November 13th, 2021

On this Sunday, after a two-week hiatus, we are back into looking at the Epistle to the Hebrews [10:11-25]. But because now is near the end of the church year, this will be the last Sunday with that epistle. Next year, essentially during the month of August, we will look at the rest of this epistle and focus on its interesting end.

This week’s text is quite close to that unusual phrase which was pointed out previously and is quite rare, when a conclusion indicated as ‘therefore’ is connected to a second-person prohibition. A second-person command [‘Do this!’] is clearer and stronger than a third-person command [‘Let him do this.’]. At 10:35, the first half of the verse goes like this: ‘Therefore, do not throw away your confidence.’

It may be that this combination of conclusion and command/prohibition [‘Therefore, do not….’] was understood to be a significant part of the structure of a ‘word of exhortation’, something which was spoken at the Jewish synagogues. The Epistle of the Hebrews is called by its writer to be this ‘word of exhortation’ at 13:22, and this command at 10:35 is a command that approaches the final (and significant) third of the epistle.

A very similar phrase appears in the ‘word of exhortation’ that is in Acts 13, when St. Paul is in a synagogue in Pisidian Antioch, and he is asked to give one of these at the end of a service. Although the words ‘therefore’ and ‘not’ appear next to each other in this word of exhortation, the phrase is significantly different.

After St. Paul brings up the fact that Jesus’ body did not undergo corruption, he approaches the end of his message. Then St. Paul makes this final statement—using the word ‘therefore’ twice within these words (and the translation is somewhat literal):

Therefore, let it be known, men—brothers, that through this one [Jesus] to you, forgiveness of sins is announced, and from all things from which you could not in law of Moses be justified, in this one, everyone believing is justified. Look, therefore, lest come on you that having been spoken in the prophets: See, the despisers, and marvel and vanish, because I work a work in the days of you, a work which not at all you believe, if anyone declares to you (Acts 13:38-41).
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The thing ‘having been spoken in the prophets’, the thing to which St. Paul is referring, is from the prophet Habakkuk. And this is an unusual quote.

It is typical that someone quotes the Old Testament nearer to the BEGINNING of the message; this quote is at the very end of it. And, in this case, the verse quoted is at the BEGINNING of that prophet’s writing (1:5), and it is being used at the very end. In the book of Habakkuk, much more is said after that verse to explain what the prophet is saying.

The way in which this unusual quotation is quoted may have helped to make the result of a VERY interested crowd. The people wanted to hear them again. The text says it in this way:

And, as they [Paul and Barnabas] were going out, they [the people in the synagogue] exhorted, in the intervening Sabbath [week], to be spoken to them these words. And the synagogue being broken, many of the Jews and of the worshipping proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas, who, speaking to them, persuaded them to remain in the grace of God.

It is interesting that, in a way, St. Paul gave a word of exhortation that focused more on the gospel. And the hearers of that word gave Paul and Barnabas a word of exhortation, a request to give them more of these gracious words in the coming days. Some people are truly interested in hearing some truly good news.