Exploring My Strange Bible - Book of Hebrews Part 1 - Are You Listening?

Episode Date: December 4, 2017

This is a letter that doesn’t actually behave like a letter. There is no proper introduction. So what this first letter does is orient us towards the question “what is the letter to the Hebrews?��. It is kind of like an early Christian sermon, but kind of like a letter too. We talk about what we know (and don’t know) about this letter in this lecture. We also talk about what it means to be the divine identity of Jesus and what that means to be disciples of Jesus.

Tim Mackey, Jr. utterly amazing and worth following with everything that you have. On this podcast, I'm putting together the last 10 years worth of lectures and sermons where I've been exploring the strange and wonderful story of the Bible and how it invites us into the mission of Jesus and the journey of faith. And I hope this can be helpful for you too. I also help start this thing called The Bible Project. We make animated videos and podcasts about all kinds of topics in Bible and theology. You can find those resources at thebibleproject.com. With all that said, let's dive into the episode for this week. All right. Well, today we're going to begin a new mini-series on the Strange Bible Podcast. It's going to be a whole series of lectures and teachings that I gave on the New Testament letter to the Hebrews.

For real time, where I'm sitting right now, which is November 2017, these are now looking back five years ago when I gave these. I was actually just brand new, had just moved back to Portland from the Midwest after finishing grad school and was diving in as a new pastor at Door of Hope Church. And it was just awesome. So as I've kind of going back and looking at these and introing them for this podcast, it's been a kind of a walk down memory lane. so many great memories and so many great people. We dove into the letter to the Hebrews to just allow our church community to hear this very challenging word that the author of the letter to the Hebrews writes to this church community. It's a letter that actually doesn't behave like a letter. There's no proper letter introduction. And so what this first lecture does

is just kind of orient us to what is the letter to the Hebrews? Because it's kind of like an early Christian sermon, but it kind of is like a letter too. We don't really know anything about the author or the people to whom it was written, but we know a little bit. And so that's what we talk about in this first lecture. And then we just camp out for the most part in the opening sentences of the letter to the Hebrews, which is a majestic statement, the beliefs of the earliest followers of Jesus about the identity, the divine identity of Jesus and what that means to be disciples and followers of the human who is God to us become human. So there you go. This is an incredible letter. I hope these teachings are helpful for you.

Let's dive into Hebrews chapter 1. All right, Hebrews, yeah? You guys open with me? Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 1. We're going to be in the book of Hebrews all summer. May, June, July, August. Four months that we're going to work our way through this very important letter in the New Testament. And as I've been praying, thinking, Josh and I have been talking, it struck me that we are a community of people as followers of Jesus who come around

the good news, and we are a community of people who are being spoken to. We're being addressed. people who are being spoken to. We're being addressed. That's who we are as followers of Christ. We come because someone, with a capital O, has addressed us and spoken to us. And the challenge that the book of Hebrews is going to speak over and over to us in the next few months here is we are being spoken to. Are we going to listen? Are we going to listen? Now, that might not seem very profound to you or revolutionary or whatever, because we're kind of like, yeah, so, you know, we're in the worship gathering. A big part is listening to teachings from the scriptures. Like, duh, yeah, we're here to listen. But no, no, no. So, listening is not simple. I would contend listening, genuine listening, is probably one of the more

difficult things you and I do in a day. Real listening to someone who is addressing me and speaking to me. I think most of our listening, like day-to-day, is kind of this half-hearted, you know, mushy listening or something like that. We're like half listening. And with the book of Hebrews, it just comes out of the gates and just saying, someone's talking to you. Someone's addressing you and speaking to you. Are you listening? Because genuine listening, it's not simple. It requires humility. It requires humbling myself, setting my agenda aside, and being open to what's being spoken to me. So I'd like to say that I'm good at this, and here's why I think this is relevant.

