Introduction to Hebrews

I once read Hebrews in totality. That was when I was a high school kid. It was pretty good going at that age; however, it was a long time ago, and so I’ve forgotten much of what I read. Added to that, I read it with a child’s understanding. So the time is definitely ripe for a second look at this book.

At university, I learned something of this book’s remarkable past. Contrary to the belief of many people outside the Church, the canon of Scripture wasn’t decided by Christian leaders selecting a list of books that held up their own prejudices. Rather, it was the other way around – certain books had already proved useful, and the councils at which the Canon was decided were more about standardizing the list than anything else. There was, however, a standard set early on – the councilors decided that one important feature of a book in the New Testament canon would be that they knew who wrote it, i.e. its provenance was understood.

One of the last books decided on was Hebrews. And it presented the Councillors with a problem – Nobody knew who had written it! Some said “Paul,” others said “Apollos”, others “Luke”, and so on. The trouble was that the book was really good, and most people wanted to keep it. So it seemed to the people at the council that it was necessary to work out who wrote the book. And the arguing was going on and on.

Saint Augustine is said to have stood up in the middle of the argument and yelled at the top of his lungs;
“PAUL WROTE IT.”
This led to a lot of milling about, and people saying “Yes. Paul. Of course.” And the book was included in the Canon list (Incidentally, some people take this comment as a statement that Augustine believed in Paul’s authorship. Maybe he did; but I personally think that rather, he was just shutting everyone up).

But whilst Hebrews is a great book, it’s also hard to understand in places. So join me as we go through Hebrews. Chapter 1 will be tomorrow night – I suggest that we read it before then, so that we have a good idea of what the book says!