TPT The Book of Hebrews E-Book

Brian Simmons

• Herausgeber: BroadStreet Publishing Group, LLC
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Serie: The Passionate Life Bible Study Series
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 167

Beschreibung

The book of Hebrews presents Jesus as gloriously divine, wonderfully human, and the fulfillment of the Old Testament. It is also one of God's greatest gifts to his church as it provides an expository look at the person, life, covenant, sacrifice, and ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is indeed greater than all others.                 This 12-lesson Bible study guide on the book of Hebrews provides a unique and welcoming opportunity to immerse yourself in God's precious Word as expressed in The Passion Translation®. Begin your journey with a thorough introduction that details the authorship of Hebrews, date of composition, first recipients, setting, purpose, central message, and key themes. Each lesson then walks you through a portion from the book and includes features such as notable verses, historical and cultural background information, definitions of words and language, cross references to other books of the Bible, maps, and character portraits of figures from the Bible and church history.                 Enrich your biblical understanding of the book of Hebrews, experience God's love for you, and share his heart with others.    

Leseprobe

BroadStreet Publishing® Group, LLC

Savage, Minnesota, USA

BroadStreetPublishing.com

TPT: The Book of Hebrews: 12-Lesson Bible Study Guide

Copyright © 2021 BroadStreet Publishing Group

978-1-4245-6262-6 (softcover)

978-1-4245-6263-3 (e-book)

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without permission in writing from the publisher.

All Scripture quotations are from The Passion Translation®, copyright © 2017, 2018, 2020 by Passion & Fire Ministries, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a Division of Tyndale House Ministries, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible® (NASB), copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.Lockman.org. Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the Holy Bible, King James Version, in public domain.

Stock or custom editions of BroadStreet Publishing titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, ministry, fundraising, or sales promotional use. For information, please email [email protected].

General editor: Dr. Brian Simmons

Managing editor: William D. Watkins

Writer: Jeremy Bouma

Cover and interior by Garborg Design Works at GarborgDesign.com

Printed in the United States of America

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Contents

From God’s Heart to Yours

Why I Love the Book of Hebrews

Lesson 1Jesus Is Better Than

Lesson 2Jesus, God’s Message to Us

Lesson 3Jesus, Our Faithful Example

Lesson 4Jesus, Our Compassionate King-Priest

Lesson 5Jesus, Source of Our Maturity and Truth

Lesson 6Jesus, Our King-Priest Forever

Lesson 7Jesus, Infinitely Greater Than the Old

Lesson 8Jesus, Our Infinitely Greater Covenant

Lesson 9Jesus, Our Confidence before God

Lesson 10Jesus, Faith’s Fullness

Lesson 11Jesus, Entrance into God’s Presence

Lesson 12Jesus, Living a Better Way in His Light

Endnotes

From God’s Heart to Yours

“God is love,” says the apostle John, and “Everyone who loves is fathered by God and experiences an intimate knowledge of him” (1 John 4:7). The life of a Christ-follower is, at its core, a life of love—God’s love of us, our love of him, and our love of others and ourselves because of God’s love for us.

And this divine love is reliable, trustworthy, unconditional, other-centered, majestic, forgiving, redemptive, patient, kind, and more precious than anything else we can ever receive or give. It characterizes each person of the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—and so is as unlimited as they are. They love one another with this eternal love, and they reach beyond themselves to us, created in their image with this love.

How do we know such incredible truths? Through the primary source of all else we know about the one God—his Word, the Bible. Of course, God reveals who he is through other sources as well, such as the natural world, miracles, our inner life, our relationships (especially with him), those who minister on his behalf, and those who proclaim him to us and others. But the fullest and most comprehensive revelation we have of God and from him is what he has given us in the thirty-nine books of the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament) and the twenty-seven books of the Christian Scriptures (the New Testament). Together, these sixty-six books present a compelling and telling portrait of God and his dealings with us.

