The Book of Hebrews in the Days of Hebrews

 

Early Christmas Day 2023 morning
I honestly can't figure out why Bible scholars would argue that Hebrews wasn't written by the Apostle Paul. Who else would it be? He was the only one of the apostles trained in the Hebrew scriptures and this was necessary for the Holy Spirit to teach him the deep mysteries of God that are revealed progressively through the Scriptures. These are things that would have escaped the other apostles because they didn't have understanding of Scripture. We can get far without knowing the Old Testament, but we cannot get into the deeper mysteries of God that were entrusted to Paul. Yeshua hand-picked Paul for this job appearing to him after the resurrection. If these mysteries of God were not ultimately important for Christians for the fulfillment of God's plans, then Jesus would have no need to add to the Apostles and Apostle specifically to be the apostle to the Gentiles. Someone had to give the nations a contextual understanding of God's ways that is only found by starting at the beginning, with the understanding that was laid among the Jewish people. Jewish people can give us that contexual understanding, but really only those that have a Spirit filled life in Yeshua. You can't get that from just any unsaved rabbi, you must find the saved rabbis, filled with the Holy Spirit and in active process of being transformed in the likeness of God's Son Yeshua. 

Paul wrote almost the whole New Testament scriptures and scholars are telling me God called in Mr. Anonymous to write the book of Hebrews instead of Paul? handpicked by Jesus to lay out the teaching to the Gentiles? The other apostles admitted the advantage Paul had in both biblical training and in revelation of the mysteries that run from Genesis to end. He understood better because of his training of the Hebrew Scripture and even the other apostles learned from his teaching. I think one would just have to overlook the obvious and accept the least likely premise to say someone other than Paul wrote Hebrews. But I'm simple like that.

Early the Morning after Christmas Day 2023 
PART II: The Lord is continuing to speak to me about the apostle Paul, apostle to the Gentiles. He was unrivaled among all the other Apostles with a capital A, in understanding the mysteries of God. He was personally chosen by Yeshua after resurrection to declare the Gospel and the Mysteries of God's plan to all the Gentiles...but also to the Jews. I think it is fair to say that what Paul taught, the other apostles learned from. He wrote most of the New Testament, so there is that, but there are other things God is showing me about Paul, worth paying attention to. 

     Just right off the bat I am going to challenge you on the criticism of Bible scholarship who have claimed that Hebrews was not written by Paul. The apostle to the Gentiles wrote to the Corinthians, the Galatians, the Ephesians, the Romans and many others. Why in the world would we think he didn't write to the Hebrews? 

     I propose that the scholarship that claims Hebrews was not written by Paul, is rather a deep manifestation of Christian rejection of God's continuing love and plan for the Hebrew nation of Israeli Jews. It is a manifestation of supersessionism (replacement theology).

     Paul never turned his back on the Jewish people and he wrote much to make non-Jewish Christians to know that the temporary setting aside of Israel is one of the greatest mysteries of God, because they were set aside temporarily in order to open the door of salvation to all the people of the nations. Paul even argues in Romans about how Christians should not fall into the pride and arrogance that boasts and gloats over the Jews as forsaken by God. 

     In Hebrews, Paul's authorship is never mentioned. That is not enough to conclude he was not the author. Considering the things he wrote about in Hebrews, he is addressing precisely the kind of issues that needed to be addressed to Jewish believers. He addressed the same things that Jewish believers pointedly need to be addressed to non-Jewish Christians.

    That is the same thing he did in letters to the the Corinthians who were getting so charismatic that they ignored sin in the camp without addressing and correcting it. Or, like the Galatians, who became so fascinated with Jewish believers teaching the laws rather than the Gospel he had taught them of faith by grace. (If you are a Christian who thinks grace did not exist in the Old Testament, you just don't know the whole Bible! Grace still existed because it was ALWAYS impossible for even the best believers not to break the law and sin! Bathsheba, and many other prime examples of God's grace even under the Law.)

     In the Galatians letter Paul  he said he even had to rebuke the Apostle Peter in front of everyone in Antioch: “If you, who are a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?”

     Paul had bona fides (authentic credentials) for being accepted among the 12 Apostles because Paul was even chosen by Jesus after resurrection on the road to Damascus. He was halted from pursing Jewish believers to punish them for believing in Yeshua.

     Paul called himself "one born of undue time" which was a way to  say a premature baby. But I believe it is a spiritual reference to the premature birth of religious Jews to faith in Yeshua. Paul was one of them, completely unlike the other apostles - trained in the Hebrew Scriptures. 

     Maybe Paul's authorship being left out of the letter to the Hebrews has more to do with that than with anything else. Why did Jesus pick a trained expert in the Hebrew  Scriptures only after His resurrection instead of when He was walking throughout Israel preaching to the Jews? 

     One, because the Gentiles were going to need to understand what God was saying in the Hebrew Scriptures and the continuity of God's mysterious plans that can only be apprehended by someone who has studied the Old Testament enough to know what God spoke to Israel. There have been many ridiculous assumptions of what God was saying by Christians precisely because we reject what only the Jewish believers in Yeshua can inform us about.

     God sets a table before us in the presence of our enemies. At this table are marvelous things He has developed among Christians. But also at that table - a table set for the Last Days - there is a great banquet that has been prepared by God among Yeshua's Messianic Jews.  We are invited to sit down at that table - in the presence of our enemies - and partake of good food presented by Christians and Messianic Jews who are ready and willing to follow the Holy Spirit in to God's mysterious plan to make of two -Jew and Gentile- one in Messiah. The apostle Paul taught with authentic credentials he spelled out in Galatians 1 and Philippians 3, and many trials which he spelled out in 2 Corinthians 10. 

     Paul never lost his earnest desire to see the Jewish people join Him in faith in Israel's Messiah. He always went to the synagogue first to speak in any city he entered - but he also knew as the Spirit had instructed him, that until the season determined by God, he would not see a mass of Jewish people coming to faith. Individuals would come, but "all Israel" was reserved to a specific time frame - the return of Israel from exile to a reestablished physical nation, then spiritual restoration would also begin. That would happen in the last of the last days. Paul never stopped preaching the Gospel to seek the ones like himself who did come into faith after Jesus time walking among them had ceased.  

     All of the signs spoken of by Jesus Himself point to the time of God's mercy arising for Israel to be here and now. First the physical restoration of Israel as a nation, then the spiritual restoration to God by faith in Israel's own Messiah, Yeshua. The banquet table we are invited to sit at - in the presence of our enemies - that is at a table of Jews and Gentiles who opened their heart to each other as God intended in His Son. Short of that, and you will find your spiritual food more and more scanty as the trials continue to increase.

* One other thing is Jesus telling us that we must pray for our enemies. After Shaul had been blinded by the radiance of Yeshua appearing to him on the road to Damascus, the Lord spoke to Ananias in a vision, “Ananias!” 

     “Here I am, Lord,” he answered. 11“Get up!” the Lord told him. “Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Shaul, for he is praying. appeared to Ananias, a believer in Damascus. 

     13 But Ananias answered, “Lord, many people have told me about this man and all the harm he has done to Your saints in Jerusalem. 14 And now he is here with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on Your name.”

     15 “Go!” said the Lord. “THIS MAN IS MY CHOSEN INSTRUMENT TO CARRY MY NAME BEFORE THE GENTILES AND THEIR KINGS   AND BEFORE THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 16 I will show him how much he must suffer for My name.”

     Being chosen by God also comes with suffering for His name. We can pray for those who persecute us because they are deflecting the Word of God we carry for them.  Their eternity stands in the balance.