Wednesday Huddle – Hebrews 4:12-16 – wh20241009

 

 

 

 

 

 

FIRST MESSAGE

• The Midas Touch   
• Jeff Broadnax

 

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FIRST READING

Hebrews 4:12-16

¹² Indeed, the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. ¹³ And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.   

¹⁴ Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. ¹⁵ For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested^[a] as we are, yet without sin. ¹⁶ Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.    

 

WHAT SHOULD WE TAKE AWAY FROM THE PASSAGE?

 

Lectionary Notes

Naked and Unafraid

Hebrews 4:12-16 (NRSVUE)

Forbes magazine reports in its December 2022 Health column about the most common types of dreams people have while sleeping.  One of them is discovering that you’re naked or in your underclothes in public.  According to a 2020 sleep survey by Amerisleep, dreams of being naked or exposed in public make up about 12 percent of all dreams.  In this type of dream, the dreamer is upset and anxious about being exposed, but the other people in the dream don’t seem to notice or care.  The interpretation of this dream is that you’re feeling embarrassed or vulnerable in your daily life.

Being vulnerable in American culture is often viewed as being weak.  But social researcher Dr. Brene [pronounced bren-NAY, rhymes with René] Brown has studied vulnerability and shame, and she says, “Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it’s having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome.”

Our sermon text from Hebrews 4 encourages us to be vulnerable, open, and honest with God, who understands our human frailties through Jesus the Son.

Hebrews 4:12-16

 

The context of Hebrews 4:12-16

We can think of Hebrews 4:12-13 as concluding the argument made in Hebrews 3:7 – 4:11  about people’s struggle with unbelief and that God came to give us his rest, which we find in Jesus.  Hebrews 4:12 is often quoted by itself, but it can be interpreted in a negative or threatening manner when taken out of the context in this chapter or even out of the context of the book of Hebrews with its emphasis on Jesus Christ as our great high priest.

Hebrews 4:14-16 begin a longer argument for Jesus as our high priest and the encouragement that we should gain from this.  This focus on why Jesus is our high priest and why that is so good for us runs through Hebrews 10.

Hebrews 4:12-13:  What is the “word of God” anyway?

Indeed, the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.  And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account. (Hebrews 4:12-13, NRSVUE)

Many scholars interpret “the word of God” to mean the Scriptures.  Let’s also consider that the “word of God” is “living and active,” and therefore encompassing more of the human experience than what was recorded more than 2000 years ago.  Jesus is the living Word, and the Holy Spirit speaks the word into us today.

Understanding the culture and audience to whom the book was written is critical in understanding the principles and encouragement that apply to us today.  Consider that families and friends surely pressured the Jewish converts.  New Jewish believers may have also longed for the elaborate rituals of the temple and the culturally rich furnishings of their synagogues.  Since Christians didn’t own buildings for worship in those days, they met in the homes of fellow Christians.  Compared to their former Jewish styles of worship, Christian worship certainly would appear meager.  Luke tells us that “a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith” (Acts 6:7).  Would they expect to continue in a teaching or leadership capacity, or would Jewish converts expect them to step forward to fill such roles after conversion?

Consider these ways that the “word of God” comes to human beings, convicts them of shortcomings, comforts them, and shares in the delight of being human:

• The Holy Spirit dwelling within us:  The Holy Spirit “guide[s] us into all the truth” (John 16:13), yet we often distrust the still, small voice within that speaks kindly and patiently, offering freedom and joy rather than guilt or constraint.  Contemplative practices, such as centering prayer and meditation, can be useful in quieting ourselves to tune into the Holy Spirit in a more receptive way.
• Scripture:  How many times have you read a passage of scripture, and it jumps out at you as if it was the first time you saw it?  You may have read it dozens of times, but suddenly it applies to something you are facing or dealing with or needing an answer to.  Often, just reading a passage in another translation or interpretation sheds light on something we hadn’t previously seen or understood.  We do need to be aware that some have narrowed the definition of the “word of God” to their own choice interpretation of the Bible.  And, as mentioned before, we must approach the Bible first from its literary context, asking questions about what certain verses might mean to an ancient, agrarian, patriarchal society before we assume that the admonitions offered apply in the same way to our 21^st century, technological world.
  • • • There are several sources outside the Bible that can also enlarge our understanding of the triune God.  Just as the Bible is “living and active” when we read it with an open mind and heart to discern and observe God’s love and interaction with different cultures, we begin to see God’s living word in action in areas of life and literature we may not have considered before.
• Nature:  Nature is another example of the “living word” that speaks to God’s glory without using words.  Human beings tend to focus on language, often obsessing on intricate turns of phrase, which keeps our interactions and worship of God all in our minds.  Nature gives us the opportunity to see and worship God through his creation.  If you’ve ever witnessed a beautiful sunrise or sunset, you probably remember feeling pierced through, your “soul from spirit, joints from marrow” (Hebrew 4:12).  Nature nourishes us with a sense of God’s nearness and a quiet stillness we don’t find when we’re caught up in language.
• Conversations with others: You might be familiar with the proverb that speaks of hearing truth from others.

