hebrews is awesome

my friend Toni and I have started a bible study on the book of Hebrews. if you've never done a bible study on Hebrews, you should probably either join ours or do one with someone else who doesn't live and hour and a half away from you (that one was for my Greer readers).

I got the privilege of starting us out in chapter 1, and quite frankly, it blew my mind. introductions to books of the bible don't usually do that. for instance, the writer of Hebrews was more than likely a Jew. we don't know that for sure, but his tone and knowledge of the Old Covenant seems to hint that he might be. if that is true, he may have very will upset a great deal of the Jewish community by writing Hebrews. in short, the author of Hebrews takes verse after verse of the Old Testament and says "if you are reading this and not thinking it is talking about Jesus, you're wrong." he's a little nicer than that, but essentially that's it. that's quite a bold statement, as Will Ferrell would say.

another thing I would mention is that if you're studying Hebrews, don't use the NIV. nothing against it necessarily; it just doesn't quite do a lot of parts justice. for example, take my favorite part of chapter 1:

(vs. 3, NIV) The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.


Now, there's nothing really WRONG with this translation. but if you look up the Greek, it the word translated as "sustaining" is actually translated better "to carry; to carry some burden; to bear." I don't know about you, but the image of Christ sustaining all things and Christ bearing and carrying all things are two pretty different images.

and maybe this explains just why Jesus gets so mad at the Pharisees at one point for loading people down with burdens, and not "lifting even a finger" to help. maybe he is mad not because they aren't helping anyone but because they are painting the exact opposite picture that He came to paint. Jesus says he wants people to trade their burden for his, which is "light and easy to bear," while taking our personal burdens (assuming those are included in "all things") and bearing them himself.

so we need to be careful to help people carry their burdens, not just because Jesus said to help the needy, but because we shouldn't be painting the EXACT OPPOSITE picture of Christ to people. more on that next time. I'm late for class.