I think most of us are actually not very good listeners. And all I need to do is tell you what a lame husband I am, and then this will become very clear to all of us, what poor listeners we are. So we got here two weeks ago, and I'd like to say that in this time of transition and stress, I've just been like the best husband of rock for my wife, you know, and so on. But that's, sorry, whatever. Not so much. So I've just had this enormous to-do

list, and this move has been very complicated, more complicated than any moves we've done in the past. And so I've just had this massive to-do list in my mind about all the stuff there is to be done as we kind of settled into life here. So there's been numerous times in the past few weeks where Jessica has come up to speak to me, right? And whatever, like I'm working on something and she comes up, oh, I just remembered this. Or hey, remember we talked about this, we need to get this done or whatever. And so she's talking to me. And I give every indication that I am listening. I will give like visual cues or something like this. Maybe I'll nod. I'll look her in the eyes or something. I may even give, some of you are going to be very

suspicious now when you're talking to me, right? Because I'll be like, yeah, uh-huh, right? Is he listening to me? So I might even give verbal cues to her sometimes. No joke. I've done this. I'm like, okay, cool, okay, mm-hmm, you know? I'm talking back to her. But am I really listening? No, I'm like working on my deal or whatever.

I'm saying, I've got to preach on Sunday. I've got to say, what am I going to say? You know, I'm thinking about something else. And I'm just half listening or whatever. And so she'll finish talking. And I realize, oh, I'm supposed to say something now. Like I'm supposed to respond. Like she's been talking to me and I'm supposed to respond in some way. So those of you who are dating or married in the room, you're totally getting the nudge right now. All the guys in the room are,

right? And so I realize I'm supposed to say something in return. And so then I have two options open in a moment like that. One is I can, you know, kind of cover myself and just say something very vague and open-ended. You know what I mean? Like, yes, yeah, sweetie. Okay, sure, or something. And that's great.

That solves this problem. It creates another set of problems, though, because I just have agreed to something now. You know, what have I agreed to? I don't know. What am I supposed to go do something? I don't know. So the high road for me, you know, is to humble myself and to say, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Jessica. I acted like I was listening. I was not listening. I was more caught up in my deal than I was in listening to you. Genuine listening requires humility, doesn't it? And you know this when you've been on the receiving end. You're talking to someone and it takes you 30 seconds like, oh, they're not listening to me.

You know what I mean? Like what they're actually doing is forming what they're going to say to you when you finish talking. You know what I'm saying? And it's frustrating to be in those situations. But that's how we are. That's how we are. When Jessica and I were dating, you know, when she was everything and I was like a student of her words and what things does she like and so on, like,

do you think I'm going to treat her like that? Of course not. But there's something with familiarity. Over time, you become familiar with someone or something. You stop listening because you assume you already know most of what you're going to hear. And so here we are, you know, at the three-year mark of Door of Hope. And I think what Hebrews is going to challenge us is that whatever future there is for us as a community, it begins with a posture of listening. Listening to this word that's spoken by the Son. And it's very difficult to listen well. It requires humility. It requires setting our agenda aside and really being open to the Word that's being spoken to me. And so, that's my prayer for this next season as we go through the book of Hebrews. It's my prayer for each of us here that we become people who are genuinely open, real listening. Not this half-hearted business.

Real, genuine listening. The book of Hebrews. Why don't you stare back down at the first words of Hebrews chapter 1 here. So the author just kind of dove right in to, he's just saying, long ago, in many times, in many ways, God spoke through the prophets. Who's talking to us right now as we read these words? Who's talking? Yeah, yeah as we read these words? Who's talking? Yeah, yeah. So we don't know. Turn back one page with me to the book of the Bible right

before Hebrews, which is what? Philemon. And look how Philemon begins. Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus, and Timothy, our brother, to Philemon, beloved fellow worker, Aphia, our sister, Archippus, fellow soldier, and to the church who's in your house. What are we reading right here? Philemon. What is this? It's a letter. Duh. You know, it's a letter from so-and-so and so-and-so to so-and-so and so-and-so. And then here's the content. So between the book of Acts and up to the Revelation of John are the letters of the New Testament. And they all begin with author and then naming the audience, the addressee. But not Hebrews.

