"The Superior King" Intro to The Book of Hebrews Part 1 - Jason Willis

Mmm, you think you're a Christian, right? Uh, listen, this is not that simple. What do you mean it's not that simple? I mean, I'm giving him a whole life.

Good morning.

Morning. Today we begin week 1 of 12. You guys are stuck with me for the next 12 weeks of Sunday school. I'm a little bit nervous. I'm also a little bit excited. The past two months have been probably the most meaningful time of study that I've ever experienced in my life to date.

Over these next three months, we're going to be digging into the book of Hebrews.

And as I studied this book, it really became alive to me, and it has—I feel like God has been renewing my mind through it. And my prayer is that as I go through this, that I'm able to articulate some of the amazing things that I feel like God has shown me. And my hope is that I can articulate them in a way that your minds can be renewed as well. There are some very difficult passages to understand in Hebrews.

It was difficult to get to the conclusion of some of them. And so hopefully we can all be edified from this. We'll see how that goes. We probably won't get through all—we definitely won't get through all 14 chapters. Today we're going to begin looking at an overview of the book, an introduction to the letter. We're going to be discussing some of the cultural and some of the historical context surrounding the letter.

Next week we will begin in chapter 1, verse 1, and then by the end of week 12, we'll probably get to the beginning somewhere of chapter 6, is my best estimation. So let's do it. It is commonly estimated that Jesus was crucified somewhere between the year 30 and 33 AD.

Who here knows or would like to make a guess how many years it was after the resurrection before the first Gentile convert? How big of a gap was there before there were any Gentiles in the church? Anyone have an idea about that?

Or a guess?

I'm going to guess 10 years. 10 years. It's spot on. I found this timeline of Acts here. And if you look here at the green arrow in Acts chapter 10, it's estimated at taking place somewhere around 40 AD.

This is the account of Peter converting the first Gentiles with Cornelius and his family. And so what this means was that for the first 8 to 10 years or so, every single Christian that existed was actually a Jew.

So if you think about it, there was no such thing as a Gentile Christian for nearly a decade. And then even when the Gentiles did become included into the new covenant, they still weren't called Christians per se because it still wasn't until about another three or four years later, according to this timeline here in Acts 11. We got Acts 11:25. Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul. And when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. And so for a whole year, Barnabas and Saul met with the church, and they taught great numbers of people. And the disciples were first called Christians here at Antioch. So that's about 14 years after the resurrection.

So for the first 10 years, no such thing as the word Christian. All Christians were Jews. And then so with this mindset or with this in mind, we can see how in the beginning, the lines between being a Christian and being a Jew could have been a little bit fuzzy, not so clear in the beginning.

In the beginning, Christians were viewed as nothing more than a new sect within Judaism as it was emerging. It wasn't that Jesus rose from the dead and God said, "Hey guys, come here. Come here. Listen, you're not Jews anymore. There's a new word for you." It didn't happen like that.

In the beginning, what you had was actually a group of Jews who were witnessing to the ushering in and the fulfillment of some of the earliest and some of the greatest prophecies that have ever been given to us in the Old Testament. They were witnesses to the fulfilling of God's promise to Abraham, which we see in Genesis 1. "I swear by myself," declares the Lord, "that because you have done this and not withheld your Son, your only Son, I will surely bless you. And through your offspring, all nations on the earth will be blessed." So these first Jews, they witnessed this taking place before their eyes. And then they also witnessed this one in Genesis 3. "And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers.

He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel." So these men, these first Jews, were the first to enter into the new covenant of God, the first to enter into redeemed humanity. But in a way, they were still Jews. So as time passed by, the line between being a Jew and a Christian, it started to become very clear. And this happened through two different major factors played into this.

One was persecution coming from the Jews, the Jewish leaders at least. The Jewish leaders, they didn't like this new sect of Judaism. They didn't accept it. It was heresy to them. And so they began to persecute them. We see that in Acts 7, "And they cast him out of the city, and they stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their coats at the feet of the young man named Saul." So this is the account of the first Christian martyr as Stephen was stoned.

Then we see more persecution in Acts 1. Then Saul, still breathing threats and murders against the disciples of the Lord, he went to the high priest, and he asked for letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus. So he wanted to go to the synagogues with a permission slip, basically. "If I find anyone of the way," that's what they were called in the beginning. They were followers of the way. "If I find anyone, this letter gives me permission to round them up and take them captive and bring them back to Jerusalem for persecution." So we had persecution from the Jews, and then we also had persecution that came from the Romans.

In 64 AD, the emperor of Rome was Nero, and he was a very wicked and twisted man. We in our world today, we've been extremely sheltered from this type of wickedness. It exists out there, but we don't see it.