It is these Scriptures that The Passionate Life Bible Study Series is all about. Through these study guides, we—the editors and writers of this series—seek to provide you with a unique and welcoming opportunity to delve more deeply into God’s precious Word, encountering there his loving heart for you and all the others he loves. God wants you to know him more deeply, to love him more devoutly, and to share his heart with others more frequently and freely. To accomplish this, we have based this study guide series on The Passion Translation of the Bible, which strives to “unlock the passion of [God’s] heart.” It is “a heart-level translation, from the passion of God’s heart to the passion of your heart,” created to “kindle in you a burning desire for him and his heart, while impacting the church for years to come.”1

In each study guide, you will find an introduction to the Bible book it covers. There you will gain information about that Bible book’s authorship, date of composition, first recipients, setting, purpose, central message, and key themes. Each lesson following the introduction will take a portion of that Bible book and walk you through it so you will learn its content better while experiencing and applying God’s heart for your own life and encountering ways you can share his heart with others. Along the way, you will come across a number of features we have created that provide opportunities for more life application and growth in biblical understanding:

Experience God’s Heart

This feature focuses questions on personal application. It will help you live out God’s Word, to bring the Bible into your world in fresh, exciting, and relevant ways.

Share God’s Heart

This feature will help you grow in your ability to share with other people what you learn and apply in a given lesson. It provides guidance on how the lesson relates to growing closer to others, to enriching your fellowship with others. It also points the way to enabling you to better listen to the stories of others so you can bridge the biblical story with their stories.

The Backstory

This feature provides ancient historical and cultural background that illuminates Bible passages and teachings. It deals with then-pertinent religious groups, communities, leaders, disputes, business trades, travel routes, customs, nations, political factions, ancient measurements and currency…in short, anything historical or cultural that will help you better understand what Scripture says and means. You may also find maps and charts that will help you reimagine these groups, places, and activities. Finally, in this feature you will find references to additional Bible texts that will further illuminate the Scripture you are studying.

Word Wealth

This feature provides definitions and other illuminating information about key terms, names, and concepts, and how different ancient languages have influenced the biblical text. It also provides insight into the different literary forms in the Bible, such as prophecy, poetry, narrative history, parables, and letters, and how knowing the form of a text can help you better interpret and apply it. Finally, this feature highlights the most significant passages in a Bible book. You may be encouraged to memorize these verses or keep them before you in some way so you can actively hide God’s Word in your heart.

Digging Deeper

This feature explains the theological significance of a text or the controversial issues that arise and mentions resources you can use to help you arrive at your own conclusions. Another way to dig deeper into the Word is by looking into the life of a biblical character or another person from church history, showing how that man or woman incarnated a biblical truth or passage. For instance, Jonathan Edwards was well known for his missions work among native American Indians and for his intellectual prowess in articulating the Christian faith; Florence Nightingale for the reforms she brought about in healthcare; Irenaeus for his fight against heresy; Billy Graham for his work in evangelism; Moses for the strength God gave him to lead the Hebrews and receive and communicate the law; Deborah for her work as a judge in Israel. This feature introduces to you figures from the past who model what it looks like to experience God’s heart and share his heart with others.

The Extra Mile

While The Passion Translation’s notes are extensive, sometimes students of Scripture like to explore more on their own. In this feature, we provide you with opportunities to glean more information from a Bible dictionary, a Bible encyclopedia, a reliable Bible online tool, another ancient text, and the like. Here you will learn how you can go the extra mile on a Bible lesson. And not just in study either. Reflection, prayer, discussion, and applying a passage in new ways provide even more opportunities to go the extra mile. Here you will find questions to answer and applications to make that will require more time and energy from you—if and when you have them to give.

As you can see above, each of these features has a corresponding icon so you can quickly and easily identify them.

You will find other helps and guidance through the lessons of these study guides, including thoughtful questions, application suggestions, and spaces for you to record your own reflections, answers, and action steps. Of course, you can also write in your own journal, notebook, computer, or other resource, but we have provided you with space for your convenience.

Also, each lesson will direct you into the introductory material and numerous notes provided in The Passion Translation. There each Bible book contains a number of aids supplied to help you better grasp God’s words and his incredible love, power, knowledge, plans, and so much more. We want you to get the most out of your Bible study, especially using it to draw you closer to the One who loves you most.