But not Hebrews. Hebrews is different. So Hebrews, it begins to kind of look like a letter maybe at the end because he talks to say hi to these people and so on. But for the most part, it's not the form of a letter at all. In fact, when the author describes what he's writing in chapter 13, he doesn't call it a letter. He says he calls the book of Hebrews a word of exhortation or a word of challenge. So what the book of Hebrews is, it's a sermon, actually. It's a written sermon. If you read it out loud, it takes you about 35, 40 minutes, right? And I think, which is, you know,

very inspiring for me as a preacher, because I'm like, the more words, the better. And he's like, no, 35 minutes. I'm going to say what I have to say. So 35 minutes. It's a sermon. It's a sermon. That's what we're reading when we read the book of Hebrews. And so we open up, and who's talking to us? Well, the author never identifies himself because he's not writing a formal letter. So who wrote this thing? Nobody knows. Nobody knows, which makes my work kind of easy here because I'm just like, I don't know. I don't know who wrote it. So there's been educated guesses throughout history. You know, was it Barnabas, a co-worker of Paul? He's named in connection with the letters. Is it that Apollos named for the book

of Acts or whatever, but nobody really knows. Who's he writing to? Did he say who he's writing to here? No. No, we don't know who he's writing to. We find out in chapter 13 that this church has some connection to believers in Italy, and most certainly that would be Rome in Italy, but it's not exactly clear. Is the author in Italy, in Rome, writing to a church somewhere else, or is this church in Rome? We're not exactly sure. I think the second, my personal opinion is that the second is true, that they're in Rome. I could be wrong. I don't think I'm wrong, but I could be wrong, you know. So, but who knows? It doesn't actually make that much difference, because we don't ultimately know. It's not super clear. And it doesn't matter. And see, this is actually the power of the book of Hebrews is that through the centuries, it's transcended whatever the original

author and the original audience was. The word that it speaks is so powerful that it speaks to all generations of all of God's people. It's kind of risen above its original setting because its word is so powerful. This is word of challenge, a word of exhortation. And so we find out little bits about the author. The one thing we find out in chapter two is that the author was not one of the original twelve around Jesus. He says in chapter two that he first heard the good news about Jesus from one of the original 12. So he's like a second generation Christian. And he's a pastor. And he's writing to a church. He's writing to Christians, a church of people, which would not have been like this at all. So churches in the first century, they, these were house churches. Would have been like 20, 25 people.

You know, that's, that's pushing it for the size of most houses back then. And so this would have been a pastor. He's away from his church community for we don't know why. He's been away for a little while. And he's heard. He's very concerned. He's heard about how they're doing. And so he writes this word of challenge to them.

And it would have been read in their house church gathering. It took about 35 minutes. We're going to take four months. But it's 35 minutes is what it takes. And so what we learned about the audience is a few things. We don't know where they are. There's one way that they are unlike most of us. And then there's a whole bunch of ways that they are very much like most of us. The author and the audience, as you're going to pick up up very quick, if you actually just look at the first page, do you see how most of chapter one is quotations? Do you see that there? And

actually, if you turn through most of Hebrews, you're going to find that to be true. Constantly quoting, quoting, quoting, quoting, quoting. And what's he quoting? He's quoting the Old Testament scriptures. It's almost certain that the author of this book was a Jewish Christian and that the audience that he's writing to were most certainly, mostly Jewish Christians. How do we know that? Because he's like an Old Testament quotation gunslinger. That's kind of what I'm talking about. He's just constantly firing, just quoting from this and alluding he's borrowing language from here. He'll just assume that you know the background of a certain thing in the Old Testament, and he'll borrow a word or two, make a little word play or whatever.

He's just, he's a master. He knows the Old Testament scriptures like the back of his hand, and he assumes that you do too, right? Right? So no, no, most of us are not there. Because we're not Jewish, we didn't grow up steeped in the Old Testament scriptures or memorizing huge portions of the Old Testament and so on. So that's one way the audience is unlike us. And so as he weaves his way, part of it, what he's going to do, he's going to say, if you're a follower of Jesus, to truly understand the Son who's speaking to us, you need to understand the storyline of the Old Testament scriptures that was pointing its way forward to Jesus. And so a big part of what Josh and I will have to do is we'll have to slow down and camp out. We're going to learn about Hebrews. We're also going to learn about a

