Hebrews - Introduction

Introduction

Hebrews is one of the longest letters in the New Testament, though in some ways it isn’t like most of the other letters. The end of the letter does contain some greetings, but the start of the letter has none of the usual stuff that we commonly find in Paul’s letters. Instead the writer dives right into the teaching. It doesn’t say who it is written to, nor who wrote it. Because of the nature of the letter, focusing on how the Old and New Covenants are related, it is often assumed that the recipients were Jewish Christians. However, this isn’t quite as certain as it might be thought. Many non-Jewish adherents would have attended synagogues and would be familiar with the Old Testament. With regard to the question of who wrote it there is no agreement at all. The various suggestions have included Paul, Apollos, Barnabas, Luke (on behalf of Paul). As the letter gives no indication of who wrote it, and precisely who it was written to, I believe it is best to assume that these things don’t really matter in this case. 

One of the features of the letter is its heavy use of the Old Testament, with a passage (or passages) being quoted, then expounded upon. It is usually the Septuagint version of the Old Testament that is used. The letter shows how the Old Testament and the gospel are related, and how the Old Testament points forward to Christ and the gospel.  There are also several very serious exhortations. This latter feature gives rise to the question “can a believer lose their faith?”. To be honest I don’t consider this sort of question to be very helpful. It is far better to take the warnings seriously and to act upon them.

While writing this set of notes I am working through the following commentary:

David G Peterson, Hebrews: An Introduction and Commentary (TNTC), 2020.

Previously I have read:

Hebrews - Tyndale New Testament Commentary, D Guthrie (1983)