Iron sharpens iron, and one person sharpens the wits of another. (Proverbs 27:17, NRSVUE)

We must thoughtfully evaluate the conversations we have with others, seeking the wisdom they might offer, or the insights they have had about our true identity in Christ and the mysteries of God, keeping in mind our tendency to focus only on those ideas that we are familiar with and confirm our closely held beliefs.  This is called confirmation bias, where we gravitate toward those people and sources of information that confirm what we already think rather than challenge us.  You may have heard people talk about someone difficult in their life, saying, “He was my best teacher.”  Dealing with those who have different personalities, opinions, and life experiences can be difficult, but if we consider them as another method or “living word” God uses to reach us, we can begin to approach our interactions with a sense of curiosity rather than dread or even anger.  We can ask ourselves, “What can I learn from this person about myself, my triggers, or other areas of life I would prefer not to look at?”

• • • • • Consider reading this poem by Alison Luterman, “Because Even the Word Obstacle Is An Obstacle”
• Jesus Christ:  Known as the Word of God in John 1:1, Jesus identifies with our human existence.  He lived in a human body  and  was tempted as we are (Hebrews 4:15), so he understands our limitations.  We can’t fool him, nor should we want to.  If anyone can see our struggles and say, “Yep, I’ve been there,” it’s Jesus.

Through our interactions with the Holy Spirit, scripture and other literature, nature, other people, and Jesus, we are uncovered, our imperfections and eccentricities exposed.  Hebrews 4:13 says that we “are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.”  But Hebrews 4 goes on to elaborate why we have no reason to fear: because of Jesus’ standing as our high priest.

Hebrews 4:14-16: Why can we be authentic and vulnerable without fear?

Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession.  For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.  Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:14-16, NRSVUE)

The “one to whom we must render an account” already knows and understands the perils of living in a human body. As our high priest, Jesus knows how hard life as a human being can be, and through the cross, he demonstrated that he is able to take our worst and transform it. We don’t have anything to hide from Jesus; he knows and understands us. He possesses empathy because of the Incarnation and extends grace and mercy without measure. Through the Son’s empathy, we are brought into intimate fellowship with the Father and Holy Spirit.

Barclay’s Commentary explains why this empathy was such a radical idea:

The Jews had their different God; the Stoics, their feelingless gods; the Epicureans, their completely detached gods. Into that world of thought came the Christian religion with its incredible conception of a God who had deliberately undergone every human experience. Plutarch, one of the most religious of the Greeks, declared that it was blasphemous to involve God in the affairs of this world. Christianity depicted God not so much involved as identified with the suffering of this world. It is almost impossible for us to realize the revolution that Christianity brought about in men’s relationship to God. For century after century they had been confronted with the idea of the untouchable God; and now they discovered one who had gone through all that man must go through. (Barclay’s Daily Study Bible, NT)

Hebrews 4:12-16 shows us that God is constantly reaching out for us, seeking to expose our inner thoughts through the many avenues of the “living and active word.” We don’t need to fear the exposure of our vulnerabilities. The imagery of the sword is not to kill us, but as a surgical tool to penetrate and expose to God our will and sentiments.

We are instructed to “draw near with boldness (Greek: parresia) to the throne of grace” (v. 16a). The Greek word parresia is a combination of two words, pas (all) and rhesis (speaking). Literally we are encouraged to “pray with all freedom in speaking.” Our vulnerabilities are a feature of our humanity, one that our high priest, Jesus, fully understands and identifies with. We are reminded of Psalm 139:

Where can I go from your Spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?. . . If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and night wraps itself around me, . . . even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, . . . (Psalm 139:7, 11,12a NRSVUE).

Whether those worries about vulnerability come through our dreams or if we’re aware of them in our daily lives, we can be sure that our God is willing to extend grace and mercy to draw us near to his divine presence.

 

Call to Action: This week, try spending some time in nature, whether it is an outdoor walk or simply studying a plant or flower. Notice the calming effect that comes from connecting with God through creation. Consider reading a passage of scripture from a Bible interpretation such as The Message. Alternatively, try to approach a difficult interaction with someone with an attitude of curiosity, looking for what God might be showing you about yourself or others through them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Hebrews 4:12-16

12 Indeed, the word of God is living and active and sharper than  any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.  

