Hebrews—written by Christians, to Christians, and for Christians—is loaded with spiritual truth accessible to any believer looking to grasp the importance of faith. Penned at a politically unstable time, Hebrews targets believers tempted to abandon their faith and slip back into the rules and regulations of Judaism.
In our politically unstable day of "wars and rumors of wars" (Mark13:7), we can all understand the quest for stability. But there is only one source of rock solid security.
There was a time for rules and sacrifices. Then Christ came as the perfect, spotless Lamb to atone for sin once and for all. Respected pastor Dr. Warren W. Wiersbe will show you that by focusing on the reality of the unseen first, an overwhelming desire for intimate friendship with God will follow.


We realize that not everyone can make our class, but there is technology available to us that can allow participation from a lot of people. We plan on discussing what we are reading and studying throughout the week by using this forum as well as the UMC of Mantua's group page on facebook. You are invite to participate.

Hebrews 1:1-3

God has spoken!

1. To whom has He spoken?
2. How and why?
3. What is the difference between hearing and really listening?

The first three verses of the book of Hebrews is a wonderful bit of Doctrine. God spoke to the fathers through the prophets and spoke through His Son.

God continues to speak today through His Word and through the Spirit. The question is; are we listening?

Hi Greg! Good question. But, the hard part for me is to know who/what to listen to. Hebrews says that God spoke through the Prophets. OK, if I'm really being honest with myself, just like the Israelites, I probably wouldn't have listened to them. Think about it - You have all these false prophets against one true prophet (Jeremiah) - and you're just a regular ole' Hebrew trying to do the right thing. The false profits obviously aren't claiming to be false, so which ones do you listen to? Not to mention that Jeremiah's always preaching gloom and doom. Get my point? So, who do we listen to today? The Bible is a no brainer, but even that's confusing because there are so many different interpretations of every issue, that how do you know who has the right one? And listening to the Spirit? Well, how do I know if it's really God's spirit speaking to me or just me trying to figure things out on my own. This is something I've struggled with for a while. How do we know what is really God's voice?

Michelle,
if I had the answers to all those questions, my walk would be flawless. These are questions that all of us struggle with all the time. Thank God for His grace!

The best I can do here is to give some of my understanding, incomplete at best, of the issues you raised.

From what I've gathered from reading and study is the true prophet's message was accompanied by some type of confirmation of the message. "Signs and wonders". Wonders would be those big miracles that we read about in The Book, but I suspect that most confirmation would be some type of sign and I've seen this happen many times over the past 8 years as the Praise Team grew. The key, as I see it, is patience. Bathe the issue in prayer and wait in anticipation of some type of confirmation. I guess what I'm trying to say is listening requires more than our ears. The study yesterday morning hit on this very point; hearing is one thing, but listening requires obedience.

We didn't even get out of the first chapter yesterday. We all decided that we'll take our time with it. It's going to be a great study.

Hebrews 1:4-2:18

Is Christ greater than the angels?

How?

There's something about the discussion of angels that really gets people talking. We stated at the beginning of this study of Hebrews that it was going to be deep one and that we were going to take our time with it. Today we only were able to discuss Hebrews 1:4-14. We talked a lot about the nature of angels; who they are and what their ministry is. The key in this study is to remain focused on Christ and I believe we accomplished that today, but it was interesting to hear other's thoughts on angels.

These 10 verses (Hebrews 1:4-14) Deal with affirmation and use a lot of Old Testament scripture.

Jesus is affirmed as the:

Son (vv. 4,5)
Firstborn who receives worship (v. 6)
(served by angels v. 7)
God enthroned and anointed (vv. 8,9)
Eternal Creator (vv. 10-12)
Sovereign (vv. 13-14)

We're still discussing Jesus' superiority over the angels, but tucked into this section is a four verse admonition (2:1-4)to heed the Word; "lest we drift away from them."

Can spiritual problems arise from neglect?

We then went on to discuss the humanity of Jesus. Jesus humanity enabled Him to regain man's lost dominion. (2:5-9)

How can Jesus' humanity enable Him to regain our lost dominion?

10-13 Jesus' humanity enabled Him to bring many sons (and daughters) to glory.
How?

14-16 Jesus' humanity enabled Him to disarm Satan and deliver us from death.
How?

17,18 Jesus humanity enables Him to be a sympathetic High Priest to His people.
How?

Have you ever considered that Christs life, temptations, suffering and death were essential training for his heavenly ministry as priest?

3:1-4:13 Greater Than Moses

To the original readers of this letter Moses would have been revered. He was a prophet, deliverer, leader and the Law Giver. The writer of the letter explains why and how Jesus is greater than Moses.

3:1,2 Greater in His person.
Moses was sent by God whereas Jesus was sent from God.

Have we really considered Christ? A careful consideration of who He is and What He has done?

3:3-6 Christ is greater in His ministry

The household of God

Moses was a servant in the house, while Jesus Christ is a Son over the house.
Moses spoke of things to come, but Jesus brought the fulfillment of these things.

3:7-19 Let us take heed (Drifting away from the Word)

Psalm 96:7-11 "today"

To the history of Israel and the important lesson it teaches. (NUMBERS chaps. 13, 14)

They had seen God perform great signs in Egypt. Yet they doubted that He was adequate for the challenge of Canaan. They were ready to exchange freedom under God for slavery in Egypt. Israel departed from the living God by refusing His will for their lives and stubbornly wanting to go their own way back to Egypt. God disciplined them in the wilderness for 40 years, did not allow His people to return to bondage. Believers who doubt God's Word and rebel against Him do not miss heaven, but they do miss out on the blessings of their inheritance (rest/peace) today.

Could this be fear of the unknown?

Do we sometimes suffer from short term spiritual memory?

Are you ever tempted to give up your confession of Christ and go back to world system's life of compromise and bondage?

Is it important that we encourage each other to be faithful?

What is this sabbath rest that the author of Hebrews writes about?

4:1-8 Let us fear

God finished His work and rested, so that His rest has been available since creation. The Jews failed to enter into their rest. Many years later God said that a rest was still available. "Today" is still here! Joshua did not lead Israel into into the true rest, because a rest still remains.

Salvation rest is "peace with God" Romans 5:1
Submission rest is the "peace of God" Phil. 4:6-8

4:9-13 Let us labor, or "give diligence". Paying close attention to the Word.

The Word exposes our hearts. We see God and we see ourselves as we really are. That allows us to be honest with God and ourselves. We may enter into His rest by trusting His Word and obeying His will. We can claim our spiritual inheritance by surrendering to Him and trusting His Word.