Hebrews is a powerful meditation on the gospel. It is a sixty-minute sermon delivered to a worshiping congregation. The spiraling impact of theological exposition and pastoral exhortation is impressive. Hebrews weans us away from our preoccupation with the start of the Christian life and focuses our attention on the perseverance of faith. Life is not a sprint; it's a marathon. Faithfulness to the end affirms faith from the beginning. If we let the word of God have its way with us, Hebrews will deepen our faith in Christ and strengthen our faithfulness. Like Jesus in the Gospels, Hebrews sees the fundamental difference between apostasy and faithfulness as the difference between a religion about God and a Christ-centered relationship with God. Any form of Christianity that competes like other religions for the attention of its adherents through its rituals, practices, pastors, traditions, and sacred spaces, has fallen back into an obsolete and worldly strategy. The pastor calls for a decisive end to religion, even the best religion ever conceived. The flow of reasoned argument for Christ and against religion, along with the pulsating emotional intensity of ultimate issues laid bare, and heart-felt warnings against complacency and unbelief, deliver a powerful and timely message.
