 You're listening to the Naked Bible Podcast. To support this podcast, visit NakedBiblePodcast.com and click on the support link in the upper right-hand corner. If you're new to the podcast and Dr. Heiser's approach to the Bible, click on New Start Here at NakedBiblePodcast.com. Welcome to the Naked Bible Podcast, episode 199, Hebrews chapter 13. I'm Delayman, Tray Strickland, and he's a scholar, Dr. Michael Heiser. Hey, Mike, how you doing this week? Oh, busy, maybe a little more harried than usual, lots of stuff to do. Some of it we'll actually mention here. I'm beginning prep for the conference and whatnot and just a little bit more harried than usual. Yeah, is there ever a time where you don't do anything, like where you actually just go on vacation and do nothing, or do you always fill your time with doing something? Yeah, I can't remember ever doing nothing. If nothing pops into my head, I guess the answer is no. I can imagine your brain would explode if it just got quiet and still. You'd probably get scared. Oh, well, yeah, I probably would. That would just be too unnerving. Or do you go to sleep? I mean, like me, I have a hard time going to sleep because my mind's racing. It's hard to shut my brain down. Do you have that problem? I don't. It's like, well, I'm done now. You get it all out during the day and then you can go to sleep because you've accomplished so much. On the other hand, I'm just coming up with ideas and thinking all the time. So it's hard to go to sleep. Well, for me, you know, that's usually when I'm in the shower or driving or something like that. So yeah, not so much at night, which is good. That's good. Yeah. And in the pot of coffee a day for me doesn't probably help. The caffeine situation probably does not help me, which I know you don't have the coffee problem, but tea has lots of caffeine, but I don't know how much tea you consume in the day, but I have a caffeine problem, Mike. Well, I guess I'm not real surprised. I'm good for four or five cups of tea a day, but it's nowhere near the caffeine content that I'm sure you're consuming. Well, I try to shut it down early afternoon because I know how long it takes to metabolize and, you know, it's part of my problem at night and all that stuff, but any who. You know, it's a medical report. Mike, I want to remind everybody this is the last episode of Hebrews and we want to ask people to email me their questions about the book of Hebrews specifically. I've already received lots of questions. So we've still got a couple of weeks before that episode airs. So send me your question questions at Traysterkman.gmail.com. So we want to remind people to go get their tickets to the Spokane, Washington, the Naked Bible Seminar three-day event that you'll be doing in Spokane there, March 2nd through the 4th. You can get those tickets at drmsh.com. Look for the Spokane event. Yeah. Yeah. Right hand side is where the calendar is and everything's set up. Well, Mike, any final thoughts as we wrap up the book of Hebrews here? Well, boy, yeah, it is close. 29 Hebrews 13. So we are done after the day other than the Q&A. So I think I've actually gotten some email correspondence of appreciation. No haters this far, but just about the emphasis on believing loyalty. So for some reason that is sort of striking a nerve with the number of people. So I think going through Hebrews and as it turns out, having that be kind of a drum that we're beating with some regularity, I think that's been useful. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think it's been a great book and I'm excited to see what the next book is that we'll cover. After this episode, while we're 200th episode, which I can't believe 200, that's a big milestone, then we'll have the Hebrews Q&A, another Q&A, then a couple of interviews and single topics. So we're probably looking at about April. I'm going to say before we start to vote on the next book that we're going to cover. So we got some time before we get into another book. So yeah, yeah, it'll be interesting. We'll come up with, you know, we use some of the old ones that people voted on and toss in a new one or two and just see where people land. So, you know, who knows? I didn't expect Hebrews this time around and that's we got a clear direction there. So who knows what it'll be next time. It's been a good one though. I'm glad they chose it. Yeah, yeah. Well, let's jump into Hebrews 13 and wrap up the book here. It's a bit of a shorter chapter. There's some elements of kind of, you know, summation and recap and cleanup that the writer's doing here, but there are a few other things that are, I don't know if I want to say new, but little excursions that he takes that are going to be worth commenting on talking about. So as we start, let's just, since it's not too long, I'm just going to read through the chapter and then we'll go back and jump into the first verse. So again, after all this we've had, you know, said about remaining in the faith, keep believing, you know, don't give up again, the persecution, you know, context. He really starts to get more pastoral, I think, in this chapter, and I'm just going to read through the whole thing and then jump back and camp at a few places. So he writes, Remember those who are in prison as though in prison with them and those who are mistreated since you also are in the body. Let marriage be held in honor among all and let the marriage bed be undefiled for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. Keep your life free from love of money and be content with what you have, for he has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. So we can confidently say, the Lord is my helper, I will not fear. What can man do to me? Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God, consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods which have not benefited those devoted to them. We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat. For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city but we seek the city that is to come. Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God. Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a clear conscience, desiring to act honorably in all things. I urge you the more earnestly to do this in order that I may be restored to you sooner. Now may the God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. I appeal to you brothers, bear with my word of exhortation, for I have written to you briefly. You should know that our brother Timothy has been released, with whom I shall see you if he comes soon. Greet all your leaders and the saints, those who come from Italy, send you greetings. Grace be with all of you. That's the end of the letter. It's pretty obvious that, again, he strikes a pastoral tone here, which you'd expect for the end of the letter, the end of the whole thing after he's really been into a lot of deep content in terms of what he had to cover here, what he wanted to cover. So you have the first six verses here. And again, the tone is really obvious. Let brotherly love continue. Well, why would he even mention that? And again, it's because, what did he just get done saying in the 12th chapter? Let brotherly love continue. The context, of course, is encouraging mutual support in the face of persecution, so as to help believers, people in the community, endure