I have been working through the book of Hebrews for the past 2 months. Initially what impressed me was the belief by scholars that this little church may not have consisted of more than 15-20 believers. Whether or not that is factual, what God wanted this little church to know is nothing short of astonishing.
A little background is in order here. The believers had recently gone through some terrible suffering from the powers that were because of their faith in Christ. And we now know from history that it was about to really go sideways for them. Worse than before.
So in His generous mercy and grace God is giving them an even more solid foundation to build and stand on before it does get worse. Imagine that! God cared so much for this little flock He wrote 13 chapters of foundational truth and encouragement to help them to remain faithful and finish well. But we also know from 1 Corinthians 10:11 that, even though this book was not written TO us, it was written FOR us.
Just a couple of things from chapter 11 stood out to me. First, even though there were believers in Jesus who were able to see God do remarkable things because of their faith in Him, there were also those who suffered and even died because of their faith. So we know from the text the reason they struggled and suffered and did not see some of the miracles others did, was not because they lacked faith but because of their faith. I wonder what the prosperity teachers do with this chapter.
Second, and this one is most encouraging to me, what we see with these people is that they finished well. They didn’t always start out well as believers and they didn’t always living consistently faithful lives for Jesus. Their faith faltered, they were sometimes unfaithful to Jesus, and they didn’t always believe His promises. They were often slow to learn. But they held on by His grace. It’s a good thing He holds onto us even when we are not holding onto Him very well.
I have often thought I am the slowest person to respond to God’s grace and learn anything. Even so I find I am in good company in Hebrews 11 for the Christian life here is truly one of “three steps forward and two steps backward.”
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