- There’s a verse in Hebrews that scholars agree is strangely worded, and a little scary if translated correctly.
- They don’t talk about what it might mean to follow this command in practice.
- Yet actually it is a key to our deep growth.
Play Audio:
- In part of the central flow of argument in Hebrews, there is a verse that is strange
- All the major commentaries on the verse agree that it is strange but none of them risk saying what it might mean in practice
- All of the translations tone it down.
- Today I want us to look at it explore what it is asking us to do, even if it is a bit scary.
1. The strange command in Hebrews 10
- The writer has just concluded the main point of the book: We have a new relationship with God through the New Covenant established by Jesus.
- He summarizes our response before unpacking it in more detail in the 3 final chapters.
- Christian triad of faith (v.22), hope (v.23), and love (v.24).
- our verse is v.24 and that is is common translation, but very toned down from the original.All the best experts on the Greek are in agreement that this would be a better translation
- Two words the normal translation tones down:consider → intently watch, carefully observing“fix your eyes upon Jesus” Hebrews 3:1 —exactly the same word
- stir up → sharply spur them Usually used of giving someone a very sharp poke
- e.g. O.T. someone had their eyes put out with this
- It is used of the fight between Paul and Barnabas over Mark
- What on earth does that mean in practice?
2. The deep lies we carry
- Here is an example:
- After King David’s adultery and murder, it seems he was very self deceived.
- It seems he lived in the delusion that he had not sinned
- Nathan, in love, brought a sharp jab! Note that God gave him great wisdom in what to say.
- I once used this technique with someone…
- What are these lies
- from: The Heart and The Subconscious Mind by La Vonne Earl
- Even secular psychologists see there is a problem
- How is this problem dealt with?
- The Book of Hebrews gives two answers:
- Sometimes God uses his Word, activated by his Spirit
- Sometimes he uses a loving community
- The Book of Hebrews gives two answers:
- Sometimes this behaviour is due to trauma or mistreatment
- The lies we carry are sometimes from a very young age, and were originally there to protect us.
3. Gently poking out the lies
- Jesus
- Woman of Samaria
John 4:1–30
- A Samaritan woman came to draw water. Jesus said to her,
“Give me a drink.” - (For his disciples had gone off into the town to buy food.)
- The Samaritan woman said to him,
“How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?”
(For Jews use nothing in common with with Samaritans.) - Jesus answered her,
“If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that said to you, ‘Give me a drink,’
you would have asked him, and he would have given you living [flowing] water.” - The woman said to him,“Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep.
Where do you get this living [flowing] water? - Surely you are not greater than our ancestor Jacob,
who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock?” - Jesus said to her,
“Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, - but whoever drinks of the water that I will give them will never thirst again.
The water that I will give them will become in them a fountain of water springing up to eternal life.” - The woman said to him,
“Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” - Jesus said to her,
“Go, call your husband, and come back here.” - The woman answered him,
“I have no husband.”
Jesus said to her,
“You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18for you have had five husbands,
and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” - The woman said to him,
“Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. - Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”
- Jesus said to her,
“Believe me, Woman, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.
… - The woman said to him,
“I know that Messiah is coming (the one called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us everything.” - Jesus said to her,
“I am! —the one speaking to you”
- Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?”
- So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people,
- “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?”
- They went out of the town and were coming to him.
AMF
- Showed her honour and value
- Made her an offer —she found a reason to deflect it
- Jesus persists, and she accepts
- Jesus asks a very provoking question
- She deflects
- Jesus is even more provoking (but knows he has built up enough relationship)
- She changes the subject
- He brings her right back to the conversation, and that he, the Messiah, is giving her attention
- She is transformed into a powerful evangelist to the city
Martha
- challenged his self-identity
- his lie? —I am the great teacher, you need to convince me.
A Real Conversation
A woman was worried about her forty-year-old son who had autism, who became ill, and had to live with her for several weeks until he returned to his group home.
She said, “I was so angry with him. He crossed the street without looking and was almost hit by a bus! I yelled at him, ‘I need you to be normal! I need you to be healthy!’”
“You need your autistic son to be normal?”
“Yes.”
“You need him to be not him?”
“He’s got to change.”
“A son whose autism has not changed in forty years has to change. Is that true?”
“No. I guess not.”
“We wish our anger could un-autism him, but it doesn’t, does it?”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“He keeps being autistic. You have been waiting forty years for a normal son to appear instead of the autistic son you have. I understand. Who wouldn’t? Shall we hold the funeral for the normal son you never had and never will?”
She bent over and sobbed.
The reason I reminded the mother of what she had been denying was not to cause her pain but to bring her relief, relief from an illusion that had tortured her for forty years. By facing the facts of her life with her, I showed her that she could face them too.
Interestingly, the more she faced the truth, the less she suffered from her lie.
As she let go of her unreal son, she embraced the real son she had.
quoted from: The Lies We Tell Ourselves p.7 by Jon Frederickson
AMF
- Do you have any deeply embedded lies?
- Would you like others to gently and lovingly poke them to the surface?
- Err on the side of gentleness! and always love!
- PRAY for WISDOM! (as Nathan was given wisdom)