that is keep believing. But the whole section here, again, is just sort of peppered with pastoral sorts of encouragement. So just to read through quickly, let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body. Let marriage be held in honor among all, let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. Keep your life free from the love of money, and be content with what you have, for he said, I will never leave nor forsake you. He goes on to say, the Lord is my helper, I will not fear what can man do to me. Again, quoting from the Old Testament, all of these exhortations in general are about the community life, and really, things that would either sort of threaten the solidarity of the community, threaten the testimony of the community, in some cases just, again, aimed at getting people within the community to not, again, surrender their faith. Again, that familiar idea that we've seen so many times going up to this chapter. Lane has, I think, a nice summary here. I'm going to read a little excerpt from his commentary, which is the word Biblical commentary. He says, what we have here is an appeal for fraternal love, verse one, hospitality, verse two, an identification with those imprisoned and mistreated, verse three, indifference to earthly possessions, verse five, and confidence of the presence of hostility, verse six. All this evokes the exemplary stance that the community had assumed under harsh circumstances in the past. Concurrently, it reiterates and gives specification to the exhortation to love and good works back in chapter 10, verse 24. And continuing, he says, it is important to appreciate that this was something new. In the second half of the second century, the satirist Lucian of Samosata explained to a correspondent Cronius that the relationship among Christians is unusual. They are to regard one another as brothers. He illustrates his point by calling attention to the Christian attitude toward material possessions and grounds in the teaching of Jesus, their willingness to share what they own with one another. And then he has a quotation from the source which says, Moreover, their original log over persuaded them that they should be like brothers to one another. That's a reference from this writer, again, a pig and a Gentile, about the Christians. And the original log over, this is his reference to Jesus. Moreover, their original log over persuaded them that they should be like brothers to one another. Therefore, they despise all things equally and view them as common property, accepting such teachings by tradition and without any precise belief. Now, that's the end of the quote. Lane continues, Lucian's remarks indicate that an educated person in the second century was quite unprepared for the Christian notion of Philadelphia, brotherly love, expressed in the admonition, keep on loving each other as brothers. The expansion of the term to include men and women beyond the immediate family was considered ludicrous. Ironically, Lucian's choice of the Christian attitude toward personal property to illustrate Jesus' teaching is insightful. It is precisely a willingness to share possessions unselfishly that is characteristic of the relationship among members of the same family. New perspectives concerning familiar relationships will inevitably have implications for attitudes toward personal wealth. That's the end of Lane's quote. So basically what he's saying is that to the people of this time period, kind of looking at Christian behavior, they thought it was a little bizarre because they engaged in behavior that was typically reserved for immediate family members and they widened it to non-family members in their community. And again, about not detaching themselves from interest in personal property and possessions so that they could share with fellow believers in the community, which is exactly what Hebrews is saying here. People looked at that at the time and thought, that's just crazy. And it's not like everybody's dressing in white sheets and selling everything off and going to the top of the mountain and waiting for the Lord for the next Harold Camping experiment. That isn't the point. That's not why it was weird. It was weird because you treated non-family members the way you would treat them as family. You're close relatives, you're immediate family. That just wasn't normal. But within the Christian community, it was normal. And if we're paying attention here, what the writer of Hebrews is saying, well, that ought to be normal. That ought to be the way that things are done. So back in verse one, he begins with this brotherly love continue, which means they had already been doing it. This isn't anything new to them, to the Christian community. Let brotherly love continue. Again, the context is this mutual support in the face of persecution. You can imagine some of the issues here. What if you had believers falter? It's kind of interesting. I mentioned at the intro, I have my hand in a lot of projects and one of them is my next round of fringe pop filming. One of the things that we want to focus on is attached to the Nicene Creed. We'll just leave it at that. If you actually go look at the cannons of Nicea, the decisions that were offered, it's striking how many of them are. There's a good three, four, maybe five that have something to do with what do we do with Christian brethren who gave up the faith in the face of persecution or even less than that out of convenience? How do we treat them? What do we do with them? And you can imagine here in the context of Hebrews, this is centuries earlier than Nicea obviously, but you're going to have the same kinds of issues. What the writer wants to continue is brotherly love. If you stick with it, even if you have moments of weakness or whatever, we've talked about if you really bail, if you really surrender the faith, if you really go back to Torah or nothing at all, then it's really difficult for you to come back to the gospel having once abandoned it. Let's say that happened to somebody. Let's say that they came back to the faith, or let's say that they had some other lapse, again, that was lesser, but still something that would have been frowned upon by the community. The writer here is saying, look, brotherly love continue. You've got to stick together. In other words, the opposite would be looking for occasions to pick at each other, looking for occasions to fault one another. It's precisely the opposite of what he wants them to do. Then he says, do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels' unawares. Now this shows a little bit about, broadly, it's like, hey, don't refuse hospitality to anyone because you never know. There's that feeling to it. He's drawing on obviously Old Testament precedent. The immediate reference here is going to be Genesis 18 and 19, where you have the Lord and two angels show up. They appear as men to Abraham and Sarah. Again, it's a very familiar story. He had no idea until, in fact, if you read through Genesis 18, that Abraham has an inkling of who he's talking to, but we only find out from the writer of Genesis that the other two were angels when you get to chapter 19, and Abraham's not in that scene. He didn't know until after the fact. There's that. That's why you should be hospitable. If we read verse two right after verse one, it's a