Even when it's captured on film, it doesn't make it into our media. And even the internet does censor a lot of this type of wickedness. I found this article online describing the persecution from Rome to the Christians. It says, "In their very death, they were made subject of sports, for they were covered with hides of wild beasts so that dogs would worry them to death." It's just wicked people. You know, like, "Hey, what are you doing this weekend?

You don't have plans? Well, I got 30 or 40 Christians in a dungeon. You want to come over and figure out some weird ways to torture them and kill them?" Just the wickedness that took place, the persecution. We can nail them on a cross, or we can set them to fire. And then it says here, "When the day got dark, they would burn them to serve as evening as lights."

It's getting dark out here. I'll be right back. I'm going to go throw another Christian on the fire. We don't experience wickedness like that, or we don't see it. But it was there. And so between the persecutions from the Jews and the persecutions coming from the Romans, the blurry lines between being a Christian and a Jew got real clear pretty quickly.

Being a Christian suddenly came at a very high cost. If you wanted to be a Jew, carry on. It's your life. Be a Jew all day long. But if you want to be a Christian, you might need to be prepared to die.

So that's the first major factor that calls the blurry lines between being a Jew and a Christian to start to clear up. The second was a cultural clash. Think back to that timeline with me. For the first 10 years after Jesus' death, the followers of Jesus were Jews.

Then one day, Peter has a vision, and the Lord reveals to Peter that this new covenant belongs to not just the Jews, but to the entire world. And so Peter obeys, and he goes, and he finds Cornelius' family, and he converts them. And now we have the first Gentile converts into the church. And this throws a massive monkey wrench into the whole operation.

Next thing we know, we have Gentiles coming in by the droves. And this is when the culture clash begins. For the first time ever, we now have two types of Christians. We have Christians who are coming from the Jewish culture, and then we have Christians that are coming in from a pagan culture.

And we can sympathize with this in our congregation. How many in this room, show of hands, how many come from an Anabaptist culture?

Almost everybody. Over the past many months, we've been very excited about the fact that we have new families and new individuals who have decided to want to become a part of our brotherhood, a part of our congregation. And it's very exciting for us. But for the most part, if I'm not mistaken, those who have expressed interest are also coming in from Anabaptist culture.

But imagine if it were different, if the people who were coming in weren't from an Anabaptist culture. Imagine if 10 new Patrick Matthews showed up all riding Harley Davidsons. And 9 new Jason show up wearing skinny jeans and driving red Jettas.

And 4 new Jeff Stein showing up wanting to be baptized in sleeveless shirts. How would this make us feel? It feels great when, "Oh, look, these new people want to come and join us from the Anabaptist culture." But what would it feel like if this is what it looked like?

Show of hands. Raise your hand if you have ever been a member of a church where you witnessed the culture shifting. Has anyone experienced that in here or known of a church where the culture was shifting? A few?

For those who answered the question, what did it feel like? What did it feel like? Did you have any experiences? Or have you known anybody who was experiencing some things happening in their church and the culture maybe was shifting and they were dealing with emotions? What does that feel like or how was that described?

Interesting no answers. Very interesting. Yeah, I've heard lots of, "Oh, what's this going on since I've moved up here?" Like, "Whoa, whoa, what are you talking about? What's going to happen in over here?" So it's definitely something that it feels odd when it happens.

A little bit later, we will ask this question here. What can we do or is there anything that we should be doing to prepare ourselves for something like this happening? Are we ready in our Anabaptist circles for mass converts from the world?

No, Kevin says no. So if we have time at the end, which I think that we will, we'll circle back to this question. So if this group on the screen was the one that showed up, we would definitely have two dramatic different cultures colliding. And this is exactly what the Jews were facing with the Gentile converts.

And the Jews, they already had a very dramatic change in their whole system of thinking. They had given up the Levitical priesthood. They were doing away with animal sacrifices in the ceremonial law. They had dramatic changes in the practices of the Sabbath. And these weren't little things. These were things that were embedded into their culture. So they already had dramatic things going on. And then on top of that, they go from being God's chosen people who are set apart from the world. They're different. Set apart from the pagans and the Gentiles. And now they're sharing communion and fellowship as equals with a bunch of pork-eating Gentiles. That's a tough pill to swallow as an early Jew.

On top of this, the writing is on the wall. At this rate of conversion, the Gentiles will soon be the majority. And this was a difficult pill for the Jews to swallow. Now combine this culture clash along with the fact that one might literally be eaten by dogs or set on fire as sport to wicked men. This created a compelling incentive to maybe look more like a Jew than a Christian.

