Hebrews pt 3

Hebrews says that Jesus was a high priest of the Order of Melchizedek. Um…okay.

It looks interesting but I don't have time to research it.

"Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see"

The word "faith" keeps getting mixed up with the word "religion". They're not always the same thing. If losing your religious culture means you can't believe in God anymore, you don't have faith.

If you really had faith in God, your faith wouldn't be shaken by science, so you wouldn't have to bully scientists into keeping quiet about evolution. If you really had faith that God has power over life and death, you wouldn't feel the need to force anti abortion laws through the legislature, because you’d know that if God didn't want a baby aborted, he'd take steps on his own without help from you. A belief that you've got to fight God's battles for him just shows that you don't actually believe God is capable of doing it himself- you have no faith. You might have religion but what you call faith is just bloody minded selfishness.

Sometime I'll tell everyone the story of why I have faith in God.

This memorable quote from the "Serenity" movie says so much with so little.
Shepherd Book says to Mal
I don't care what you believe in, just believe in it

Book is telling Mal that it doesn't matter whether he's a Christian or not, Mal's lack of a belief in anything at all is what's made him dead inside. Mal doesn't believe in things he can't see, he lacks hope. And since he lacks hope, he lacks trust, which makes it difficult to love, and if he can't love, he can't have the conviction to save the world.

Hebrews also tells us to obey our leaders and do not be distracted by strange teachings. I guess we can conclude from that, that this was a problem and the author is hoping to correct it through a letter. Is it too cynical to wonder if the "strange teachings" are strange because the author disapproves of them, and no other reason? The apostles are beginning to break into factions, the author of Hebrews is thought to be a student of Paul's Hellenized Reformed Saduccees and Intellectual But Clueless Gentiles faction, as opposed to Peter's Working Class Rural Misogynists faction, and Thomas' Starry Eyed Mystics faction and James' We're Still Jewish Darnit faction.

There's a problem here, and it's with the reading schedule. The Old Testament books are going in order, but the New Testament books are not. Now, I know that probably lots of people who follow these entries are well versed in how the NT is supposed to go, but there are also many people who are following along who are not. And putting these books out of order must be at least a little confusing for them.

I'm now obligated to note that Timothy is out of jail. Who is Timothy and why should anyone care? Well, some day we'll get to that.