general churrism. You're supposed to be hospitable to strangers. It's a way of expressing the kind of brotherly love he wants in the first verse because you also don't know whether they're believers or not. Even if they're not believers, well, that's good because then you can show them how believers behave by showing hospitality. It's not just sort of a random, hey, let's stick in a thought about angels here. I mean, it's consistent with what it follows and what's going to be said later on. There are other instances where besides Genesis 18, 19, where he might be thinking of, I mean, we're familiar with these. There are people in the Old Testament that run into angels or the angel of the Lord and don't quite know what's going on, what they're dealing with. You have Gideon in Judges 6. You've got Samson's parents in Judges 13. One of the more striking ones is actually outside the Protestant canon. That's the book of Tobit, which they were probably familiar with because they're familiar with the Septuagint. I still think that what the writer of Hebrews is angling for here is Genesis 18, 19. But in Tobit, you have a sort of a famous episode where you have a person, Tobias, who's the son of Tobit, being accompanied by an angel on a mission or a task and doesn't know until the very end. You even have this ironic scene where the angel bids Tobias and a companion, a good trip, like maybe an angel will greet you on the way and you'll have a safe trip. Well, he is one. It's kind of a humorous sort of thing. So they might have been thinking of that, but I think probably the best bet is typically Genesis 18, 19. Let's go down to verse four. We're just going to hit some things as we go through the passage. We're not going to comment on everything. This is our typical approach. Whatever seems to be interesting or worth commenting on. We have a comment here that is interesting, and I think that is worth bringing up in light of a lot of the content we've talked about before in the whole book about salvation by faith and believing loyalty and whatnot. We get to verse four, and it says, Let marriage be held in honor among all and let the marriage bed be undefiled. For God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. Now, you're going to have some people that, and we've had last episode in chapter 12, we had certain things said in the chapter that people are going to hop on, and they're going to say, Well, look at this behavior. Surely this has something to do with salvation. Again, making moral behavior part of salvation, either unintentionally, because that's sort of the way we're tuned to think by preaching we've heard, or something a little bit, I think, more sinister that you've got a redefining of the gospel with intent behind it. But here's another one of these. Well, surely the writer wouldn't bring this up unless it has something to do with salvation, or you would assume that the judgment here he's talking about has something to do with a person's eternal destiny. The passage never says that. Of course, God is going to judge sin. Be sure your sin will find you out, that kind of thing. Of course, God is going to judge sin, unbelievers and believers alike. But sexual morality isn't the gospel. It's not an element. It's not a component of the recipe, if we can say that, for eternal life. The recipe for eternal life is believe. Believe the gospel. That salvation is based upon not what you do, or what you have stained from, but what someone else did for you, namely Jesus on the cross. So, yes, God will judge sin. You will reap what you sow. There are consequences for sin. But the comment here is more about the consequences. It's not about moral achievement unto salvation. Again, we get caught in this trap because of the way we hear some of these things preached. I think, again, it's just another reminder. Of course, God is going to take sin seriously. Of course, we should live a holy life. We should not be bad testimonies and self-destructive, and sort of flipping God off with the way that we live. We should live a holy life out of gratitude for what has been done for us. And again, to avoid self-destruction and destroying the lives of others. Again, there are lots of reasons why we should live a certain way. One of those is not so that we achieve enough merit to qualify for salvation. That's just not the gospel. Let the marriage bed be undefiled. Another thing I think is worth mentioning here. The point of the statement is to remain faithful to your spouse as opposed to an endorsement of, hey, do anything you want in bed with your spouse. I've never actually heard people in a sermon take it that way. I have kind of heard it in conversation. 1 Corinthians 7 is actually more appropriate for a conversation about that sort of thing. You can go look up the passage. I'm not going to read the passage here, but the point here is not just this endorsement of whatever you're curious about. Remain faithful to your spouse. Be faithful to your spouse. Remain faithful. Verse 5, keep your life free from the love of money. Be content with what you have. For he has said, I will never leave for sake you. Again, we can confidently say, the Lord is my helper. I will not feel, what can man do to me? Again, this has varied your main, again, to the context, what he's been talking about, especially the situation that a lot of them are in. Why get into money and being content? Why get into being faithful to your spouse? And so on and so forth. You want to honor the Lord with your ethic, with your behavior. Again, not to pile up brownie points of merit so that you'll qualify for salvation. You want to do this for the sake of the community so that the community isn't struggling with sin within the community and then fighting with each other about what to do about this or that. And you want to do it for the sake of the community, you want to do it for the sake of gratitude for what the Lord has done for you, all these things that we mentioned before. This one, again, gets into that in a more practical way because it just applies more broadly. Again, make sure you share what you have. It's a simple idea. He's not saying it to make sure that believers, Christians, don't have too much fun. You know, free your life from the love of money. We don't want you to have too much fun. No. And it's really not even to prevent excess. Don't earn too much. It's not even that. Really, the point is don't rely on your own resources and make sure that you share your resources. Be willing to part with what you have for the good of other believers because some of them, frankly, are just going to need it. Again, you go back to chapter 10, earlier places in the Epistle. They have suffered loss. They've had their property taken, other references to different kinds of persecution. Some of them are just going to need what you have and you ought not give it a second thought. You ought not love it too much that you hang on to it at the expense of someone else, of another believer. That's really what he's getting at. It's not some sort of diatribe. This is sort of a pet peeve of mine, but people will take statements like this or Acts 2 and those, well, this is an endorsement of socialism or communism or it's a jab against capitalism, having over a certain amount. It's not that at all. The writer's not thinking about