I began a study of the book of Hebrews last week, but with final exams taking over my life I haven't had a chance to write down everything I was learning. I am using the commentary by Warren Wiersbe called Be Confident to help me go through the book and a lot of what is below is from his book.
Background:
- Author of Hebrews is unknown
- Letter written to the Hebrew people
- Theme of Hebrews is the superiority of Christ and His salvation to the law of Moses (Jewish law) – the people were being tempted to go back to their Jewish faith and all the laws of Moses instead of following Christ’s salvation – they wanted to stop being persecuted for believing in Christ and that is part of what tempted them to go back to only following Jewish law
Hebrews 2:1-4
1 Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. 2 For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, 3 how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, 4 while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.
- This section of Hebrews is the writer’s first of five admonitions to the Hebrews
- The purpose of the admonition is to encourage all the readers to pay attention to God’s word and obey it
- Admonition is written to believers, for the writer included himself when he wrote “we”
- Danger here is of neglecting our salvation
- More spiritual problems are caused by neglect than perhaps by any other failure on our part
- Vs. 2 – “transgression” refers to sins of commission while “disobedience” suggests sins of omission
This passage really spoke to me this week for a number of reasons - it was like God picked it out especially for me when I needed it. It was just an emotionally up and down week for me between finals, work, and a few issues some of my friends have been dealing with lately. And I felt pretty broken and upset a few nights during the week. But God really touched me when I read this section because it was like He was totally explaining to me what was going on with some of the issues I felt were right in my face. When we don't heed His word, when we are not constantly in His word, we are neglecting our salvation. Heeding the word does not just mean reading it either. We could read it a ton, but if we aren't following it or taking it to heart, then it does us no good. We are simply making our lives harder when we say we follow God, but don't heed His word. We are being hypocritical and we are causing ourselves more hurt and pain than God ever wanted us to be in. Now, I am not saying that if we heed God's word everything in life will be great, because that is certainly not true because God tells us that we will go through trials and tribulations in His name. But when we don't heed His word and aren't following Him and neglecting our salvation, we are putting ourselves in situations that He never intended us to be in and that are not the best places we should be in. Then we end up living through the consequences of our choices and having to try to move forward - hopefully now heeding His word and making the right decision with our next steps.
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