly why Jesus is worthy of worship and why Jesus is better than what they had hoped. He does this through an escalating contrast of Jesus to things that the Jews are familiar with.

He references the forefathers. Jesus is not one of them.

He steps up to prophets. Jesus is not one of them.

He moves up to angels. Jesus is not one of them.

He arrives at God. Now, we're at the right level.

Since he's now established Jesus' place in the hierarchy of the universe, he can also describe some of the attributes of Jesus that can give us hope and reason to continue our faith in Him. Since Jesus is God and not any of the lesser beings, He is heir of all things, the radiance of God's glory, His word is powerful, He provided purification for sins, and He sits at God's right hand. Clearly our hope is not in man or prophecy or angels. Our hope is in God, the source of all things, especially our salvation.

Acts 28

It's interesting how self-centered the Jews in Jerusalem turned out to be. They knew that Paul had appealed to Caesar and that he would be headed to Rome, but they didn't even write letters or send messengers to the Jews in Rome to warn them about Paul. I would have thought that if he was such a huge threat to Judaism that they would want Jews everywhere to avoid him and to be sure to not heed his words. In fact, the Jews in Rome told Paul that they had not heard anything bad about him at all. The text almost implies that they have heard virtually nothing about Paul good or bad. How peculiar.

When you are working for God to spread His word and share Him with the people of the world, you are very concerned with anything that might hinder or confuse your ability to complete your mission. As Paul does in his epistles, you warn people about false teachers and you name the specifically along with their false doctrines. You don't just ignore them. On the other hand, when you are playing church and you are caught up in your own piety, your only concern will be those that might steal that from you. And as long as that threat is removed, you don't care about it anymore. It's not your problem because you are not concerned with the mission as a whole, you are only concerned about your specific position.

The Jews in Jerusalem seem to have enjoyed being the center of Judaism. They enjoyed being the hub of all the feasts. They enjoyed being looked on by the world as the most devout and most spiritual of all the Jews. Then Jesus shows up and challenges that. And Jesus is followed by the twelve. And they are followed by Paul, one of the Pharisees. Each of these iterations repeats the same message to them over and over. They hear that God is not interested in their piety. That they cannot fulfill the law and that they are embarrassing themselves by even trying. The truth of God's desire for a relationship with man is clarified and the real meaning behind the law is brought out, but if they can't have their piety and their law and their hold on the Jewish society, then they'll be just like everyone else.

I'm sure that some of them, like Paul, realized the truth of the Gospel, but most clung to their positions rather than to the Word. Most clung to their beliefs rather than a relationship. For that reason, once they had rid themselves of Paul (death preferably, but a trip to Rome was good enough), they didn't have to worry about him anymore. He was someone else's problem. Namely, he was the problem of the Jews in Rome. Here's the rub, though, because of their shortsightedness, Paul was able to preach freely to the Jews in Rome without any personal bias tainting their judgment of his words, and he was able to convert many of them. That's not so good for the Jews if they are trying to kill this sect, and especially not if this sect is full of heretics.

Of course, we know that Christianity is not heretical, and we are grateful that the Jews did not warn the Romans because that became the center of Christianity. We can, however, still learn from this lesson. When we as a church body start to focus more on our buildings, community position, piety, knowledge, etc. than we do on furthering the Gospel we run the risk of becoming just like the Jerusalem Jews, and when that happens we allow false teachers into our midst and we don't support our brothers and sisters around the world. If we become like that, just like the Jerusalem Jews, we'll be our own undoing.