 

From William Barclay …

The point of this passage is that the word of God has come to men and is such that it cannot be disregarded. The Jews always had a very special idea about words.  Once a word was spoken, it had an independent existence.  It was not only a sound with a certain meaning; it was a power which went forth and did things.  Isaiah heard God say that the word which went out of his mouth would never be ineffective; it would always do that which he designed it to do. (See Isaiah 55:10-11)

We can understand something of this if we think of the tremendous effect of words in history.  A leader coins a phrase and it becomes a trumpet-call which kindles men to crusades or to crimes.  Some great man sends forth a manifesto and it produces action which can make or destroy nations. Over and over again in history the spoken word of some leader or thinker has gone out and done things. If that be so of the words of men, how much more is it so of the word of God.

The writer to the Hebrews describes the word of God in a series of great phrases. The word of God is instinct with life. Certain issues are as dead as the dodo; certain books and words have no living interest whatever. Plato was one of the world’s supreme thinkers but it is unlikely that there would be any public for Daily Studies in Plato. The great fact about the word of God is that it is a living issue for all men of all times. Other things may pass quietly into oblivion; other things may acquire an academic or antiquarian interest; but the word of God is something that every man must face, its offer something he must accept or reject.

The word of God is effective. It is one of the facts of history that wherever men have taken God’s word seriously things have begun to happen. When the English Bible was laid bare and the word of God came to the common people, the tremendous event of the Reformation inevitably followed. When people take God seriously they immediately realize that his word is not only something to be studied, not only something to be read, not only something to be written about; it is something to be done.

The word of God is penetrating.  The writer piles up phrases to show how penetrating it is.  It penetrates to the division of soul and spirit.  In Greek the psuche (GSN5590), the soul, is the life principle.  All living things possess psuche (GSN5590), it is physical life.  In Greek the pneuma (GSN4151), the spirit, is that which is characteristic of man. It is by spirit that man thinks and reasons and looks beyond the earth to God.  It is as if the writer to the Hebrews were saying that the word of God tests a man’s earthly life and his spiritual existence. He says that the word of God scrutinizes a man’s desires and intentions.  Desire (enthumesis, GSN1761) is the emotional part of man, intention (ennoia, GSN1771) is the intellectual part of man. It is as if he said: “Your emotional and intellectual life must alike be submitted to the scrutiny of God.”

 

13 And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.   

See Psalm 139:7,11,12 … We cannot hide from God

From William Barclay …

Finally the writer to the Hebrews sums things up. He says that everything is naked to God and compelled to meet his eyes. He uses two interesting words. The word for naked is the literal word (gumnos, GSN1131). What he is saying is that as far as men are concerned we may be able to wear our outward trappings and disguises; but in the presence of God these things are stripped away and we have to meet him as we are. The other word is even more vivid (tetrachelismenos, GSN5136). This is not a common word and its meaning is not quite certain. It seems to have been used in three different ways.

(i) It was a wrestler’s word and was used for seizing an opponent by the throat in such a way that he could not move. We may escape God for long enough but in the end he grips us in such a way that we cannot help meeting him face to face. God is one issue that no man can finally evade.

(ii) It was the word that was used for flaying animals. Animals were hung up and the hide was taken off them. Men may judge us by our outer conduct and appearance but God sees into the inmost secrets of our hearts.

(iii) Sometimes when a criminal was being led to judgment or to execution, a dagger, with point upwards, was so fixed below his chin that he could not bow his head in concealment but had to keep it up so that all could see his face and know his dishonour. When that was done, a man was said to be tetrachelismenos (GSN5136). In the end we have to meet the eyes of God. We may avert our gaze from people we are ashamed to meet; but we are compelled to look God in the face. Kermit Eby writes in The God in You:  “At some time or other, a man must stop running from himself and his God — possibly because there is just no other place to run to.”

There comes a time to every man when he has to meet that God from whose eyes nothing ever can be concealed.

14 Since, then, we have  a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession.    

 

Here we are coming to closer grips with the great characteristic conception of Hebrews — that of Jesus as the perfect high priest. His task is to bring the voice of God to man and to usher men into the presence of God. The high priest at one and the same time must perfectly know man and God. That is what this epistle claims for Jesus.

