The Books of Hebrews and James (2020 Edition) E-Book

Brian Simmons

• Herausgeber: BroadStreet Publishing Group, LLC
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Serie: The Passion Translation
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Seitenzahl: 135

Beschreibung

The book of Hebrews shines the magnificence of Jesus on every page. Written for every believer today, Hebrews explains the superiority of Christ and how his story is woven into the life and narrative of Israel. This epistle takes us into the holy of holies. Without a veil or anything to hinder our intimacy with God, we come to his mercy-throne, where we encounter enough grace to empower us through every difficulty.   The book of James offers practical truths about what it means to be declared righteous by God. James is rich with life-changing revelation, and we may even consider this epistle the New Testament Proverbs, for much of it speaks of heavenly wisdom from God. James also helps us understand the power of faith to produce good works. Faith works!   Heaven's words are before us. We read them with a spiritual hunger and a passion to embrace truth, then live them out by the grace of Jesus, our Messiah, in whom we find our true life.   Move your heart closer and closer to God, and he will come even closer to you. James 4:8  

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Hebrews and James: Faith Works

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978-1-4245-6334-0 (paperback)

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Printed in the United States of America

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Information

A Note to Readers

Hebrews

James (Jacob)

Your Personal Invitation to Follow Jesus

About the Translator

Backcover

A NOTE TO READERS

It would be impossible to calculate how many lives have been changed forever by the power of the Bible, the living Word of God! My own life was transformed because I believed the message contained in Scripture about Jesus, the Savior.

To hold the Bible dear to your heart is the sacred obsession of every true follower of Jesus. Yet to go even further and truly understand the Bible is how we gain light and truth to live by. Did you catch the word understand? People everywhere say the same thing: “I want to understand God’s Word, not just read it.”

Thankfully, as English speakers, we have a plethora of Bible translations, commentaries, study guides, devotionals, churches, and Bible teachers to assist us. Our hearts crave to know God—to not just know about him, but to know him as intimately as we possibly can in this life. This is what makes Bible translations so valuable, because each one will hopefully lead us into new discoveries of God’s character. I believe God is committed to giving us truth in a package we can understand and apply, so I thank God for every translation of God’s Word that we have.

God’s Word does not change, but over time languages definitely do, thus the need for updated and revised translations of the Bible. Translations give us the words God spoke through his servants, but words can be poor containers for revelation because they leak! Meaning is influenced by culture, background, and many other details. Just imagine how differently the Hebrew authors of the Old Testament saw the world three thousand years ago from the way we see it today!

Even within one language and culture, meanings of words change from one generation to the next. For example, many contemporary Bible readers would be quite surprised to find unicorns are mentioned nine times in the King James Version (KJV). Here’s one instance in Isaiah 34:7: “And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness.” This isn’t a result of poor translation, but rather an example of how our culture, language, and understanding of the world has shifted over the past few centuries. So, it is important that we have a modern English text of the Bible that releases revelation and truth into our hearts. The Passion Translation (TPT) is committed to bringing forth the potency of God’s Word in relevant, contemporary vocabulary that doesn’t distract from its meaning or distort it in any way. So many people have told us that they are falling in love with the Bible again as they read TPT.

We often hear the statement, “I just want a word-for-word translation that doesn’t mess it up or insert a bias.” That’s a noble desire. But a word-for-word translation would be nearly unreadable. It is simply impossible to translate one Hebrew word for one English word. Hebrew is built from triliteral consonant roots. Biblical Hebrew had no vowels or punctuation. And Koine Greek, although wonderfully articulate, cannot always be conveyed in English by a word-for-word translation. For example, a literal word-for-word translation of the Greek in Matthew 1:18 would be something like this: “Of the but Jesus Christ the birth thus was. Being betrothed the mother of him, Mary, to Joseph, before or to come together them she was found in belly having from Spirit Holy.”