huge amount of the Old Testament storyline as we go through Hebrew, because Edith assumes you know all that. And so we're going to have to do that work. So that's one way the audience is unlike us. So we're going to have to do that work. So that's one way the audience is unlike us. However, in many, many other ways, the audience is very much like us here at Door of Hope. In chapters 5 and 6, he mentions that there's a number of people in the church who are stalled in their faith. They're stalled out. They had some kind of experience in the past, a powerful experience with Jesus or with the

gospel. But time has gone by and, you know, it's kind of like the lost romance or something, you know? And they're just kind of not feeling it anymore. There's the power. Passion isn't there. They're not growing anymore. They're not growing. And he's like, man, he says in chapter 5 and 6, you guys have been believers for a while now. And some of you are not only not growing, you're going backwards. There's people stalled out in their faith. They want to grow, but they don't know how or they don't care about growing in their commitment to Jesus anymore. In chapter 10, he mentions that a number of people in the church have undergone real hardship

because of their allegiance to Jesus. He says family or friends have shamed them or rejected some of these Christians. Some of them have been imprisoned because of their faith. They've undergone real hardship. And because of this, there's a number of people he's really concerned about who are saying, you know, this whole following Jesus thing is so hard, I don't know if it's worth it.

And they're considering just walking away from the whole thing. And all throughout the book, he gives hints, he mentions things. There's a number of people in the church who are just totally compromising morally. They know and they're making choices to live and behave in certain ways that are just total disconnect from what it means to be a follower of Christ and to say, I believe in Jesus. Total disconnect.

Now I'm not going to, we don't have to raise hands or anything like that, but I would just ask you, is that anybody here? You're feeling stalled in your faith and whatever energy or passion you once had is just not there, right? Or you're undergoing hardship because of your faith

or maybe just hardship in general. We all have stories. We're bringing in the doors today. Some of us are compromising morally. We're making choices that are not consistent. And so we are very much like the audience of the book of Hebrews. And so for better or worse, I think for better,

although it's not always fun, many passages in the book of Hebrews are just kind of, they're going to get in your face. And they're going to speak a word of challenge, like he says to you. And that's okay. He's going to balance it with a word of grace as well. But we are very much like the audience

that the author is writing to. And so this is how he begins. To people who are stalled in their faith, to people who are compromising, to people who are considering walking away or undergoing hardship, he begins. And he says, let's go all the way back around again. Let's start from the top. He says, he says, long ago at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophet. So again, here you can just see the assumption. Our fathers being, we're, if we are,

we are ethnically Jewish, the author and his audience. Our fathers are the ancient Israelites, our ancestors. He's referring here to, in the past, the story of the ancient scriptures, the Old Testament scriptures. God speaking through Moses and Joshua and the prophets and Isaiah and the Exodus and crossing the Jordan and so on. And that was God working out his mission and his plan to rescue and redeem his world. That's how God was speaking in the past, many times in many ways.

But he says, but in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son. Now, do you see there's a contrast here? Yeah, do you see it? That's what God was speaking this way in the past, but now his ultimate climactic final word is the Son, Son Jesus. And so this is a big part of what's going to happen in the letter.

This is like the framework of the whole book. We're going to come around this again and again and again. He's going to take some idea or passage or event or person or story in the Old Testament, and then he's going to show how it was a pointing forward to the ultimate final word of God through Jesus of Nazareth, the good news about Jesus. And actually, in many ways, I find this to be a helpful way to just think about the whole book. So here we go. Let's just lay out the whole thing. And it's just this back and forth, this dynamic, this dynamic here. So in chapters one and two, he's going to talk about how the Torah, which is the Hebrew word for teaching or instruction. It's the first five books of

the Old Testament. The Torah was given through angels, as it says in Deuteronomy 33. Y'all know that passage? Yeah. That was not funny. Sorry. So, actually, so here you go. That's a very good example of what it's like to read the book of Hebrews. Because we're like, what? Deuteronomy? Where's Deuteronomy again? You know? And he's just like, yeah, Deuteronomy 33. And then he's on to the next thing. So, reading Hebrews is a lot like when you're sitting in a coffee shop or whatever. And this is a very Portland experience. And you're sitting by, I don't know, two people talking about their niche thing. Have you ever had this experience before? Urban chicken farming or specialty coffee or whatever, you know? All right?