political theories about wealth creation or self-reliance or empowering the state over the individual. It's just not in the picture at all. It's much more practical. The point is love for those in the community is that they're just going to need it. You're going to have people who need what you have and you're the stopgap for them in the times being what they are, in the circumstances we're all in. Don't get so attached to these things and then even more so, don't rely on them even for yourself because the Lord has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. What can man do to me? Again, this is why he quotes these Old Testament passages. Don't get too attached to them yourself because the tables could be turned and you would be the one in need. Again, you never know because of the times being what they were in the epistle, in the context of what he's writing. Verse 7 he says, Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you, the word of God, consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. What's interesting here, at least to my eyes, it doesn't say consider their way of life. It says consider the outcome of their way of life. There are a couple possibilities here, I think they're all interesting as far as what might be going on here, what might be the writer's sort of what he's angling for here. The word is ekbasis, which can really be translated to sort of go on three trajectories. It can refer to the endpoint of a duration, like the end of a process, or the end of something that's been ongoing. And if you look at it that way, then the writer would be saying, well, consider how their life ended, your leaders, consider how your leaders life ended. In other words, they remain in faith and therefore imitate them, imitate their faith. That could be what his point is. Secondly, it could be referring to the specific outcome of an event or state of being. These are all from BDAG, by the way. If that's what we're supposed to think, then essentially what the writer is saying is consider how, again, with respect to your leaders, consider how their situation turned out. In other words, consider how God met their needs, the outcome of it. They endured, they kept the faith, and the Lord delivered them. Consider how their situation turned out and therefore imitate their faith, imitate them. Third, it could refer to the way out specifically of some difficulty, the actual way out. If that's what we're supposed to think about here, again, the writer would be saying, consider how the solution that God provided, consider what that was. Think about how God got them out of that situation. Consider the things that God used to deliver them and then imitate their faith, realizing that God can do the same for you. My guess is we don't have to land at any one place here that all of these things are in play, but I just thought it was interesting that he doesn't say, consider their faith or their way of life. Consider the outcome of their way of life. Either it points to a happy ending, and again, God was in that and God can do the same thing for you, or it could be a terrible ending, that maybe they died under persecution, but they never recanted, they never gave up the faith. He's already talked about previously in the letter especially Hebrews 11, that what's awaiting them is far superior to what they were, the life they had here. So it could be any of these things. It's just kind of interesting language and interesting way of expressing that. Let's go down to verse 9. He says, and here he gets into some familiar territory, do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods which have not benefited those devoted to them. We have an altar. We have our own altar. We have an altar from which those who serve the tent, reference probably to priests, have no right to eat. We're on the Lord's side here. We're on the side of the work of Christ. We're on the cross side here. And if you're doing that other thing over there, that Torah stuff, or some ritualistic dependence, well then you're just not on the right side. We have our own altar here, the one that was the cross from which those who are serving in the tent, they're doing the Torah stuff thinking they're going to merit salvation. They don't have a right to be at our altar, to eat from our altar. He's using the language of sacrifice here. For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore, let us go to him outside the camp and bear their approach. He endured. Our own altar is out there. It's outside the camp. It's something totally, utterly different than the Torah language here. Now, there's some discussion here among commentators about diverse and strange teachings. If you take the line there in verse 9 and sort of consider it with the next three verses, 10, 11, and 12, and you get some pretty clear Torah, sacral, sacrificial kind of language that bargains back to the Old Testament. It seems to be speaking pretty clearly of Judaism. The stuff that shows up in verses 10, 11, and 12 is really too specific to Judaism for that not to be the case. Some argue that at least this verse might be about something outside Judaism like asceticism, something non-Jewish. Again, verse 9 could be diverse and strange teachings, nation of verse 9 with 10, 11, and 12, and all this pretty clear Judaism stuff that makes most commentators gravitate toward. He's really targeting, again, the Judaizing, Judaistic element that they're having to contend with. So, Luke Timothy Johnson has a little excerpt here that I want to share with you. I think it's worth reading and pointing out. He writes, What sort of teachings are these and who is propagating them? This historical judgment is made difficult by the multitude of possibilities. The only specific deal is the noun broma in the plural foods, which I have translated dietary laws in his commentary. That's the way he translates it. Because of the context of teaching that's mentioned and because the author speaks of some walking in them, a concern for dietary rules, together with a mention of those who worship in the tent, skeinag, again the tabernacle, is that some form of contemporary Jewish practice and ideology is enticing some of the hears. Can we be more specific? Does concern for dietary regulations here stand as synecdoche for a commitment to the covenant of law? In other words, is Paul taking this one sort of element and then expanding it out to the whole Torah? We know that disputes, this is continuing with Johnson now, we know that disputes over the eating of certain foods divided some early Christian communities with Jewish membership. And he references Mark 7, Acts 10, Acts 11, 1 Corinthians 8 through 10, Romans 14, for some examples. Or does foods here have specific reference in the sharing of food offered in sacrifice? Paul uses language similar to this in 1 Corinthians 9 where he's 913 where he says do you not know that those who perform the temple service eat what belongs to the temple and those who minister at the altar share in the sacrificial offerings? Our author also continues we have an altar from which those who worship in the tent have no right to eat. So, you know, Johnson's point here is that maybe it was a specific, you know, element of Torah, maybe it's just Torah in general we don't really know, but he gives the possibilities there. Again, it