Hebrews: a letter for those tempted to turn back

🎯 Objectives

By the end of this lesson you will be able to:

• explain what we know (and what we do not know) about the author, date and recipients of the letter to the Hebrews;
• recognize the particular genre of Hebrews: a «word of exhortation» more like a sermon than a letter;
• identify the author’s purpose and the structure that alternates doctrine and warnings;
• read the prologue (1:1-4) as the key to the whole book.

📖 Receive

Read the opening of the letter carefully:

“God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds.” — Hebrews 1:1-2 (KJV)

Then read Hebrews 13:22-25, the closing. Between these two ends lies one of the deepest writings of the New Testament. Ask yourself: why would an author begin without introducing himself, without greetings, going straight to the heart, that is, to Christ?

🔍 Examine

A letter without a signature

Almost all the letters of the New Testament open with the author’s name: «Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ», «James, a servant of God», «Peter, an apostle». Not Hebrews. The text does not say who wrote it.

Christians were already asking this in the early centuries. Some thought of Paul: in several ancient manuscripts the letter was placed among his. Others suggested Barnabas, a Levite familiar with worship (Acts 4:36); later Luther suggested Apollos, the man «mighty in the scriptures» of Acts 18:24. Luke and Silas have also been proposed. Origen, a third-century theologian, honestly concluded that only God knows who wrote it.

The reasons for hesitating about Paul are concrete: the Greek style is different and highly polished; the author says he received the message from those who had heard the Lord (2:3), while Paul insists he received it directly from Christ (Galatians 1:12). On the other hand, the thought is close to Paul’s, and the author knows Timothy (13:23).

📌 Anonymity does not remove authority

Not knowing the author’s name does not make Hebrews any less inspired. The early Church recognized it as Scripture because of its content: it presents Christ in a way fully consistent with the rest of revelation. What matters is who speaks through the writing: «God has spoken» (1:1-2).

When and to whom

The date is also uncertain, but some clues help. The author speaks of the Levitical worship in the present tense, as something still happening (for example 10:1-3; 8:4-5), and does not mention the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, which took place in AD 70 and would have been a very strong argument for his case. This is why many evangelical scholars place the letter around AD 60-70.

The recipients seem to be believers largely of Jewish background: they know the Old Testament, the sacrifices, the priesthood and the tabernacle in depth. They were not new converts: they had already suffered for the faith, joyfully accepting the loss of their possessions (10:32-34), but now they were weary. They ought to have been teachers already, yet they needed milk (5:12). Some had stopped meeting together (10:25).

The genre: a written sermon

The author himself calls his writing a «word of exhortation» (13:22). It is the same expression used in Acts 13:15 for a sermon in the synagogue. In fact, Hebrews begins like a sermon, goes straight into its theme and only at the end takes the form of a letter, with greetings and a blessing (13:20-25).

This tells us how to read it: not as a cold treatise, but as the voice of a pastor who argues, quotes the Scriptures, warns and encourages. Every page aims to move the heart.

The purpose: do not turn back

Why does the author write? To stop a drift. The key word is persevere. The readers were at risk of:

• «drifting away» from the salvation they had received (2:1);
• hardening their hearts like Israel in the wilderness (3:7-13);
• becoming lazy and slow to hear (5:11; 6:12);
• going back to religious forms that were only a «shadow» of things to come (10:1).

The author’s answer is not a list of rules, but a person: Jesus. If you see who Christ really is, you will not want to turn back.

The structure: doctrine and «therefore»

Hebrews alternates two kinds of passages:

Teaching about Christ	The exhortation that follows
The Son is greater than the angels (1:4-14)	Do not neglect so great a salvation (2:1-4)
Jesus is greater than Moses (3:1-6)	Do not harden your hearts (3:7-4:13)
Jesus, the high priest (4:14-10:18)	Let us draw near with confidence and persevere (10:19-39)
The faith of the ancients (ch. 11)	Let us run the race looking to Jesus (ch. 12-13)

Every truth becomes a push: because Christ is so great, therefore hold fast.

The prologue: the key to everything

The first four verses are one of the densest sentences in the Bible. In a few lines the author says that the Son:

1. is God’s final word, after the word of the prophets;
2. is the heir of all things and the Creator of the worlds;
3. is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact imprint of his being;
4. upholds all things by his powerful word;
5. has made purification for sins;
6. has sat down at the right hand of the Majesty, greater than the angels.

The rest of the letter develops these statements.

An example: reading a «therefore»

Try to see how the letter works in a short passage, Hebrews 4:14-16. First comes a truth: we have a great high priest, Jesus the Son of God, who has passed through the heavens. Then a second truth, one that warms the heart: he is not a distant, cold priest, but one who can sympathize with our weaknesses, because he was tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin. Only at this point do two invitations come: to hold fast our confession of faith and to draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, to receive mercy in our time of need.

The path is always the same, and the diagram below sums it up:

flowchart LR
  A["Who Christ is"] --> B["What he has done for us"]
  B --> C["«Therefore»"]
  C --> D["Let us hold fast"]
  C --> E["Let us draw near"]
  D --> F(["Perseverance"])
  E --> F

When you read Hebrews, look for this movement. If you stop at the doctrine, the letter will seem abstract to you; if you jump straight to the exhortations, it will seem like a list of duties. Held together, however, doctrine becomes the reason to persevere and exhortation becomes the natural response to what God has done. A good exercise is to underline the statements about Christ and the invitations that follow from them in two different colors: you will see the letter move like a wave, from contemplation to action and back to contemplation.

🔗 Connect

Hebrews is a bridge between the two Testaments. It quotes the Old Testament more than almost any other book of the New: the Psalms, the Pentateuch, Jeremiah. The author fully applies the principle that Jesus himself taught on the road to Emmaus: the Scriptures speak of him (Luke 24:27).

Compare the prologue with John 1:1-3 and Colossians 1:15-17: three different authors, using different words, affirm the same truth. The Son is the Creator, the perfect revealer of the Father and the Lord of all. This is the BereaWay method at work: Scripture interprets Scripture.

🙏 Apply

Take a few minutes, on your own or with your study group:

1. Have you ever felt like the recipients of Hebrews, a believer for years but weary or tempted to slow down? What helped you?
2. Reread Hebrews 1:1-4. Which of the six statements about the Son strikes you most today, and why?
3. The author answers discouragement by showing who Jesus is. How might this change the way you encourage a brother or sister in crisis?
4. Thank God that he has not left us in silence, but has spoken to us in his Son.

📚 Go Deeper

• Read Hebrews 10:32-39 and note what the recipients had already been through and what the author is asking of them now.
• Read Hebrews 13:7-8 and 13:17: what do they tell us about the leaders of the community?
• Read Acts 18:24-28: why have some people thought of Apollos as a possible author?
• Read the whole letter in one or two sittings, as you would listen to a sermon, and mark every time the invitation «let us hold fast» or «let us draw near» appears.

In the next lesson we enter the heart of the argument: Christ is greater than the angels, than Moses and than the old priesthood.