And they're just super into their deal, and they're talking about their little niche deal, and you're just like, what? Have you had this experience before? Computer geeks, you know, listened in on computer geeks. So it's kind of what it's like to read Hebrews. It's like listening in on computer geeks, except he's a Bible geek, talking to other Bible geeks, you know? And so, we're kind of like, whoa, slow down. I didn't follow that or whatever. So, again, that's what we got to do. So, Deuteronomy 33, there's the obscure little passage that talks about the Torah, the teaching given to Moses was mediated through angels. And so, the author of Hebrews Moses was mediated through angels. And so the author of Hebrews comes along and says,

y'all know that passage, right? Well, just think about this. Then you see the son, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of God, he is superior to angels. Therefore, the word that he speaks is superior to the word given through the angels, i.e. the Torah. Do you see that? In the past, God spoke through the Torah. Now he's speaking finally and climatically through Jesus. So. the Torah. Do you see that? In the past, God spoke through the Torah. Now he's speaking

finally and climatically through Jesus. So he goes on. He talks about Jesus is superior to Moses and to Joshua, right? Moses was a prophet of God's people. Joshua brought them into the promised land so they could find rest. But did they find rest, ultimate rest, in the promised land? No, because their hearts were broken and selfish and they didn't believe in God's promises. And so he says, the word spoken through the son is of a more ultimate rest. The great Sabbath and promised land

that God's people are invited into. He's pointing forward. He's going to talk about Jesus as the ultimate priest. Jesus is, he inaugurates this new covenant relationship that's superior to the covenant that God made with Israel at Sinai. Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice, right? The animal sacrifices in Israel were pointing forward. They exposed a problem, right? The brokenness of the human heart and sinfulness that alienates us from each other and from God. heart and sinfulness that alienates us from each other and from God. And he says, Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice, his death on the cross. He's superior. In the past, God did it this way, but it

was all pointing forward. Do you see how this works here? So this framework right here is what he's saying in this first sentence here. It's not that what God did in the past was bad, but it wasn't the final word. Jesus is the final word. Jesus is the one through whom God speaks to you and to me. Are we listening? That's the idea here. Are we listening? Long ago, God spoke in these ways. Now, he's speaking through the Son. And who is the Son that addresses us and speaks to us in the good news, in the gospel about Jesus. And so here what he does is, in verses 2 and 3, it's kind of like he gives Jesus his resume. It's like he's making claims about this one who speaks to us. And so we're going to work through every single

one of these. There's seven. We're going to read through them kind of quickly here. Every single one of these is drawn. It's Bible geek. It's drawn from some Old Testament passage or image or idea or something like that. And you're just supposed to get it. So I'll kind of name it as we go through. It was very powerful. He's like giving Jesus credentials here.

This is why you should listen to the voice that's addressing you in the good news. Because this is the one who's speaking. He is spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed as the heir of all things. And immediately, we all have Psalm 2 in our minds, yeah? Yeah, right? So, say yes, and people will think you're cool or something. I don't know. So, or they'll think you're a Bible geek. I don't know, whichever. And that may be cool. I'm not sure. In Portland, it might be cool, because it's cool to have a niche thing or whatever. And the Bible could be your niche thing. Anyway.

Okay. So he appointed Jesus as the heir of all things. And you're like, oh, yes, Psalm 2. That's where this language comes from. It speaks of the royal son of David, the king who was to come, who would be the king of all nations. God would invest this king with authority, not just like Jesus is king of my heart or something. No, no, he's king of the church.

That's true. But Psalm 2 says something much more drastic. He's royalty. And in his resurrection, he becomes the heir and the king of all things, of all things. That's who's speaking to you in the good news, is royalty. So I'm, think like back to this story about my wife. Like I'm super familiar with my, with my wife now,

and I wish, you know, I'm sad to say it, but it's, I do this half-hearted mishmash listening, because I think I know what she's already going to say. listening because I think I know what she's already going to say. But this is royalty who's addressing us in the gospel. You know what I'm saying? Like if President Obama walked in the doors and he was like, I'd like to speak with Josh White right now, you know? Like what's Josh, what is he going to say? Oh, like, do you have an hour or something? I need to go make a cup of coffee or something like that. I don't know. No, I hope Josh would just be like, right, yes sir, yes sir, Mr. President. Like, what would you like to say to me, you know? And it's funny, I was thinking about this when this illustration came to me. I was like, I think I'm getting to know Josh because I'm certain that Josh could

convince the president to allow the Secret Service to become ushers here at Dora Foe because we need people on the usher team. I bet he could convince him anyway. So, right? So, of course, you'd be right there because of the status of the one addressing you. And so, right off the bat, he just says, in the past, God spoke to our fathers through the prophets, through the scriptures, and so on. But the one speaking to each of us now in the gospel is royalty. It's the royal son of God. Are we listening? Are we listening?