has a very Judaistic flavor because of verses 10 through 12, even though the comment in verse 9, you know, could be could include Gentiles, could include something else like that. So I tend to you know, with the majority here again what happens in verses 10 through 12 to me really orients our mind intentionally to having a problem with certain elements of Judaizing, you know, having trying to draw people back into the pre cross or non-cross position of Judaism. So, you know, what again this is a familiar, you know, kind of issue and I think we need to, you know, think a little bit more about what this sort of thing meant to the audience. I mean, we look at this and it's like good grief, you know, like who cares what the Judaizers would say let them just sort of take their ball and go home, you know, why would this even attract, why would this even trouble people who had embraced the cross if they run into again people who are insisting on all this stuff, you know, again the implication is for salvation or as the way of salvation. Why would that even trouble them? Well, those things, I mean, if they came out of that context then what they are not doing, the things they are rejecting in favor of clinging to the cross event they're being told that these things are actually the tickets to eternal life and so it might be, again if you grew up with that that that really, that does trouble you because it's like, what if I'm wrong, you know, what if these things really are the tickets to eternal life and I'm cut off from them and I'm, you know, deliberately, you know, not going down you know, not doing these things I'm deliberately forsaking, you know, what Moses taught, you know, all these kinds of thoughts. I think it, you know, for those of you who might remember your history of civ class or maybe put a little study in a church history, to me this is sort of akin to like the medieval Catholic church where they would put people, they would excommunicate people all the time they would put whole nations under what was called interdict that was like if the king didn't do what the pope wanted, he would put his country under interdict, that means everybody in your country is excommunicated and you're cut off from things like, you know, communion from the lords, you know, supper from the Eucharist there were cases where they couldn't even get married, you know, and you say well, again, who gives the rip? Well, they naturally gave a rip because in the Catholic church marriage was a sacrament, you know, the Eucharist is certainly an issue, you couldn't get your kids baptized. Basically if you were put under interdict, you were cut off from the means of grace. That was how it was used in medieval times as a tool, a political tool that the church wielded rather effectively in a number of contexts some pretty famous historical episodes because if you're putting yourself out there as the source of grace, the means of grace and then you cut people off from those things you're not going to do mass for them anymore, you're not going to priests aren't going to do baptisms in that country anymore. The people are effectively cut off from heaven. They're cut off from eternal life. If they buy into that system then you're basically toast. You don't really have an alternative because the church is telling you that if you want eternal life, these are the things you have to do and we're the ones who do them. We're the only ones that are authorized to do them. So when we say jump you should say hi, otherwise you're just cut off. So I mean the situation is kind of a to the Judaizing threat. If you came from this sort of background where we're Jews, we're elect, we have the circumcision, we have the Torah, we have this, that and the other thing that we're supposed to do now to honor the true God and so on and so forth. If you have some of those people coming back to you and telling you, look if you don't get rid of this Jesus talk, this Jesus thing, you don't come back to this and you're done. I mean you're done because we are God's people. We are Yahweh's people. This is what your Old Testament is about and if you're not part of us you're not going to be with the Lord when you die. This is salvation right here. So again if you're reused to that, if you grew up with that it's going to have meaning and there is going to be a pull there. It is going to be a serious thing to think about. You are going to sort of check your thoughts like oh boy what am I making the right decision. So it was a serious sort of thing and the writer of Hebrews again is trying to remind them again he's just spent 12 chapters talking about the superiority of Christ and how the Old Testament leads to Christ. What God was doing in the Old Testament led up to this point, this person, this sacrifice and he's gotten into the logic, the rationale of why it's superior. He's even referenced the historical event, the cross and the resurrection to validate it. He spent 12 whole chapters telling them again that what they have is so much better because he needs to do that because not only do they have enemies of different varieties, they've got one special sort of problem here going on. Again, this Judaizing element, trying to get them to give up their faith and come back to a merit based system of Torah. And if that was their original context you better believe that that's going to be a troubling conversation, a troubling thing to think about for a lot of them. So he keeps returning to these points and here he does it again in the last chapter. You get to verse 14 even what follows in smacks of this Torah stuff he says, for here we have no lasting city and a writer reminding them we don't have anything here that's going to be eternal. But we seek the city that is to come through him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice, a praise to God, that is the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Interesting, he goes back to the name theology. If you want to acknowledge the name of the Most High, you're with us. You're not doing the Torah stuff, okay? You're with Jesus. You do not neglect to do good and to share what you have. For such sacrifices are pleasing to God. Now this mimics Micah 6-8 which the whole point of that passage is not, hey let's make sure we do enough sacrifices and do them right. It's to love mercy to do justice, to walk humbly with your God. It really matters to the heart. And he's just said in chapter 10 about how the blood of bulls and goats couldn't forgive real genuine moral transgressions. By your own system those things aren't covered because they were abominations. They were punished with death or exile. Where was the sacrificial benefit there? Again, all these things should be sort of in the mind of the reader in the mind of the hearer if he or she heard this being taught. And the writer here is turning the sacrificial language right back on its head because he's quoting the Old Testament and he uses the Micah 6-8 idea of what God really wants. The sacrifices that really please God are these things. To love mercy, do justice, walk humbly with your God. It's not doing rituals. And again that's going to dovetail into the whole conversation that they've had about Jesus offering himself as a sacrifice as the superior high priest. And this one is the one you need to align