For those of you wondering just what exactly I do in Scripture School, prepare to have some of your curiosity satisfied. Here's a passage of Scripture which I was asked to "discuss", in its historical and literary context (but of course). It's from Hebrews. (See, I told you I'd mention Hebrews again).
It still remains that some will enter that rest, and those who formerly had the gospel preached to them did not go in, because of their disobedience. Therefore God again set a certain day, calling it Today, when a long time later he spoke through David, as was said before:
"Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts."
For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; 10for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. 11Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience.
Here is my answer. It's not my best work, but it's certainly not my worst either. It is however just over one thousand words long, so feel free to back out now if you were just looking for something quick to breeze through.
Hebrews is fundamentally a book of encouragement. The Jewish-Christian audience to which the author wrote were experiencing external (and probably internal) pressure to go back to the faith of their forefathers. Thus the central message of Hebrews is “Don’t go back! Don’t miss out!” This message can be found in Hebrews 4, where the author encourages his readers to “make every effort to enter that rest” (4:11). That is, “Don’t give up. Don’t go back. Don’t miss out. Hang in there, and you will enter God’s rest”.
Since his audience is a Jewish one, the author uses a well-known story of the children of Israel which helps bring his encouraging words to life. “An exhortation inspired by the exodus” writes Hagner in his commentary. In chapter 3 the author of Hebrews quotes Psalm 95, which deals with the “wilderness generation” of Israel – those people to whom God had promised rest, and yet failed to enter into it because “Their hearts are always going astray” (3:10).
As the writer says in Hebrews 4:2, the wilderness generation received the “gospel”, they received the good news about God’s rest, yet the message was of no value to them because they did not combined with faith. Their unbelief caused them to fall short. And consequently, God promised that this particular generation of Israelites “shall never enter My rest” (4:5).
The exhortation found in the midst of verses 6-11 is then followed by a sort of warning. Hardness of heart caused the generation of Moses to stumble, and so we must be aware that God’s word is able to detect the innermost secrets of our heart. It judges the heart’s thoughts and attitudes, and all is “laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account” (4:13). In effect the writer is saying to His audience “Take care of your heart, because God knows exactly what is going on inside of it, and in the end you’re going to have to explain yourself to Him”.
In between this looking back to the example of old and looking forward (for want of a better phrase!) to the final judgment lies the message of verses 6-11; the message for “Today”. We are told that the rest which God offered to His people is still available, though it is not quite the same at least in terms of physical nature. After all, Joshua entered the Promised Land, and yet from this land David could still write about “another day”, a rest which transcends the boundaries of the Promised Land.
Therefore we are to understand this rest which is on offer today not necessarily as a physical location to get to, but as childlike trust in the sufficiency of God. We are to rest in His provision, confident that He who sustains the whole universe is more than able to sustain you and I.
The nature of this rest explains why hardness of heart is so antagonistic to it, for to remain hard-hearted toward God is to remain self-sufficient. The author didn’t use Adam as a negative example, but he could have, since like the Israelites Adam refused to listen to the voice of God, choosing instead to go his own way.
But rather than saying to his Jewish-Christian readers that they are exactly like the wilderness generation and that they are doomed to miss out on God’s rest, the writer maintains the message of encouragement all the way through. He bids them to “make every effort to enter that rest”, not wanting any of them to fall down along the journey and turn around. And important to his point is that it is in fact a journey we are on.
The Christian life can often be exclusively described as some sort of one-off deal. You repent, get your ticket to heaven, and now you’re just waiting around for that glorious day to arrive when you either die or get beamed up into heaven. Or it can be seen as all taking place during one date in court, where you are pronounced ‘innocent’ and thus can live the rest of your life with a guilt-free conscience, relying on that past experience of acquittal to get you by.
Now of course there is truth in these pictures, or at least the latter one anyway. The Bible does speak of our dealings with God in terms befitting a courtroom drama, but we are not to allow this one analogy to dominate our interpretation of every portion of Scripture. For example, to apply such a picture to this passage will only lead to confusion, and most likely some creative but flawed hermeneutics.
The author of Hebrews makes it clear that our Christian life can be viewed as a journey, and on a journey you can slow down, stop, and ultimately decide to turn around. The language of this passage makes it clear that we have not yet fully entered the rest, but we are entering it. It’s almost like the kingdom of God, which is “already…but not yet”. Therefore, the Jewish-Christians which the author is specifically addressing, and all Christians who live in a day called “Today” are encouraged to continue entering, continue combining the hearing of the gospel with faith, because in the end Jesus is looking for people to whom He can say “Well done, good and faithful servant”.
Does this mean the quantity of our faith saves us? Is our confidence of salvation derived from our own ability to strive and persevere? No. Faith is nothing on its own. It’s similar to love, in that it requires an object in order to make sense. You can’t be in love with nothing. There is something or someone you are in love with, and similarly there is something or someone you have faith in. For Christians, Jesus is that someone. Therefore remaining faithful means continually trusting in our “great high priest who has gone through the heavens” (3:14); the one who has made purification for our sins, and now sits at the right hand of God (1:4). These can sound like trite Christian phrases, but they are the realities of Christ’s perfect salvation achieved by His death and resurrection, and it is in Him that our faith is based, and He whom we must continually cling to “so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (3:16).