Finally, at the end of each lesson you’ll find a section called “Talking It Out.” This contains questions and exercises for application that you can share, answer, and apply with your spouse, a friend, a coworker, a Bible study group, or any other individuals or groups who would like to walk with you through this material. As Christians, we gather together to serve, study, worship, sing, evangelize, and a host of other activities. We grow together, not just on our own. This section will give you ample opportunities to engage others with the content of each lesson so you can work it out in community.

We offer all of this to support you in becoming an even more faithful and loving disciple of Jesus Christ. A disciple in the ancient world was a student of her teacher, a follower of his master. Students study and followers follow. Jesus’ disciples are to sit at his feet and listen and learn and then do what he tells them and shows them to do. We have created The Passionate Life Bible Study Series to help you do what a disciple of Jesus is called to do.

So go.

Read God’s words.

Hear what he has to say in them and through them.

Meditate on them.

Hide them in your heart.

Display their truths in your life.

Share their truths with others.

Let them ignite Jesus’ passion and light in all you say and do.

Use them to help you fulfill what Jesus called his disciples to do: “Now go in my authority and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And teach them to faithfully follow all that I have commanded you. And never forget that I am with you every day, even to the completion of this age” (Matthew 28:19–20).

And through all of this, let Jesus’ love nourish your heart and allow that love to overflow into your relationships with others (John 15:9–13). For it was for love that Jesus came, served, died, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven. This love he gives us. And this love he wants us to pass along to others.

Why I Love the Book of Hebrews

Hebrews—there is nothing in the New Testament like this book. What makes it different?

Well, unlike Paul’s other books (yes, despite the theories of some modern scholars, I do believe Paul was the human author), Hebrews is written to Jewish believers, to Christian Jews, instead of gentile believers. Hebrews shows us that Jesus makes sense against the background of the Jewish Scriptures. Every page of this book drips with truths about Jesus. Paul declares that Jesus is better than angels and everyone else in this universe. I really think the theme of Hebrews could be described as “Jesus is greater than everything!”

Hebrews also reveals that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament. His sacrifice is better, more enduring, than any sacrificial lamb offered in the Temple. Jesus’ life and power are better, more enduring, than any priest who ever served or any king who ever reigned or any prophet who ever spoke. Jesus is greater than all! No other book gives us such a long list of reasons why Jesus is superior to religion, to Moses, to Joshua, to the sacrificial system, and to the priesthood. Jesus is the One who opened up a living access to the Father by the blood of his cross. Why do I love Hebrews? Because it helps me “look away…onto Jesus” (Hebrews 12:2) and focus my attention on him.

Hebrews presents a Jesus who is both gloriously divine (1:1–3) and wonderfully human (2:5–9; 5:7–10; 12:2–3). Most of Hebrews develops Christ’s human achievements. As a man, Jesus restored dominion over the earth to humanity (2:5–9). He has regained for the human race what Adam lost in the Fall. Hebrews describes a Jesus who is everything we are supposed to be as bearers of God’s image. Hebrews presents a Jesus who was able to do in his humanity what we could never do in our sinful condition: he conquered sin, Satan, and death to restore us to God that we might rule with him in the world to come (2:14–18).

Some of my favorite verses (and chapters) in the Bible are found in Hebrews. I learn that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever (13:8) and that faith trusts in unseen realities (11:1). I discover that we have already come into Zion’s glory, the New Jerusalem (12:22), and, like a cloud, are surrounded by a myriad of holy witnesses (12:1). I find my soul-rest in Hebrews 4, an anchor for my soul in Hebrews 5, and reasons advancing past the elementary aspects of our faith in Hebrews 6. I love this book because it pushes me onward into the great inheritance we share in Christ.

Many scholars believe Hebrews was first written as a sermon (or series of sermons) to a congregation. Wouldn’t you love to hear a sermon like the book of Hebrews? This could explain why there is no formal introduction to this letter like the ones we see in every other New Testament epistle.

