Tag: hebrews

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christ church salvation scripture study

Things Are Actually Better

Holding hands as a better family
From Myriams-Fotos on Pixabay

During a seemingly bad situation, it’s hard to see the better. Seeing the better in the situation or in those around us is hard. I’m not talking about wishful thinking or silver linings. Like, when sick, thinking, “oh, I’ll get better in four days” or “at least I’m not dead!”.

Even During Tough Times, Things Are Actually Better

“Better” is a comparison word. It only works when it’s put up against something else. That’s important.

The writer to the Hebrews wrote to believers who were going through a rough patch. To fix their situation, some thought they needed to jump ship.  Some stopped coming together (Hebrews 10:25). Some probably feared to suffer (Hebrews 12:4). All of them needed encouragement (Hebrews 13:22) to stand firm (Hebrews 12:12). They needed this letter where the author pits the choices against each other to show the better.

Not a better imaginable situation. Not a silver lining. Rather a re-aligning of their thinking.

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angels church study

God With Us

Article 2 of the Constitution of the United States stipulates the rules for the Executive branch. How long the person would serve. How they would be elected. What was the grounds for electing him. What is the process for removing him. What are the qualifications to function in that role.

In that clause, the Constitution states that the President—indeed, also the Vice President—must be thirty five years old but then it has these two other qualifications: they must have been a natural born citizen and have been a resident of the United States for at least 14 years.

The clause is not historically uncommon. Nations throughout history have always wanted a leader who belonged to the country. It’s understandable. When a foreign nation comes in, attacking another country and sits on the throne, the new country is merely real estate with revenue funneling back into the mother country. The ruler doesn’t represent the people of the conquered country at all. Be it Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, Mother Russia, England, or the United States the leader represents the needs of his own people.

It was the people’s fear of having a foreign national with us. He’s not really of us—but he’s over us.

So the Constitution drafters insert that clause ensuring that some foreign national doesn’t come along, somehow orchestrate events to become leader of the United States, and then spends the bulk of his time supporting the desires of his real country.

Which brings us to the problem of Hebrews 2.

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apologetics christ godhead hermeneutics history scripture spirit the father

The Author to the Hebrews vs. Kenotic Arian View of Scripture

Due to their opponents embracing a faulty anthropology, Evangelicals have often been accused of having a Docetic view of Scritpure. “Come now! Scripture is a human book,” their opponents say “and that necessitates error—not only because humans are sinful (a minor point) but because humans are finite and necessarily make mistakes!”

An obvious fallacious conflation of categories: why conflate bad breath and miscalculations with affirming erroneous beliefs—indeed, even morally wrong beliefs (which they may use examples as slavery, monarchism or patriarchies)?

Yet, this question about the ontology of a human as it relates to a human product cannot be so easily brushed away when one approaches the letter to the Hebrews. The author looks beyond the human author to establish all his arguments—and this refutes the Nestorian(1), or even Kenotic Arian(2), view of Scripture.

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