Even the KJV, which many believe to be a very literal translation, renders this verse: “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.”

This comparison makes the KJV look like a paraphrase next to a strictly literal translation! To some degree, every Bible translator is forced to move words around in a sentence to convey with meaning the thought of the verse. There is no such thing as a truly literal translation of the Bible, for there is not an equivalent language that perfectly conveys the meaning of the biblical text. Is it really possible to have a highly accurate and highly readable English Bible? We certainly hope so! It is so important that God’s Word is living in our hearts, ringing in our ears, and burning in our souls. Transferring God’s revelation from Hebrew and Greek into English is an art, not merely a linguistic science. Thus, we need all the accurate translations we can find. If a verse or passage in one translation seems confusing, it is good to do a side-by-side comparison with another version.

It is difficult to say which translation is the “best.” “Best” is often in the eyes of the reader and is determined by how important differing factors are to different people. However, the “best” translation, in my thinking, is the one that makes the Word of God clear and accurate, no matter how many words it takes to express it.

That’s the aim of The Passion Translation: to bring God’s eternal truth into a highly readable heart-level expression that causes truth and love to jump out of the text and lodge inside our hearts. A desire to remain accurate to the text and a desire to communicate God’s heart of passion for his people are the two driving forces behind TPT. So for those new to Bible reading, we hope TPT will excite and illuminate. For scholars and Bible students, we hope TPT will bring the joys of new discoveries from the text and prompt deeper consideration of what God has spoken to his people. We all have so much more to learn and discover about God in his holy Word!

You will notice at times we’ve italicized certain words or phrases. These portions are not in the original Hebrew, Greek, or Aramaic manuscripts but are implied from the context. We’ve made these implications explicit for the sake of narrative clarity and to better convey the meaning of God’s Word. This is a common practice by mainstream translations.

We’ve also chosen to translate certain names in their original Hebrew or Greek forms to better convey their cultural meaning and significance. For instance, some translations of the Bible have substituted James for Jacob and Jude for Judah. Both Greek and Aramaic manuscripts leave these Hebrew names in their original forms. Therefore, this translation uses those cultural names.

The purpose of The Passion Translation is to reintroduce the passion and fire of the Bible to the English reader. It doesn’t merely convey the literal meaning of words. It expresses God’s passion for people and his world by translating the original, life-changing message of God’s Word for modern readers.

We pray this version of God’s Word will kindle in you a burning desire to know the heart of God, while impacting the church for years to come.

Please visit ThePassionTranslation.com for more information.

Brian Simmons and the translation team

HEBREWS

(return to table of contents)

Introduction • One • Two • Three • Four • Five • Six • Seven • Eight • Nine • Ten • Eleven • Twelve • Thirteen

HEBREWS

Introduction

AT A GLANCE

Author: Unknown, but possibly Paul, Barnabas, Apollos, or Priscilla

Audience: Christians converted from Judaism

Date: AD 50–64

Type of Literature: A sermon in the form of a letter

Major Themes: Jesus, the Old Testament, faith, perseverance, and heaven

Outline:

Prologue — 1:1–3

Jesus’ Superiority over Angels and Moses — 1:4–4:13

Jesus’ Superior Priesthood — 4:14–7:28

Jesus’ Superior Sacrifice and Covenant — 8:1–10:18

A Call to Persevere — 10:19–12:29

Final Instructions and Greetings — 13:1–25

ABOUT HEBREWS

The book of Hebrews presents the magnificent Jesus on every page!

The light of the Messiah brings truth out from the shadows and it shines brightly for all to see. Hebrews is written for every believer today, for we have crossed over from darkness to light and from doubt to faith. The name Hebrews means, “those who crossed over.” We have passed from shadows to substance and from doubt to the reality of faith. What once was a symbol has now become substance, for all the pictures of the Old Testament have found their fulfillment in Jesus.