And this is what the Hebrew Christians were facing. Some Jews were starting to turn back to animal sacrifices, turning back to the law. And a new group of Jewish Christians emerged who became referred to as the Judaizers. Now I don't really know exactly when that term was ascribed to them or subscribed to them.

We can sympathize with both sides. We already discussed how difficult it would be for a Jew, for the Jews, culturally speaking, adopting all of the new Gentiles into their culture. But imagine being a Gentile convert. You're meeting in secret. You're hated by your family because you've become a Christian. You've abandoned your livelihood and the politics of your day. Your life is completely turned upside down, and you have these Judaizers coming to you and, "Mmm, you think you're a Christian, right?"

Listen, it's not that simple. What do you mean it's not that simple? I mean, I've given them a whole life for this. Well, you see, first you got to be a Jew. Then you can think about becoming a Christian, but you just can't be a pagan if the Christian doesn't wipe it away.

Well, all right. Maybe they know more than me. I mean, they've been doing this their whole life. I'm new to this culture. Fine. I'm making me a Jew. Well, you see, it's not that simple. First, you have to be circumcised. Then you can become a Jew. Then you can become a Christian. All right. Well, you know, kind of this whole Christian thing is kind of a big deal to me. Like I've given up everything. Fine. They circumcised me. What's that? And then someone comes and tells them what circumcision is.

You got to be kidding me. No, Paul didn't say nothing about the circumcision. No. It's a little bit humorous, but we can sympathize with both sides of the story. You're trying to do what? So this influence of the Judaizers was becoming prevalent in the Christian church. A large number of Jews who had converted to Christianity were torn between sticking it out to the end and facing horrific persecution. Along with the social and cultural pressure arising from the Judaizers, the lure to fall back from the faith and return back to Judaism and the law became prevalent and was enticing to the Hebrew Christians. And so this is the book. This is the reason that the letter of Hebrews was written to address this very issue.

And the author, he does this in a very masterful way, in my opinion. He exhorts the Hebrews to stand firm in the faith. And he does this by going through the Jewish religion and taking the key components that make up the Jewish religion. And one by one, he compares them to Jesus, making the case each time that Jesus is superior to the Jewish religion. He compares and shows that Jesus was superior to the prophets and that he was superior to the angels. And then he moves on to show that he was superior to Moses and then to Melchizedek. And that Jesus ushers in a better covenant with a better sanctuary and that he makes a better high priest and he was a superior sacrifice.

Also, this letter to the Hebrews, it is a letter of exhortation. The writer himself refers to the letter as a word of exhortation. And the exhortations are designed to stir up the reader into action are found all through the text. These exhortations, they come in a form of six different warnings. Like I said, we'll only get through about six chapters or so, so we won't get to all of them. Here they are. It's the warning against drifting away from the things that they had heard, chapter 2, 1 through 4.

The warning against disbelieving the voice of God, 3, 7 through 14. Warning number 3, the warning against degenerating from the elementary principles of Christ, chapter 5, 11 and 6 through 20. The next warning is the warning against despising the knowledge of the truth, chapter 10, 26 through 39.

And then number 5, the warning against devaluing the grace of God. We see this in chapter 12, 15 through 17. And finally, the warning against departing from him who speaks. So next question we have is who was the author? Now we don't know 100% who the author is.

Many, if not most of the early Christian writers that I read, they all believe that it was penned by Paul, Clement, Origen, John Chrysostom, Jerome. When they write about him, when they are making comments on these verses, they quote, "Paul said this, Paul said that." So it was pretty clear to them. But technically, it's still out for debate. I couldn't figure out when it became a debate. I couldn't really nail that down. But I guess we can't really say we know for sure who wrote it.

In the beginning, I decided that I was going to refer to the author as the author. But then when I started getting more into the early Christian writings and it got real confusing for me to insert the author every time they said Paul. So when I say the author, I mean the author. When I say Paul, I mean probably Paul the author.

So when was it written? Again, we don't know exactly, but we do have some clues that suggest that it was written somewhere between the year 60 and 70 AD. We have three different clues that we'll look at right quick.

In 96 AD, we have a record of an early church father, Clement, who was the bishop of Rome. We have him quoting from Hebrews. So obviously, if he's quoting from it, it had to exist by that time, so at least before 96.

Clue number 2 is that in 70 AD, the city of Jerusalem and the temple was destroyed by the Roman army. Some speculate that because Hebrews deals with temple rituals at length, the fact that this event is not mentioned at all suggests that it was written somewhere time before 70 AD. So before 96, when it's quoted, probably before 70, if no mention of the temple destruction.

