“endurance based on a Person, not on circumstances”

Download discussion questions:  Hebrews 10:25-39 
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I encourage you to look at the passage in Hebrews before you read this Blog entry.  What do you see in the text yourself?  What questions come to your mind?  How would you interpret what the writer says?  After even a few minutes examining and thinking about the text you will be much better prepared to evaluate the comments in the Blog.

A Stick and A Carrot

When we began our discussion, someone pointed out that this passage contains the same language as earlier in Hebrews.  Like the pastor’s pattern in chapter 6, this passage follows a stern warning with comforting encouragement.  The “stick” of warning (Hebrews 6:4-8 and 10:26-31) paves the way for the “carrot” of reassurance (Hebrews 6:9-12 and 10:32-39).  This was a good example of the value of studying a biblical book in its entirety, even over the course of several months.  Seeing that kind of repeated pattern gives us a clear idea of what was foremost on the writer’s mind.

Another person similarly observed (in verse 34) that the writer described a “better and lasting” possession, and that was the description already used repeatedly in Hebrews: a better covenant (Hebrews 7:22, 8:6), a better hope (Hebrews 7:19), better promises (Hebrews 8:6). Here again, the writer’s themes come out.

What Changed?

Regarding the list of “conflict of sufferings” (v. 33-34), someone asked, “What changed?”  Why was the exhortation to “Remember the former days” needed?  The congregation had held up so well before.  They had “endured” and even maintained joy in terrible trials.  What was different now?

Another person pointed out that they had endured (v. 32), but now they “had need of endurance” (v. 36).  The joy through trials reminded one member of our group of the earlier experience of the apostles:

After calling the apostles in, they flogged them and ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and then released them. So they went on their way from the presence of the Council, rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for His name.  (Acts 5:40-41, emphasis added)

But perhaps in both examples that joy and endurance was part of the early experience of following Christ.  Their initial confidence and early encouragements gradually gave way to growing suffering.  Someone suggested that the trials listed in this brief passage could easily intersect.  A new ordeal began before a current crisis ended.  One person suggested the phrase “compound suffering” that accumulated like compound interest.  Even in those circumstances, they had endured, at least for a while.

But however long the congregation had been believers, enough time has passed for them to grow “dull of hearing”, that is, spiritually sluggish, when they should have matured enough to be teaching others (Hebrews 5:11-12).  The fruitful “former days” apparently were distant enough to require the writer’s reminder.  Maybe the persecution had been intermittent, or maybe it was constant, or perhaps it was intensifying. In any case, their former endurance was wearing thin.  The “joyful acceptance” and earlier confidence were now in danger of being “thrown away” (v. 35).

Joy and Trust

This led our group to a discussion of the connection between trust and joy.  To a large extent, joy depends on trust.  Without trust, anxiety and fear overshadow joy.  Someone suggested that trust is an active choice, a decision to believe.  That decision needs frequent repetition.  Often, we need reminders (especially from others assembled together, v. 25) of the basis for our trust.  Another person suggested that if trust is an active decision, joy is in internal response to that decision.  As circumstances persist or worsen (such as the Hebrew congregation experienced), we need even more reminders to maintain that trust and the resulting joy.

The pastor wrote that kind of reminder.  He had described the basis of trust in most of the preceding nine chapters.  Here he more pointedly summarizes what that trust looks like and why it needs to be renewed.  Their earlier confidence (e.g., Hebrews 3:6, 4:15, 10:19) had enabled their endurance during the former days. Now he reminded them that they still have that same “better possession and a lasting one.”  The inescapable conclusion (“therefore” in verse 35) is the futility of “throwing away” the source of endurance.  The continuing endurance they so desperately needed depended on holding fast to that confidence (Hebrews 3:6).

In another reference to earlier parts of Hebrews, someone suggested that throwing away their confidence might result from being “unpersuadable,”[1] the hard-hearted state the pastor warned about in chapters 3 and 4.

That essential confidence was in danger of being “thrown away.”  In a continuing conversation after our group had ended, a person raised the question, “What do we throw away” and provided a helpful answer, “Things that don’t work.”  What if the expectation of the Christian life is “smooth sailing” or increasing prosperity (whether material or emotional or even spiritual)?  In that case, the life that Jesus and His early followers described and experienced didn’t “work.”  Suffering and even martyrdom mark the story of the early church.  The Hebrew congregation certainly could have decided that their turn to Christian faith hadn’t “worked” and could be discarded.  But the pastor exhorted them to continued confidence and the resulting endurance, endurance based on (as one in our group phrased it) a Person and not on circumstances.

