Chapter 3

Whoops!

Last night I emailed my commentary but failed to post it. Sorry! Here it is. And you'll still get tonight's effort, which means you get 2 in 24 hours. That's a bargain. :)

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So far we’ve looked at God’s way of bringing us back to the position of leadership over all creation that we were intended to have. Mick[1] now directs us to look at Jesus Himself.

In so doing, he compares Jesus with Moses, and declares Him to be greater – for Moses is only a servant, whereas Jesus is the master!

Now, this would have caused a bit of concern among the Jews who were the intended recipients; and no surprise, really. Moses was this incredibly great character to them. To us, Moses is an important person in our faith history, but to the Jews he was more than that. He was their leader, their prophet, their example. Moses defined and exemplified what it was to be a Jew.

Saying Jesus was greater than Moses would be bound to get some people upset! But the comparison Mick gives us is that Moses was the builder, Jesus is the owner. This would make us the building.

Mick isn’t finished yet. He not only compares Moses and Jesus, he compares the people of Israel with us. He points to a text recorded in Psalm 95 where the psalmist talks about the people of Israel in the wilderness. In this passage, it records God’s promise to Himself that he’d not let certain of the people of Israel into the Promised Land because of their sin.

The gauntlet is thrown down, and the challenge is accepted. Can Christians live God’s way longer than the Jews could?

Over to you.

[1] In case you have forgotten, “Mick” is the short title I gave to the author of Hebrews. “The Author of the book of Hebrews” seems to be a bit of a mouthful.