yourself with and you don't have to worry about other sacrifices. Not only were a lot of them not even any good for certain problems in the Old Testament. Not only would you have to keep doing them every day and every week and every, you know, you just keep repeating the process. You keep hitting the reset button. Not only that but even if you did everything perfectly, you just didn't cover all the bases. How much better do we have here with one sacrifice, one high priest who is God. Remember we're starting back in Hebrews 1 in all the ways that Jesus was described there is the radiance of his glory, the apagosmon, all that. This one in chapter 10 having a conversation with God again that Trinitarian conversation about agreeing that I'm going to go, I'm going to become a man, I'm going to sacrifice myself to accomplish what the law couldn't do. You have all of that. So don't be threatened by this sacrifice talk, this gibber jabber about ritual. What you have is better than that. Because the person in charge of all that in the Old Testament told Jesus I prepared for you a body now go down and be faithful because of your faithfulness all these other things will be taken care of. This will be the promise of eternal life through you. And Jesus does that and he sits down at the right hand of God. Mission accomplished. How many times has Hebrews said that, use that phrase, sat down at the right hand of majesty, all that sort of stuff. It's done. So we don't want to hear about this gibber jabber about food laws and sacrifices and feasts and festivals, the whole ritual system again he's trying to remind them of what they have is just so much better. Verse 17 he says, obey your leaders and submit to them for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning. Don't make it a burden for them. That would be of no advantage to you. Basically if you make this hard for your leaders, well that doesn't really foster good relationships, does it now. Again, you want them to care for your souls, keep watch over your souls and you want them to enjoy what they do and take joy from it. You don't want it to be a burden because again, how's that going to help anybody? Now the term here for this submission this obedience language and submission is really about yielding authority, yielding your authority to someone else or yielding to someone's authority. Again, submit kind of captures that but I think it's worth pointing out that it does involve yielding to someone else. Guthrie has a nice little segue here, a nice little summary of this. He writes the writer is concerned only about attitudes and mentions two which are complementary to each other. Obey and submit. The latter word occurring only here in the New Testament, this is the one about yielding authority. Guthrie says the function of the leaders is described in general terms as keeping watch over your souls. The same verb is used in Ephesians 618 in an injunction to keep alert in prayer. The task of the overseers is to maintain constant watch over those committed to their care. This is reminiscent of Paul's care of all the churches 2 Corinthians 11-28 and of Peter's injunction to the elders to tend to God's flock 1 Peter 5-2 which is itself reminiscent of the words of Jesus to Peter in John 21-15 or Feed My Sheep and all that. It is noticeable Guthrie continues that the writer here uses the word for souls to describe people for this is more vivid than saying you, you guys. The office of leader is recognized as one of responsibility for those who hold such office will be expected to give account of their work. It is important to note that those who exercise authority must also accept responsibility for their actions. Now I think all that's important because it's not, we shouldn't read what he's saying here, what the writer is saying as sort of like something that I'm saying this just for the people in charge, they'll like that. No, he's not asking people to sort of blindly submit either because the reason they're supposed to obey their leaders is because the leaders have care over their souls and if the leaders aren't really caring for their souls then again by definition then the very logic the very rationale for you to yield to their authority goes away. This isn't just about blind obedience no matter what they're doing what they're sort of nonsense they're asking you to do, it's not what it's about it's about it has context, the context is care for your soul and that is why you should yield to them and not only that but they are going to be held accountable for that by God so it's really it's a request it's an admonition, a little bit of that it's a warning kind of all rolled into one it's not just sort of this command to blindly obey no matter what the guy telling you that I'm your leader listen to me no matter what they're telling you to do again all these things have context the author is really again not just saying things to say them, not just saying things that we ought to take and again sort of ignore the context I'm harping on this a little bit because you know let's just face it, there are those out there in leadership individuals, groups even movements that really define your fitness for salvation or for sanctification, salvation be the worst scenario but they really define a believer's fitness and really evaluate your whole testimony by how blindly you submit to them that is not the point the submission has a context and there will be a price to pay if it's abused so if you're the one who needs to yield to authority help your leaders by holding them accountable that yeah I'm glad to submit to your authority because I can tell you treat us, your own testimony the way you conduct your own life that you really have care over our souls, you're really concerned about our spiritual well being and so we will gladly do that, we'll make it a joy for you to be our leader and not a burden, not just nitpick everything that we may not understand because we know you have our best interest in mind and we can tell but again whole leadership to the context of what's being said here for it's not about blindly, oh that's right I forgot, you have this title after your name even though what you're telling me to do is kind of harebrained and I can't really see it in scripture it's coming out of your mouth so I better obey that isn't the point verse 18 he says, pray for us for we are sure that we have a clear conscience desiring to act honorably in all things I urge you more earnestly to do this in order that I may be sooner. Now this language here and some of what follows actually here we are at the end of the letter but if you remember early the really the first episode that we talked about launching into this one of the one of the proposed authors is Paul and so this is a passage and again a little bit of what follows that I mentioned maybe two or three times you're going through the book there are these little things that make people gravitate toward thinking about Paul being the author again I'm not persuaded of that but I want to bring some of them up and just talk a little bit about them because you hit this and you can't you know Paul's written so much in the New Testament you sort of hear his voice a little bit you know and some of what follows and so yeah that's true but it's not that simple so he says I urge you more