Not this half-hearted listening. This humble, open heart and mind listening. Setting our agenda aside. I need to hear this word that's being spoken to me. What else characterizes the one who's speaking to us? Verse 2, through him, through whom, the Son, he created the world. What Old Testament passage is coming into our minds here, at least should be? Oh, Proverbs 8. Exactly right, yeah. Fellow Bible geek, love it. Yeah, all right, there we go. So Proverbs 8, Proverbs 8 and Genesis chapter 1.

Who created the world? Wait, who created the world? God or Jesus? Yes is the right answer to that one, right? So yes, yes, right? So that, and this is scandalous. I understand that. This is a stupendous, scandalous claim that the gospel makes,

is that in Jesus of Nazareth, the creator God has become a human to speak a final climactic word to us in the midst of our brokenness, a broken world, a broken heart. That's who's addressing us. It's the creator. Come among us.

Are we listening? Would you listen if you know, knew who, that's who's talking to you? Through whom he created the world. Verse 3. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. He upholds the universe by the word of his power. Now, all three of those, there's three images right there. Those are kind of mixing together language from a whole host of different passages.

Proverbs 8, also Psalm 32 and so on. These are poems that talk about God's word and his wisdom. And look at them. I love the metaphor here. Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God. Think about like the sun, bright, shining sun, super bright. And I hope you don't make it a habit to try and look into the sun. As a kid, I tried to do that. And I wonder if that's why I have to have such thick glasses now these days. I'm not sure. But so you try and look in the sun. It's difficult. It's kind of like, oh, you can't. But you feel that the heat and the warmth, the God in himself, the creator God, is like he's unknowable. We can't quite see and look. But Jesus is the warmth, the reality

of the creator's power come to hit our face and to meet us where we're at. That's the image here. It's very powerful. Jesus is the exact imprint of his nature. We're going to come back to that one in a couple minutes. He upholds the universe by his power. That's who's addressing us. Those of us who are stalled in our faith, who are in times of hardship,

who are considering walking away from the who are compromisers. Are we listening? This is who's speaking to us. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty that's on high. And we're all going, oh yeah, totally,

Leviticus 4, Leviticus 16, because I'm sure somebody was reading Leviticus today, right? Yeah? Yeah? And then we're all sitting, oh yeah, totally. Psalm 110 and Daniel chapter 7. Yeah. Sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. Jesus, he's the royal high priest of Psalm 110. He's the son of man who shares in the authority and the identity of the one true God. He's given authority to judge and bring justice to our world. He's like the high priest, right?

Who through this sacrifice, he mediates between broken people and a holy God. This is the one who's speaking to us. He stands in the gap for us. As we consider walking away, when we compromise and make decisions that we know are not consistent with what it means to follow Jesus, there is one who stands in the gap for us, to make purification for us, to it whose death atones for us. This is the one who's speaking to us. Are we listening? Are we listening? That's the idea. Are we listening? How are we doing? Are we good listeners? Whatever future there is for this community

to keep, as Josh was saying, keep the main thing the main thing, it begins right here, having a posture of humility, openness. When there's a word of challenge and a word of grace being spoken to me, am I humble and do I respond when I'm just getting nailed

by the spoken word of the good news? I want to close by reflecting on, this is one of my favorite descriptions of Jesus. In verse 3, this one who is speaking to us, it's this little phrase here, Jesus is the exact imprint of his nature. Some of your translations might have, he is the representation of God's nature or of God's essence. This is such an awesome, such an awesome, this metaphor is what it is. A very powerful image. And I told you when I was here in March that, so I'm a total confessed Bible geek or whatever.