Also, when the author is talking about the works of the priest in the book, he talks about them in the present tense. And this is another clue that the temple was probably still standing when it was written. Clue number 3 is that the book we have, in the book, we have the mention of mature leaders who have passed on. So in the beginning, it was just the apostles. And then as the church grew, they appointed elders and deacons.

And so having a reference of elders that had been appointed and had become mature in their faith and then having had time to die, it suggests that there was probably enough a generation or two after Christ's resurrection when this was written, if we already have elders that have matured in the faith and then passed on. So the estimation we're going to go with is somewhere between 60 and 70 AD.

So quick recap on this. This has been an introduction to the letter of Hebrews. We have an unknown author, probably Paul, written to the Hebrews and Canon. It's a letter of exhortation, exhorting them and encouraging the Hebrew Christians not to turn back to Judaism, not to turn from Christ and endure to the end. And the recurring theme throughout the book is that Jesus is superior in every way and shape and form to the Jewish religion.

Next week, we'll be looking at Hebrews 1. I put 1 through 2. I think we go like 1 through 5 or something like that.

So the question I asked before, and we can answer this question if anyone has any thoughts or if anyone has any thoughts or questions about anything that I discussed. You don't have to stick with this question. But what can we do or is there anything that we should be doing to be prepared for the world being converted and showing up in where we have an Anabaptist culture? So we'll open it up for discussion there. Any thoughts?

I think it means being willing to be stretched a bit out of our comfort zone. When everybody is homogenous, yeah, it's a lot more comfortable. And it does stretch you when you're having to deal with other cultures. Can I preach in shorts?

Just kidding. Definitely, we have to be--I don't know. I guess we just have to decide as a brotherhood on that. Where do we let the stretching end?

I think it's important to find a good common denominator or something like the historic faith that we can all go back to. And even us, and recognize the fact that we're all Gentiles in a big sense, we are. So we find something like the historic faith that we can all go back to and find some common entity in that this is--it's not that we're trying to preserve a certain culture necessarily. There is some of that, but we can go back to history, to even early Anabaptists, and clear back to the early Christians and find something there to grab onto moving forward.

I like the idea. And make sure that we explain to people coming in that there's a lot of things they're not going to understand, that there's a reason that this Anabaptist movement has existed for so long, and that there is a need to preserve it. There is a need to not change drastically or lose it.

And something that, as you stay here long enough, you'll start to understand the things that seem so odd. And it's just something you got to grow into and figure out and question and act. And it's going to have to be uncomfortable for both people. It can't be--anyway. Yeah. Yeah.

I really appreciate when I--with me coming out here, I didn't have any--I didn't have a whole bunch of preconceived notions. I didn't have a--I wasn't coming from a culture of just isolation, basically. So I didn't have any desires to change things. But there was definitely-- you're definitely right. As time progressed, things that seemed weird, it does start to make sense.

But there was so much that I didn't even understand about church in itself that I think we need to encourage new people to figure out how to encourage them to come in and be a part of, but don't be too aggressive. I don't know exactly how we would--how exactly do that is being encouraged--encouraging them to not be too aggressive, wanting things to change, and things of that nature.

Another conversation that we've had recently has been about the evangelical world. Their model of church is different. And I think that's probably something that keeps a lot of new worldly people from flooding in is because the model of the world is invite your friend and we'll pump them up on Sunday. And then that's being a Christian. It's different. The model of the church and the teaching being for the church itself, not just a place of making converts through feelings. It definitely keeps a pretty natural barrier from people just coming in for the fun of it. They're not going to come in here and get all jazzed up and emotional.

I think from the Anabaptist side of things, I think that us Anabaptist people need to be willing to revisit what we are practicing or why. Not just because it's comfortable. We need to be willing to accept questions and have a good answer for it.

That's a good point. I think another aspect is we need to be clear as to what the gospel is in the kingdom of God and be able to communicate those clear things and articulate the difference between what is being a righteous Christian and what our culture is.

I don't think I'm comfortable to say that I'm not apologizing to have a culture as a part of that. But we do need to be clear in understanding what that difference is. And then I think if we're clear on that, we don't necessarily have to expect someone to do exactly what that culture is. I mean, if they grow into that, that's one thing. But just to be clear of that. And we as a church need to understand those distinctions and be very, very clear in articulating that. I think that's some of the biggest struggle I see is people get all confused between culture and the gospel or the kingdom of God and what those separations from the world are and what that looks like.