It still remains that some will enter that rest, and those who formerly had the gospel preached to them did not go in, because of their disobedience. Therefore God again set a certain day, calling it Today, when a long time later he spoke through David, as was said before:
"Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts."
For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; 10for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. 11Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience.
Here is my answer. It's not my best work, but it's certainly not my worst either. It is however just over one thousand words long, so feel free to back out now if you were just looking for something quick to breeze through.
Hebrews is fundamentally a book of encouragement. The Jewish-Christian audience to which the author wrote were experiencing external (and probably internal) pressure to go back to the faith of their forefathers. Thus the central message of Hebrews is “Don’t go back! Don’t miss out!” This message can be found in Hebrews 4, where the author encourages his readers to “make every effort to enter that rest” (4:11). That is, “Don’t give up. Don’t go back. Don’t miss out. Hang in there, and you will enter God’s rest”.
Since his audience is a Jewish one, the author uses a well-known story of the children of Israel which helps bring his encouraging words to life. “An exhortation inspired by the exodus” writes Hagner in his commentary. In chapter 3 the author of Hebrews quotes Psalm 95, which deals with the “wilderness generation” of Israel – those people to whom God had promised rest, and yet failed to enter into it because “Their hearts are always going astray” (3:10).
As the writer says in Hebrews 4:2, the wilderness generation received the “gospel”, they received the good news about God’s rest, yet the message was of no value to them because they did not combined with faith. Their unbelief caused them to fall short. And consequently, God promised that this particular generation of Israelites “shall never enter My rest” (4:5).
The exhortation found in the midst of verses 6-11 is then followed by a sort of warning. Hardness of heart caused the generation of Moses to stumble, and so we must be aware that God’s word is able to detect the innermost secrets of our heart. It judges the heart’s thoughts and attitudes, and all is “laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account” (4:13). In effect the writer is saying to His audience “Take care of your heart, because God knows exactly what is going on inside of it, and in the end you’re going to have to explain yourself to Him”.
In between this looking back to the example of old and looking forward (for want of a better phrase!) to the final judgment lies the message of verses 6-11; the message for “Today”. We are told that the rest which God offered to His people is still available, though it is not quite the same at least in terms of physical nature. After all, Joshua entered the Promised Land, and yet from this land David could still write about “another day”, a rest which transcends the boundaries of the Promised Land.
Therefore we are to understand this rest which is on offer today not necessarily as a physical location to get to, but as childlike trust in the sufficiency of God. We are to rest in His provision, confident that He who sustains the whole universe is more than able to sustain you and I.
The nature of this rest explains why hardness of heart is so antagonistic to it, for to remain hard-hearted toward God is to remain self-sufficient. The author didn’t use Adam as a negative example, but he could have, since like the Israelites Adam refused to listen to the voice of God, choosing instead to go his own way.
But rather than saying to his Jewish-Christian readers that they are exactly like the wilderness generation and that they are doomed to miss out on God’s rest, the writer maintains the message of encouragement all the way through. He bids them to “make every effort to enter that rest”, not wanting any of them to fall down along the journey and turn around. And important to his point is that it is in fact a journey we are on.
The Christian life can often be exclusively described as some sort of one-off deal. You repent, get your ticket to heaven, and now you’re just waiting around for that glorious day to arrive when you either die or get beamed up into heaven. Or it can be seen as all taking place during one date in court, where you are pronounced ‘innocent’ and thus can live the rest of your life with a guilt-free conscience, relying on that past experience of acquittal to get you by.
Now of course there is truth in these pictures, or at least the latter one anyway. The Bible does speak of our dealings with God in terms befitting a courtroom drama, but we are not to allow this one analogy to dominate our interpretation of every portion of Scripture. For example, to apply such a picture to this passage will only lead to confusion, and most likely some creative but flawed hermeneutics.
The author of Hebrews makes it clear that our Christian life can be viewed as a journey, and on a journey you can slow down, stop, and ultimately decide to turn around. The language of this passage makes it clear that we have not yet fully entered the rest, but we are entering it. It’s almost like the kingdom of God, which is “already…but not yet”. Therefore, the Jewish-Christians which the author is specifically addressing, and all Christians who live in a day called “Today” are encouraged to continue entering, continue combining the hearing of the gospel with faith, because in the end Jesus is looking for people to whom He can say “Well done, good and faithful servant”.
Does this mean the quantity of our faith saves us? Is our confidence of salvation derived from our own ability to strive and persevere? No. Faith is nothing on its own. It’s similar to love, in that it requires an object in order to make sense. You can’t be in love with nothing. There is something or someone you are in love with, and similarly there is something or someone you have faith in. For Christians, Jesus is that someone. Therefore remaining faithful means continually trusting in our “great high priest who has gone through the heavens” (3:14); the one who has made purification for our sins, and now sits at the right hand of God (1:4). These can sound like trite Christian phrases, but they are the realities of Christ’s perfect salvation achieved by His death and resurrection, and it is in Him that our faith is based, and He whom we must continually cling to “so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (3:16).
Not bad, Dec!
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