Confidence and Endurance

The writer uses a quotation from Habakkuk to emphasize his point.  (We also discussed the pastor’s use of the prophetic passage.  That important part of our discussion is found in “Habakkuk in Hebrews.”[2])  The readers may have immediately identified with that reference.  Like the first-century congregation, Habakkuk was concerned with circumstances and an apparent delay in God’s response.  Habakkuk was mystified about God’s actions and was waiting for a vision in answer (Habakkuk 2:1-4).  The Hebrew congregation was mystified by their unending hardships.  The key for both Habakkuk and the Hebrews was faith, as summarized by the prophet and quoted by the pastor, “the righteous will live by his faith” (Habakkuk 2:4; Hebrews 10:38).

The next chapter of the sermon to the Hebrews will more directly address the definition or description of faith, along with numerous examples.  Our group discussed “faith” based on what we have seen in Hebrews so far. How does faith relate to the immediate topic in the passage, confidence and endurance?

One suggestion considered faith as having two dimensions:  belief and trust.  We believe certain facts about God, who He is and what He has done.  Trust is based on those beliefs – God’s character and His actions in the past, and His stated purposes for His people in the future.

One author expresses the basis for trust this way.

The Scriptures teach us three essential truths about God that we must believe if we are to trust God in adversity.  They are:

• • • God is completely sovereign.
    • God is infinite in wisdom.
    • God is perfect in love.

Someone has expressed these three truths as they relate to us in this way:

• • • ‘God, in His love, always wills what is best for us.
    • In His wisdom, He always knows what is best, and in
    • His sovereignty, He has the power to bring it about.’[3]

The current passage in Hebrews describes confidence as necessary for endurance in the way that Jerry Bridges describes belief as necessary for trust.  Those two parallel assertions express the same truth well.  We need confidence in our beliefs about God in order to have the trust that enables our endurance through difficult times.  Applying Bridges’ three “essential truths” requires a firm conviction about each of those statements about God.

One person in our group pointed out that we often get things backwards.  We make assumptions about things God never promised, then our faith is shaken when circumstances don’t follow our fantasy.

Jesus doesn’t promise His followers physical safety, temporal happiness, or healthy relationships. Often He promises the opposite. Once upon a time, the church took inspiration from the stories of the martyrs. What does it say about contemporary Christianity that we want inspiring stories about victories in the here and now? It’s almost as if our faith no longer rests on what is unseen.[4]

Another member commented that when our dreams are shattered,[5] we try to “muster up feelings of trust” instead of being reminded of God’s sovereignty, wisdom, and love.  The feeling may or may not come, but the confidence, the settled belief about God will enable our trusting endurance.

Creed and Communion

We concluded our time together with expressions of confidence and endurance, of belief and trust.  We read aloud together the Nicene creed as an expression of our confident belief in the Triune God, and we celebrated Communion together as an expression of our trust in the work of Christ to enable our endurance.  “You can always trust the God who died for you.”[6]

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[1] John Owen, Exposition on Hebrews; The AGES Digital Library PDF (Rio, Wisconsin:  AGES Software, 2004), 328;
also, John Owen, Hebrews:  The Epistle of Warning (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  Kregel Publications, 1953), 60.

[2] http://www.goodnotsafe.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Hebrews-10_37-Habakkuk-in-Hebrews.pdf

[3] Jerry Bridges, You Can Trust God (Colorado Springs:  NavPress, 1989), 6, emphasis added.

[4] Collin Garbarino,” Streaming salvation,” World Magazine, April 7, 2023, online.
https://wng.org/podcasts/streaming-salvation-1680812220

[5] Larry Crabb, Shattered Dreams (Colorado Springs, Colorado:  WaterBrook Press, 2001).

[6] Larry Crabb, by Ken Crabb quoting his father, “Remembering Larry Crabb”, Moody Radio broadcast, March 5, 2021; at 38:16
https://www.moodyradio.org/radioplayer.aspx?episode=367535