And the other thing is I think that what unites whether you're Gentile or coming from Anabaptist is keeping the standard high as to what being a Christian is. When you set that bar and you communicate that, if there's anything that's going to be distinctive, that's one of the greatest distinctiveness. Whether you come from Anabaptist, if you're not willing to step up to the plate and be that person of change and walk with a high expectation of what it means to be a Christian, willing to die, that changes everything. There's a lot of people stuck in culture that they think that that culture in itself is what's going to save the day. And that's very deceiving.

On the other hand, you got people coming from the world that is loving Jesus and all that's going to save the day. And it takes the gospel is much bigger than that. So I think that's a learning to communicate that and be very distinctive with that. And the other thing I see is recognize that if it's only your last name and there is another last name separate from the Anabaptist, that's a really bad sign. We don't know how to reach out and bring people in and evangelize. So it's a big undertaking. And I think we're all up to the challenge, so let's go for it. Sure. One of the maybe it's small. Thank you, Kevin.

Parts of our congregation. And a lot of most people will cringe at this.

But the high level or the idea of the type of music that we see being the highest level and that other music, what people here call praise and worship or whatever, being some kind of not good thing. To people coming from the evangelical world, the high-level music doesn't sound good at first. It takes a long time. It's like, "What are we doing?" And then this low-level music is something we know, but we're coming into this foreign place, singing this foreign music, and it's just so foreign.

Throw in a few of those, not trying to move the standard down, but although that's what it's going to seem like. If it was a biblical standard that we sing, like this some kind of high-level music, then I would understand if it was complaining or arguing or some kind of standard in the Bible that we have to follow, I'd understand. But it's one of those that's pork or eating meat or not eating meat that, yeah, it's going to make you cringe, but it might help some people come and learn to surrender and learn to love the high-level music.

Well, I have a thought. Yes, sir. The music here is a major attraction. A major attraction? Good. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Yes, sir. One other thing to think about, and maybe one day I'll talk more about it, but I've always had this idea of Christian culture. We have our own culture because we are our own nation. Peter speaks about it. Paul speaks of us as the Israel of God. And so there are things that are uniquely Christian, like the head cover that's part of not Corinthian culture, but Christian culture. Ecstasy is an aspect of Christian culture. And so the idea that, yeah, people can come from a lot of different cultural backgrounds, but to realize that what we should be rooted in is Christian culture. I think a lot of that comes out of the early Christians, and they even addressed the subject of music.

Did they? Worship and stuff like that. But just the idea that we are our own nation and we do have our own culture. Yes. For sure. Thank you. Did you have something to say? I completely agree with Mike. I really like what he said. But I was also thinking about what Daniel was saying with music. And I think one thing that I want to keep in focus in my life is live my life in a way that is attainable for other people. Live a way that someone is inspired by it, but also can say, "You know what? I can do that. I can do that too." And as Daniel was saying, not necessarily purposefully dumb things down, but yeah, live in a way where other people can be inspired and say that they can do it.

That's just a thought I have. Very good. I think that kind of on what Daniel was saying is because we don't invite people to church to convert, and it seems that it's more the church is for the edification of the body.

And if I'm wrong about that, I can welcome the correction. I think it's important that we find ways of associating that we for example, Justin was talking the other day about going to the park and the way it created a natural environment for him to be able to open up conversations with strangers, having the kid common denominator there.

And I think in that conversation, I think he said that him and Wes were talking about maybe trying to do that type of thing more. But since we don't have a stage up here with a drum set and a guitarist, then it's not going to be that appealing.

Inviting people here to try to make a convert is not even appealing to most of the world in this environment. But we can be intentional about how we associate and create environments where we associate with people outside so that we can develop relationships, and then they can learn to love our music. Yes, sir.

Yeah. And another thing I think about is just how we express that Christian culture. Each congregation that you go is going to have a slightly different way of expressing it. And to think about major changes. Because when you asked, "Have you experienced a cultural shift in a church?" And I have. It led to a split, but it was over music.

It had been piano and organ and hymns. And then people wanted praise and worship music. So that started to come in. But then that created two different services. One for the older, one for the younger. Eventually, the church is split and isn't anymore. But yeah, just wisdom in how to go about stuff like that. And praise and worship is not what I don't understand what y'all are talking about, praise and worship. But when we were at that, whatever, the state college in. Pan Valley?

There are some songs in there I liked. And I was like, "Yeah, I miss that song. I miss that song." And I felt like I could sing them easier. And then suddenly, I heard all these complaining, like, "This is the worst thing ever."

We should have brought our own hymnals. So it's like. I'm not saying guitars and any instruments or anything like that, just some things that are maybe more familiar so that people can feel like they can sing to God instead of just sitting there for six months not singing to God and then finally figuring out how to do it.