Even so, this epistle is, I believe, one of God’s greatest gifts to his church: an expository look at the person, life, covenant, sacrifice, and ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is indeed greater than all others.

But perhaps the one theme that Hebrews is most famous for is faith. Who isn’t stirred when reading through the “Hall of Faith” in chapter 11 and seeing all our faith-heroes as overcomers who won the victory? Some of them lived to see victory while others laid down their lives in martyrdom, but all of them were overcomers. Every man and woman can be thrilled to see that faith is the victory that overcomes the world.

Living and believing the truths of Hebrews will change your life.

•If you want to learn how to interpret the Old Testament, read Hebrews.

•If you want to see Jesus and be saturated with glory and power, read Hebrews.

•If you want your faith enlarged, stretched, and made stronger, read Hebrews.

Yes, I love this book, for it stirs me to remain faithful to God when I feel misunderstood or persecuted. It contains the radiance of Jesus to brighten my path and encourage my heart. It always contains warnings to cling tightly to Jesus, so much the more as we approach the end of the age.

Enjoy your journey through the spiritual lens given to you in the book of Hebrews.

Wrap your heart tightly around the hope that lives within us, knowing that God always keeps his promises! Discover creative ways to encourage others and to motivate them toward acts of compassion, doing beautiful works as expressions of love. This is not the time to pull away and neglect meeting together, as some have formed the habit of doing. In fact, we should come together even more frequently, eager to encourage and urge each other onward as we anticipate that day dawning. (10:23–25)

Dr. Brian Simmons

General Editor

LESSON 1

Jesus Is Better Than…

The great Scottish minister William Barclay once said, “When we come to read the Letter to the Hebrews we come to read what is, for the person of today, the most difficult book in the whole New Testament.”2 Good to know we’re in good company when it comes to approaching this rather enigmatic book!

Chances are you probably have heard very few sermons on Hebrews and probably have had few chances to engage the book yourself, either in a group or personal study. This is understandable as the letter is filled with obscure names like Melchizedek and ancient customs related to temple sacrifice. Yet the message this book bears is ripe for the church today, offering modern Christians revelation-insight into the very heart of God, for it unveils a remarkable unfolding of his revolutionary rescue plan for all the world through Jesus Christ.

The book of Hebrews presents the magnificent Jesus on every page, showing how he is better than everything that had come before and that would come after him. Hebrews is written for every believer today, for we have passed from darkness to light, from shadows to substance, and from doubt to the reality of faith. What once was a sign has now become substance; all the pictures and symbols of the Old Testament have found their fulfillment in Jesus.3

Hebrews is a divinely inspired composition given to show us the magnificence of Jesus as our glorious High Priest, better than the merely human high priest. He is better 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 and mercy to empower us through every difficulty. We find our true life in his presence.4

Engage heaven’s words that are now before you, reading them with spiritual hunger and a passion to embrace their truth, exploring the glory and grandeur of Jesus they describe, and living them out by his grace.

Authorship

Though Hebrews’ authorship is debated today, many of the earliest church fathers taught that the apostle Paul wrote the letter to and for Jewish Christians.

In the Western church, ancient church historian Eusebius (CE 260–339) refers to an even earlier church father, Clement of Alexandria (CE 150–211), who confirms without question that Paul wrote Hebrews in the Hebrew language for the Hebrew people. Clement also thought that Luke then translated the book into Greek. Apologist and theologian Tertullian (160–215) attributed the book to Barnabas, while Bible scholar Jerome (345–419) and theologian Augustine (345–430) believed that Paul wrote Hebrews. Meanwhile, the Eastern church had all along accepted the letter as one of Paul’s, and after Augustine, so did the Western church.

Paul’s authorship of Hebrews then went unquestioned until the Protestant Reformation when Martin Luther, John Calvin, and others began to challenge it and propose different authors, such as Apollos or Clement of Rome. Along with Barnabas, Apollos, and Clement of Rome as possible authors, more contemporary scholars have suggested Priscilla, Luke, or another one of Paul’s close associates.5