earnestly to do this in order that I may be restored to you the sooner right away we think of Paul being in jail is that really the context now Matthew Johnson again comments here he says throughout the composition the author has used the plural when speaking of himself that that we may you know this may happen to us and we and so on and so forth and here he does it again in verse 18 pray for us that we you know for we are sure we have a clear conscience then he switches in verse 19 you to the to the more personal you know I but Johnson says again throughout the composition he's used the plural when speaking of himself and does so again in a request for prayer such as we may find in Romans 15 30 Colossians 4 3 and these are all Pauline epistles 1 Thessalonians 5 25 2 Thessalonians 3 1 the us could include companions of the author but the immediate shift to the first person in verse 19 singular suggests that the request is for the author himself here it clearly implies the author was formerly part of their community life thus he was able to recall for them their own earlier experiences and efforts chapter 2 verses 3 and 4 chapter 6 9 through 12 and then chapter 10 32 through 34 so it would John you know what what look Timothy Johnson is saying here is yeah you know this the sounds kind of Pauline but it's probably better read because he addresses them in the first person right after you know this we talk it's it's probably somebody who was part of their own community so can we really you know say that that Paul fits this I mean what evidence do we have of that and of course the answer is we don't really have anything conclusive in that regard now Hagner chimes in here and he says in light of the author's confidence in being able to visit the readers expressed at verse 23 we'll get to that in a moment we probably can rule out imprisonment so he doesn't think the author himself was in prison unless he is about to be released in any case still something still hinders him from coming to the readers and he urges them to the more earnestly pray for him now let's go down and look at verses verses 23 we're going to we're going to skip a couple verses here and go to verse 22 and we'll come back and hit the other ones briefly but this this note here about at the end of the epistle let me just repeat it for for you and scroll down here when he says again pray for us I urge you the more earnestly to do this that I may be restored you the sooner again we sort of read imprisonment into that we read Paul into that and and what we've what we've looked at so far you says well it doesn't really say that doesn't really have him in jail you know we don't really know but when you get down to verse 22 it says this he's writing in the first person again I appeal to you brothers bear with the word of my exhortation for I have written to you briefly you should know that our brother Timothy has been released with whom I shall see you if he comes soon greet all your leaders and all the saints those who come from Italy send you greetings grace be with all of you so not now this you could you could very easily read that and say this must be Paul you know he you know he must have been in jail he must have been in jail with Timothy he's writing from Italy Rome there we go that kind of thing well if you let's look at what it actually says I appeal to you brothers bear with with my word of exhortation for I have written to you briefly you should know that our brother Timothy has been released now he doesn't say that they were together in jail he just says hey I heard Timothy is really got released with whom I shall see you if he comes soon that that would suggest he's not in jail that would suggest that he's expecting now that Timothy has been released to meet up with them and then go see the recipients of this letter and that's typically how it's taken that that the writer here himself is not in jail he knows Timothy or at least you know probably has you know you we can't be sure that he knows him personally but again by reputation maybe it could go either way greet all your leaders and all the saints those who come from Italy send you greetings now maybe he'd received a group from Italy who sent greetings maybe he's in Italy we don't actually know so again I just want to want to spend a few moments on this because we can't really nail down Paul here even with the Timothy talk even with the hey I'm going to you know come and see you now and you know Timothy's got a jail we can't quite really get to you know this being Paul in prison with Timothy frankly we don't even have a record of Timothy and Paul being in prison together we do have a reference here that you know something happened to Timothy but when it comes to you know Paul's own the chronicling of Paul's own life we don't really get anything that that's specific so we can't really nail it down as far as that so that's more of a point of curiosity now I want to skip back again to verse 20 now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus the great shepherd of the sheep by the blood of the eternal covenant equip you with everything good that you may do his will working in us that which is pleasing in his sight and through Jesus Christ to whom be glory forever and ever amen by the author's own prayer again this is Luke Timothy Johnson again says his own prayer begins with a wish to the mood now for those of you who have a little Greek optative in New Testament Greek is pretty unusual there aren't that many of them it's the mood that expresses a wish or desire there Greek can do that in other ways besides the optative but specifically optative forms do this so again he's he begins here his little final benediction by expressing a wish here may the God of peace equip you so on and so forth and then he extends that wish to himself he includes himself in it may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus so on and so forth equip you with everything good that you may do his will working in us that which is pleasing in his sight so he includes himself in it too now some commentators have noticed the word equip here because it's not it's kind of interesting that he would use this word as opposed to something else Johnson says this the verb it's is not haphazardly selected the author uses it for the fashioning of the world through God's word in Hebrews 11 3 use the same verb and even more pertinently for the quote fitting unquote of the son with a body through which he can do God's will in Hebrews 10 5 the connection between Jesus and the hearers is thereby once more affirmed so let me just stop there Johnson is saying the author picks this verb may the God of peace equip you do this to you knowing that their ear would pick up on the fact that he used the same verb to talk about the creation of the world and fitting Jesus with a body and by doing that he again sort of aligns the believers with Jesus and God's you know creative power that sort of thing the connection back to Johnson he says the connection between Jesus and the hearers is thereby once more affirmed it is reinforced by the phrase to do his will in every good thing for it with set of Jesus that he was given a body precisely quote to do your will oh God unquote back to Hebrews 10 again the author also made clear in Hebrews 10 36 that the people of faith needed to