Here is the link to today's vodcast on Hebrews 5:11-6:20. Scholars' names taken in vain include Gary Cockerill, David deSilva, William Lane, Scot McKnight, Grant Osborne, among others.
URL: http://indwes.acrobat.com/p45995008/
As a post-note, Ben Witherington has posted some material on this passage on his website today, Wednesday, Feb. 14th (Happy Valentines Day): http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/2008/02/christian-apostasy-and-hebrews-6.html
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3 comments:
Thanks.
In speaking of "salvation", what was the writer of Hebrews concerned with? A Christian's identification with Christ? And was this a developing tradition within the movement? And why does the audience have to be identified as predominately Jews or Gentiles? Does it have to do with understanding how the "law" works in regards to Jesus...and depending on one's "maturity", then it would depend on whether you were identified as a Jew or Gentile? The Gentile believer would be a "God fearer"....but would not be fully a Jew...Is the question about the "law's place" in a believer's life...I am beginning to understand this dynamic in a different way...
Nations have laws that define them...as do cultures...but the question arises...what happens when laws conflict between the culture and the nation...Democracy allows freedom of religion, but can freedom of religion be allowed at the expense of the nation...and where does Christianity "fit" in this scenario...?
Commitment to God is what the Muslims believe is the ultimate...irregardless of the cost of life and liberty...so, if culture defines Christianity, should we suggest that Christianity be as radical as Islam? And how does one understand democracy in regards to truth that is an absolute allegience?
I believe that God works within cultural means...and this is a reasoned faith...whereas, radicalized faith is about commitment to God above culture...the question is how do we even define and know God, other than in cultural "forms"???? (I know my reasoning is tautological)
By the way, if one holds that it is a Gentile audience, and the law, which is personified in Jesus (moral model), then the Gentile believer would be exhorted to "look unto Jesus" as the finisher of faith...as moral model..This would be the law's full intent in development of character.This understanding is universal as far as religious traditions go.
Whereas, if the audience were Jewish, then, going back to Judiasm is at issue and it would be asserting Christianity, as a religion, as supreme.
So, it is not about texts, but lives lived before God and community.
In thinking further about the "problem" of radical religion, and the implications in today's world, how should Christians view radical faith?
Christian fundamentalist are at issue...not understanding that Jesus command to "forsake all" for the kingdom was speaking to an entrenched religious tradition that heralded "family" as the epitome of religion (an aristocratic/ethnocentric understanding of faith). And, yet, I do believe that all Christians no matter their "stripe" would agree that family (and tradition) IS important.
The religious fanatics would, just as Islam, think that "total commitment" means that one is irrational in their commitments and that the irrationality of the commitment "proves" their faith. But, where is the "sin of presumption"?.
I do not believe that God requires that, in fact, in Jesus' temptation, he does not tempt God by presuming upon God's care for him...but rebukes "Satan". Jesus understood his responsibility before God.
Jesus spoke to the "outsider" to identify with "God, as Father"...and he spoke to the religious "insider" and tore down their "traditional understanding" of their religion. Religion is to point toward God, but is not God himself, nor is a religious text, in that sense, God (just as Paul argued about the "law" in Romans).
Polemics uses the text as a proof text for faith. Faith resides in the individual and not in outside sources. And outside sources are not the judge of faith, as faith is about the person and his god. And just as Abraham believed and it was counted as righteousness, so the Gentile is righteous before "God". As Jesus commended that to his own Master the servant stands or falls.
In this sense, Jesus understood that faith was about being "just".
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