Hebrews takes us into the holy of holies as we come to him as priests, lovers, and worshipers. You will never be the same again when you absorb the light of God that shines from every chapter.

Jesus is the theme of Hebrews. You must learn from him and draw closer to him in order to understand the depth of this book, for Jesus is the language of God! When God now speaks to us, he speaks in the vocabulary of Jesus Christ. All of the Bible points to him. Can we truly understand the Bible if we don’t come to him?

Hebrews is a divinely inspired composition given to show us the magnificence of Jesus as our glorious High Priest. He is greater than the law, the angels, the system of temple worship, and greater than any high priest or religious structure. Because our royal Priest gave his sacred blood for us, we now have unrestricted access to the holiest place of all. With no veil and nothing hindering our intimacy with God, we can come with an unbelievable boldness to his mercy-throne where we encounter enough grace to empower us through every difficulty. We find our true life in his presence.

Heaven’s words are now before you, so read them with spiritual hunger and a passion to embrace truth, and live them out by the grace of Jesus, our Messiah.

God will help you!

PURPOSE

The purpose of the pastor’s sermon is evident the further you read his letter: he is trying to prevent those he’s addressing from abandoning their Christian faith and returning to Judaism. Along the way, the author teaches them—and us—about the superiority of Christ above the religious institutions of Moses and the Old Testament. The sermon-letter is filled with references to the old sacrificial system and priesthood of ancient Israel and explains how Jesus’ death has replaced this old religious system—making it the perfect book to understand how Jesus’ story fulfills Israel’s story!

AUTHOR AND AUDIENCE

The book of Hebrews was most likely written sometime around AD 50–64. It had to have been written prior to Clement of Rome citing it as inspired (AD 95) and before the Roman war that destroyed the temple in AD 67–70. Though Hebrew’s true authorship is unknown, the earliest church fathers taught that Hebrews was written in Hebrew by Paul for the Jewish people. Eusebius (AD 260–339) refers to an even earlier apostolic father, Clement of Alexandria (AD 150–211), who confirms without question that Paul wrote Hebrews in the Hebrew language for the Hebrew people. (See Eusebius, History, Book VI: XIV.) More recent scholarship, however, has begun to question this and speculate that it was written by Barnabas, Apollos, Priscilla, or another one of Paul’s close associates.

Regardless of who wrote it, we are more certain about who read it—or rather, who first heard it read out loud, because Hebrews seems to be more of a sermon contained in a letter. The inscription placed on the original document is “To the Hebrews,” and the major themes point to a group of Jewish Christians who may have been getting cold feet, wondering if they should return to Judaism. This sermon-letter is so steeped in ancient Jewish practices that it seems very likely the author is addressing Christians converted from Judaism. And yet, the letter still speaks to us today as those who enter into a better covenant by faith in Jesus Christ.

MAJOR THEMES

Christology: Christology is the study of the Christ, the Messiah, and this letter is a full-on course about our heavenly Savior! The revelation of Jesus fills the pages of Hebrews and it will set you free! He is our magnificent High Priest who is greater than Moses, greater than any sacrifice ever offered, greater than any prophet of old. He perfects our faith until we rise with him into the heavenly realm of priestly ministry. He warns us of turning back into ritual and religion, forgetting all the treasures of our faith. He stirs us to enter into the full rest by seeing Jesus alone as our perfection before the Father.

The Old Covenant Fulfilled: One of the central themes of Hebrews is the relationship of the new covenant established by the blood of Jesus, the Messiah to the old or “first covenant.” Look at all the Old Testament imagery the pastor uses: Moses, the high priest, Melchizedek, the priestly order of Aaron, offerings and sacrifices, the ark of the covenant, and the Most Holy Place. Even though we are far removed from the original religious system of rules and rituals found in the Old Testament, we cannot afford to ignore the pastor’s message: The high priesthood of Jesus is inherent to his identity as our all-sufficient Rescuer and Revealer!

The Reality of Heaven