If you meet me in the coffee shop, that's what I want to talk geek about. That's all right with you is Bible. So I told you I'm going to teach you Greek and Hebrew words. Yeah? Is that okay with you? I'm going to teach you Greek and Hebrew words, yeah? Is that okay with you? I'm going to do it anyway. Remember, I just asked you to make you feel empowered, but really, I'm just going to do it anyway. So this is a very powerful word here. This word, he's the imprint of God's nature. The Greek word that he uses here is a word actually that's come in English with a different kind of meaning. Now, It's the Greek word karakter. Karakter.

We get our English word character. Character, which means, you know, type or something. It's the characteristics of that person or whatever. It's the type that they are. And a karakter is a word that's described ancient coin making or, you know when you watch movies about like kings and princesses and so on, and there's like a scroll, and they seal up the scroll, pour wax on it, and then somebody has a ring, and they push it on the wax? What's that called? It's a seal, right? So it's the same kind of thing. Whether you're making coins or whether

you're making a seal, you get an artist, and he makes a carving, maybe in clay, something hard, of some sort of symbol, some sort of image. And then whoever it is, they take that mold and they press it down onto maybe like hot metal that's been heated up so it's soft or maybe onto wax, right? And it makes the impression. When you lift the side, the picture's kind of corny, I know, is all I could find on Google Images, but you get the idea, right? So you get the impression. Sorry, the picture's kind of corny, I know. It's all I could find on Google Images. But you get the idea, right? So you get the idea. So once you take the mold away,

what's left here on the little gold piece right there, that's the raised image. That's the caractere. It's the imprint, the representation. Now just imagine a scenario like this. So let's say you were to take the mold and turn it upside down. And you don't know what it is. You know, it's just all you can see is the other side.

You don't know. How are you going to find out what kind of mold this is? Will you wait for it to be impressed onto something soft like metal or like wax? And the moment you lift it, oh, now I see. Now I know what kind of mold this is because I see the karakter. And the author of Hebrews, he just comes out of the gate saying, someone's talking to you. It doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter where or when you live. Someone's addressing you. The creator God is addressing you by the word of the good news about the son.

by the word of the good news about the son. And this son, he is the character of God's very being. So the word God in our culture is a generic word. I say the word God, and especially here in Portland, and like, holy cow, there's a million different ideas coming into our minds, right? Divine energy, or God's in the rock, or the tree, or whatever, God's a perpetually ticked off old man, or something like this. We all have different stories and things

that come into our mind when we hear the word God. And that is not Christian faith. Christian faith says that God is Jesus-shaped. Jesus is the caractere of God's truest essence in being. If you want to know who God is, our claim as a community of Jesus, as you look at Jesus, you look at his purpose, his mission, his teaching, his character, and there you discover the very essence of the creator God.

Jesus is the final word. And he didn't mess around, you know? He came as representing God's holiness and justice. He named human brokenness when he saw it, but he always matched it with a word of grace and of embrace. And those two are summed up in the word spoken in the cross as our sin is judged and forgiven in the same moment. That's who's talking to us. That's who's speaking to each of us. So I don't know where you're at tonight.

Different ones of us are stalled out in our faith. Different ones of us are making choices that are not consistent with what it means to follow Jesus. Some of us are in places of real hardship. And the challenge and the comfort that Hebrews begins with is that we are being spoken to. When we gather, when we hear from the scriptures, when we hear prayers through song and scripture and so on, we're being spoken to.

Are we listening? And so with the time that we have for worship as we come around the bread and the cup, these symbols that retell the story of Jesus' death and self-giving love for us, I would just encourage you to do a heart check as we begin the series in Hebrews. Am I listening?

Am I listening? Am I going to set aside my deal and be open to challenge and grace that's going to be spoken to me by this final word through the Son? May we be a community that's characterized with listening ears to what's spoken to us.

Hey, you guys. Thank you for listening to Exploring My Strange Bible podcast. I trust that these powerful words from the opening of the letter to the Hebrews, that they'll push you forward towards deeper thoughts and a deeper level of response as you hear God speak to you through these texts and through the voice of Jesus that reaches out to us even today. So have a great day, you guys, and we'll see you next time.