The Book of Hebrews is an awesome book that should be taught and read by every Christian. When I was in the rehab ministry I always started out teaching this book. It is a great book for the themes that are outlined in it. It points to Christ's superiority over anything else that we could possibly put above Him. And it helps us to grow in our faith rather than sliding back or turning away from the faith. It was probably written to second generation Christians that converted from Judaism.
The author and date of the Book of Hebrews has brought curiosity to many preachers and theologians.
To start, the author is unknown. In earlier transcripts of the Bible such as the KJV the author was attributed to the Apostle Paul. There are several reasons that many theologians have discarded the thought that Paul wrote Hebrews. There are two that I have always pointed out.
The first would be that the style of Hebrews is much different than any of the other Books that are written by the Apostle Paul. Paul would have been very knowledgeable about the subject and probably to the audience however, the style is much different.
The second point that I always point out is in Chapter 2 verse 3 which states, "how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation which at first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him."
I believe that a verse can tell us so much after praying over it and meditating on it. I also believe that a single verse will always have other supporting verses somewhere in the Bible.
For instance, this verse plainly tells us that the Good News that was spoken by the Lord was handed down from someone that heard the message firsthand. Demonstrated in the second part of that verse, "which at first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed to us by those who heard him."
Luke tells of the Apostle Paul's salvations in which it plainly states that Paul spoke to the Lord. Paul encountered Christ while on the road to Damascus and can be read in Act 9.
In verse 5 Paul asked, "Who are You, Lord?" Jesus then replied "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting." Did you know that when you are persecuting, talking about, or slandering another Christian you are doing the same to Christ? Moving on: Just Paul's conversion is a whole other sermon and could be a sermon series, but we see that Paul directly spoke to the Lord and the Lord gave Paul his new mission in life.
Ok so, if it wasn't Paul, who was it? It is still a mystery, but many names have been thrown in the hat such as Barnabas because he was very familiar with the culture that the audience of Hebrews was of. Others suggest that Luke may have written, Peter could also be the writer, or it could have been Priscilla. One thing is for sure though, the ultimate Author was God who inspired all of the authors who wrote this book and the other 65 in the Bible.
The best date that can be given is sometime before A.D 64 which was before Nero's persecution. The main reason for this thought is that the Christian audience that the author is speaking to hasn't yet been called upon to suffer death for their faith in Christ. Which also brings up the reason for the Book of Hebrews. There are several themes in the Book of Hebrews that are pointed out which are:
-Christ is Superior. This starts out in Chapter One demonstrating that Christ is the Son of God and superior to the Angels.
-Christ is greater than the Jewish priesthood. This will be shown in Chapter 5.
-Christ is the Ultimate sacrifice. This will be displayed in Chapter 10 and also demonstrates that there is no other need for sacrifices after Christ paid the ultimate sacrifice.
-Faith in Christ is Superior to anything else we could have faith in.
-Finally, we will see the importance of enduring.
All of these themes point to a second generation Christian audience who were probably thinking of turning back to their traditional Jewish religious practices. It is important that this point is expressed especially in our time today.
We are finding people looking to worship in other ways than Christianity and for many reasons. There are first of all too many people teaching a wrong doctrine. It seems that ministers are too often trying to gain their popularity and glorifying themselves rather than Christ.
There is too much out there that draws people away from true faith in Christ and we are not doing enough teaching the hard right. The easy left is the path that seems to be the route to take when teaching someone such as forgiveness. For example, I have encountered people who will tell me that they can do whatever it is that they want to as long as they ask for forgiveness. This is a tough discussion to have especially to those who have lingered in addiction. The truth is ALL of the doctrines of the Bible need to be taught to all new Christians.
The last thing that I would point out and this is a topic that Christians don't want to hear is that often Christians do a good job of turning people away from Christ. I recently read a book that was written by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons called "Unchristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity." This book was published in 2007 and a great book for Christians to read. It explains the many reasons why we are seeing less and less of the younger generations come to Christ and even don't want to come to Church.
We should care what the younger generation thinks of Christianity and how we can draw them back. If we as Christians only care about the older Christians and not care whether the younger generation is saved or not, Christianity will eventually die out. The younger generations and teens is our future. They will be the one's to carry on the Gospel Message after we are gone.
The Book of Hebrews is a great Book and I hope you all enjoy it as you journey through it. If you have any questions please leave a comment or email me. My email can be found on the profile of this blog.
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