(i) This passage begins by stressing the sheer greatness and absolute deity of Jesus. He is great in his nature, not by honours conferred by men or by any external trappings but, in his own essential being. He has passed through the heavens. That may mean one of two things. In the New Testament we can discern differing uses of heaven. It can mean the heaven of the sky and it can mean the heaven of the presence of God. This may mean that Jesus has passed through every heaven that may be and is in the very presence of God. It can mean what Christina Rossetti meant when she said: “Heaven cannot hold him.” Jesus is so great that even heaven is too small a place for him. No one ever stressed the sheer greatness of Jesus like the writer to the Hebrews.

 

15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable  to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested[a] as we are, yet without sin.   

 

(ii) Then he turns to the other side. No one was ever surer of Jesus’ complete identity with men. He went through everything that a man has to go through and is like us in all things — except that he emerged from it all completely sinless. Before we turn to examine more closely the meaning of this, there is one thing we must note. The fact that Jesus was without sin means that he knew depths and tensions and assaults of temptation which we never can know. So far from his battle being easier it was immeasurably harder. Why? For this reason — we fall to temptation long before the tempter has put out the whole of his power. We never know temptation at its fiercest because we fall long before that stage is reached. But Jesus was tempted far beyond what we are; for in his case the tempter put everything he possessed into the assault. Think of this in terms of pain. There is a degree of pain which the human frame can stand–and when that degree is passed a person loses consciousness so that there are agonies of pain he can not know. It is so with temptation. We collapse in face of temptation; but Jesus went to our limit of temptation and far beyond it and still did not collapse. It is true to say that he was tempted in all things as we are; but it is also true to say that no one was tempted as he was.

(iii) This experience of Jesus had three effects.

(a) It gave him the gift of sympathy. Here is something which we must understand but which we find very difficult. The Christian idea of God as a loving Father is interwoven into the very fabric of our mind and heart; but it was a new idea. To the Jew the basic idea of God was that he was holy in the sense of being different. In no sense did he share our human experience and was in fact incapable of sharing it just because he was God.

It was even more so with the Greeks. The Stoics, the highest Greek thinkers, said the primary attribute of God was apatheia, by which they meant essential inability to feel anything at all. They argued that if a person could feel sorrow or joy it means that some other person was able to influence him. If so, that other person must, at least for that moment, be greater than he. No one, therefore, must be able in any sense to affect God for that would be to make him greater than God; and so God had to be completely beyond all feeling. The other Greek school was the Epicureans. They held that the gods lived in perfect happiness and blessedness. They lived in what they called the intermundia, the spaces between the worlds; and they were not even aware of the world.

The Jews had their different God; the Stoics, their feelingless gods; the Epicureans, their completely detached gods. Into that world of thought came the Christian religion with its incredible conception of a God who had deliberately undergone every human experience. Plutarch, one of the most religious of the Greeks, declared that it was blasphemous to involve God in the affairs of this world. Christianity depicted God not so much involved as identified with the suffering of this world. It is almost impossible for us to realize the revolution that Christianity brought about in men’s relationship to God. For century after century they had been confronted with the idea of the untouchable God; and now they discovered one who had gone through all that man must go through.

(b) That had two results. It gave God the quality of mercy. It is easy to see why. It was because God understands. Some people have lived a sheltered life; they have been protected from the temptations that come to those for whom life is not easy. Some people have a nature which is easy to control; others have hot passions that make life a perilous thing. The person who has lived the sheltered life and has the noninflammable nature finds it hard to understand why the other person falls. He is faintly disgusted and cannot help condemning what he cannot understand. But God knows. “To know all is to forgive all” — of no one is that truer than he.

John Foster in one of his books tells how he came into his home in this country one day in the thirties to find his daughter in tears before the radio set. He asked her why and found that the news bulletin had contained the sentence–“Japanese tanks entered Canton today.” Most people would hear that with at the most a faint feeling of regret. Statesmen may have heard it with grim foreboding; but to most people it did not make so very much difference. Why then was John Foster’s daughter in tears? Because she had been born in Canton. To her Canton meant a home, a nurse, a school, friends.

The difference was that she had been there. When you have been there it makes all the difference. And there is no part of human experience of which God cannot say: “I have been there.” When we have a sad and sorry tale to tell, when life has drenched us with tears, we do not go to a God who is incapable of understanding what has happened; we go to a God who has been there. That is why–if we may put it so–God finds it easy to forgive.

(c) It makes God able to help. He knows our problems because he has come through them. The best person to give you advice and help on a journey is someone who has travelled the road before you. God can help because he knows it all.

 

16 Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.    

Jesus is the perfect high priest because he is perfectly God, and perfectly man.  Because he has known our life he can give us sympathy, mercy and power.  He brought God to men and he can bring men to God.

 

 

CLOSING SONG

 

CLOSING PRAYER

Let us not let the things of this world distract us from all we have in Jesus.

 

 

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