have endurance in order to receive the inheritance by quote having done the will of God unquote the human response of Jesus to God in obedient faith is now to be the response of those many sons many children whom God is leading to glory that's the end of the Johnson quote so I like that last line that by using just this one verb he gets the his audience again to hear it to listen to it and to think about how it this this one verb choice connects them back to Jesus connects them back to what Jesus did how you know God made for him you know a body and and he did that specifically so that Jesus would be able to accomplish salvation that he would be faithful and do this thing this offering of himself surrendering his life in this body and so when when the writer prays that God would essentially do the same thing for them okay you know it's the idea that God is going to do something to you to enable you to be faithful as well and it just it just connects them back with with Jesus and in sort of a I don't want to say cryptic because if you're if you're listening to this it was it was sort of your native language you're going to you're going to pick up on things like this but to us it's a little cryptic but he connects them back to Jesus even in that little statement about that little prayer about them I want to say one last thing before we we wrap up here this reference to Jesus at the end here now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus the great shepherd of the sheep by the blood of the eternal covenant so on and so forth now what yeah this is just me talking this is this is interesting to me because typically when we see this language the great shepherd of the sheep we think of this pastoral scene with little lambs skipping around the field and what not all you know and then the shepherd is so gentle and kindly plays with the lamb a little bit you know that that sort of thing it's the kind of thing that goes through our mind there's that issue and then just listen to the verse again now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus the great shepherd of the sheep by the blood of the eternal covenant you might reading that in English you might wonder well who's the great shepherd is it the God of peace or is it Jesus which one does it refer to because in the Old Testament you know God does get talked about in this shepherd you know language but so does the Messiah so what I mean which one does it refer to now it it's placement here it makes it feel a little bit ambiguous but grammatically it does definitely refer to Jesus because Lord Jesus and the word shepherd are in the same grammatical case it's the accusative case in the Greek so we know specifically he's talking about Jesus but think about that God and the Messiah get talked about in the same language in the Old Testament so this is again the writer of Hebrews defining Jesus or casting Jesus in these roles and casting him as God casting him as the Messiah the other thing is that this language is not intended to be peaceful necessarily and pastoral and I'm searching for a better word for it but just this sort of you know wonderfully you know happy kind of relaxed sort of thing shepherd is a word that was used for kingship in the Old Testament 2 Samuel 5 to in times past when Saul was king over us it was you who let us out and brought in Israel and the Lord said to you you shall be shepherd of my people Israel you shall be prince over Israel we have the same thing going on in chapter 7 verse 7 2 Samuel in all places where I have moved with the people of Israel did I speak word with any of the judges of Israel whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel saying why have you not built me a house of seer this is God conversing with you know Nathan or you know with David through Nathan that sort of thing kingship shepherding was one of the metaphors of kingship in the ancient Near East Hammurabi is referred to as a shepherd of his people you know why am I getting at this I'm going to post again for those who are newsletter subscribers there's a really interesting article on Psalm 23 called King Yahweh as the good shepherd it's really the articles really about Psalm 23 and its connections to ancient Near Eastern kingship not just a happy little shepherd boy but a king okay it's interesting I'm going to put that in the in the shared folder for newsletter subscribers I think you'll you'll find the article interesting by Beth Tanner but this is not at the end of the letter again just some sort of effort to leave them with a happy thought when he leaves them with this notion okay the Lord Jesus the great shepherd of the sheep he's ending on a note of kingship he whether you know whether they realize it or not whether they need to beat in their head because maybe they do because we've had all this talk about Jesus being the radiance of God's glory and he seated at the right hand of God and he's the great high priest he ends the thing by reminding them he's the king so who was king in the Old Testament well it was God and again God picked human kings at some point he calls them shepherds and there are places where God is spoken of in this kind of way he wants them to realize look the person who essentially ran the show in the Old Testament and the Judaizers are consistently trying to get you to go back to that system the person who ran the show in the Old Testament has now just as he did with kings in Israel transferred his authority to this king and this king is Jesus this king is one who laid down his own life for you so let's not have any talk about going back to the Old System or do you want to obey the king or not and what the king wants you to do the way we define obedience to the king now king Jesus is to believe in him you know believe the gospel believe what he's done that's how we define kingship now that's really what is at the heart of our faith at this point right now so I think it's just kind of an interesting thought for him to sort of just right at the end just sort of lay down and essentially ask his audience his readers after going through all this and all the other ways he's talked about Jesus essentially remind him do we all know who we're talking about here and then you know he says he goes into something a little a little lighter but this is actually a significant kind of heavy you know statement you know it's a good reminder of who in fact this person who laid down his life for you is and he's seated at the right hand of God on your behalf all right Mike well there we go can't think of a better episode 199 than to wrap up the book of Hebrews so we certainly yeah it was good timing we'd love to say we planned that but we did not really we did not but it worked out perfectly so that was awesome we appreciate you taking us through the book of Hebrews and want to briefly remind everybody send me those Hebrews questions if you got any and also go get your tickets so that Spokane Washington seminar yep if you can make it please please come please register all right Mike well another good book we appreciate it and just want to thank everybody for listening to the naked bible podcast God bless thanks for listening to the naked bible podcast to support this podcast visit www.nakedbibleblog.com to learn more about Dr. Heizer's other websites and blogs go to www.brmsh.com