{"id":26121,"date":"2020-11-06T13:08:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-06T13:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/2021\/03\/05\/preaching-on-hebrews\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T17:24:29","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T17:24:29","slug":"preaching-on-hebrews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/content\/preaching-on-hebrews\/","title":{"rendered":"Preaching on Hebrews"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Historical Background<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

No other book of the New Testament has generated more speculation about authorship than the Epistle to the Hebrews. Though some, notably the early church, have attributed it to Paul and included it among his letters, the vocabulary and style is remarkably different than the thirteen Epistles that bear Paul\u2019s name. Others have suggested an associate of Paul such as Apollos, Clement, Barnabas or even Luke wrote it, but the author remains a mystery because he did not include his name in the document. Whoever wrote it employed a highly literate Greek prose and demonstrated an extensive knowledge of the Hebrew Bible. It bears Paul\u2019s theological stamp if not his linguistic likeness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The date is also debatable, particularly whether it was written before the destruction of the Temple in AD 70 or after. An earlier date, however, seems more likely since the author appealed to Jewish believers not to turn back to the law, of which the Temple in Jerusalem was the heart. It seems unlikely that the author would not mention that the psychological epicenter of the Jewish sacrificial system had ended in a cataclysmic demolition, particularly since 10:2 indicates that the sacrifices were still being offered. The most likely timeframe, therefore, is that the letter was written somewhere between AD 50 and 70.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No matter the date or the author, the audience is clearly a congregation of Jewish believers who were tempted to retreat from trusting Christ alone and return to the works of the law as though they needed to supplement their faith with works. No doubt it must have been difficult for those reared in Judaism to walk away from a lifetime of religious habits, understanding that Jesus fulfilled all <\/em>the law, that the type had been fulfilled by the antitype, the picture has been replaced by the Person, and the ritual had been supplanted by the reality. They had wrapped their lives around the observance of feasts and sacrifices, of sacred rituals and religious routines, so it must have been difficult to accept that, when they trusted Jesus as Lord, those observances no longer had a place in their lives. Though initially they had received the good news of the gospel, they found the free air of grace difficult to breathe and equally challenging to shed themselves of the crutches of performance and deeds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Armed with the Old Testament and sanctified logic, the author carefully lays out the case that following Christ is an \u201call or nothing\u201d proposition and that the only way to demonstrate saving faith is to persevere, trusting Jesus\u2014to whom all the Old Testament points\u2014alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chart: Preaching Through Hebrews<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We know the weekly grind of sermon prep is hard, whether you are in the midst of series or planning a new series. Trying to find key verses you need to highlight in your sermon, finding the historical background to the book, discovering the flow\/structure of book, and even figuring out what is the theme of each section.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is why we created this chart! This chart is designed to\u00a0save you time<\/strong>\u00a0as you prepare to preach a new sermon series from the Book of Hebrews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You will find a quick visual overview of the movement of the Book of Hebrews. It will help orient you and your hearers as you preach through the entire book or sections of the book. It provides, at a glance, one way to divide the book into pericopes. The chart includes key verses in the book, an overarching title for the book, the overall message of the book, and some historical background. It is color-coded to highlight certain defining aspects of the book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This chart could be used as a slide in your church service. It could serve as an introduction to a new series or a weekly check-in before you begin preaching. It could even be printed out and given to the members of your church, as a resource to help them grasp the message of the book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sermon Series<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To state the obvious, Hebrews is a lengthy book of intricate arguments, Old Testament allusions, theological constructs, and stern warnings. An expositor can devote a lot of time to preaching through this book and still realize that half has not been told. The first issue, therefore, is to determine how much time to spend taking a congregation through Hebrews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This decision is not unlike choosing an appropriate camera lens to take a picture. Photographers use different length of lenses to capture different levels of detail, depth of vision, and breadth of view. A wide-angle lens is ideal for large landscapes or environmental shots, while a 55-millimeter lens, the most commonly used, can take portraits that incorporate and highlight perspective. A zoom lens can zero in tightly on a subject and display detail that otherwise might be missed, but a close-up lens, like a magnifying glass, apprehends every nuance and brings out hidden textures and unseen details.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pastors need to change lens from book to book, series to series. Rather than always preaching through books and texts at the same pace, pastors should alter their approach, considering factors such as how long the previous series was, their own length of tenure and preaching history at that church, the theological depth and conditioning of the congregation, biblical genre, and, frankly, how capable they are of holding the congregation\u2019s interest and attention for a lengthy series. All Scripture is equally inspired, but it has varying degrees of profitability and theological content. Hebrews is especially high on the scale of theological density. Once all these factors are considered, the pastor can determine what kind of a preaching picture to present\u2014landscape, portrait, closeup, or magnification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Almost as important as deciding how many sermons to preach through the book is getting a handle on a unifying theme that is also applicable to one\u2019s own context. Since I pastor a church that is almost exclusively Gentile, it would hardly make sense for me to warn my congregation about the dangers of trusting in the Jewish sacrificial system. No one in my church wrestles with whether to rigidly observe the Passover or even the Sabbath. Though written originally to an audience of Hebrew Christians, the letter is wonderfully versatile and its message lands in any heart that struggles to trust Christ completely<\/em>, that mistakenly believes it can contribute anything toward its own cleansing. This book admonishes its readers to keep our faith facing forward rather than falling back from grace into law. That\u2019s why \u201cKeep Moving Forward\u201d is a good unifying theme for these sermons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I chose to use the zoom lens and took most of a year to preach expositionally through the epistle. It wasn\u2019t an 8-week overview (the wide angle) nor a 20-week portrait (the 55mm) nor a 5-year-250-sermon Martyn Lloyd-Jones style series (the magnifying glass). I spent forty-three weeks working through the arguments, the Old Testament allusions, the warnings, and the New Covenant implications of the book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The exegetical mandate is to faithfully interpret the passage, but the pastoral demand was to make appropriate application to my 21st Century North American Gentile congregation who, like their First Century ethnically Jewish counterparts, often feel tempted to retreat from trusting Christ alone for salvation and to substitute their own works for his. Notably, I allotted ten weeks to the rich historical encouragement of chapter 11 because it robustly illustrates that faith\u2019s reward is not always realized here on earth, but in God\u2019s gift of his Son. I wanted the time spent in the chapter to be commensurate with its theological density.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is how I broke the entire book down into preaching units:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Series Theme: Keep Moving Forward<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Week 1: Jesus Is Better (1:1-14)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n