Strive for Peace & Holiness

The author describes this epistle that doesn’t really have the same form as other epistles in the NT a word of Exhortation

Hebrews 13:22 “22 I appeal to you, brothers, bear with my word of exhortation, for I have written to you briefly.”

It reads more like a sermon than a personal letter

Exhortations to guard against spiritual numbness

Exhortations to go on to spiritual maturity

A sermon is not a theological data dump

Exhortation is a call to action founded on certain spiritual truths that would have positive or negative consequences

We- Who are we

Must- Presently and actively obligated, compelled, required( It is necessary)

Much more- Abundantly/ beyond the regular degree/ extent

Pay Attention- being alert/ consider carefully, continue to believe, be concerned about, take care of, to attend to

What we have heard- a snapshot expression of what we passively and continually are being taught/ dictated to perceive with our hearing

Romans 10:13 ESV

13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Romans 10:14–15 ESV

14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”

lest- - explains the consequence

We

Drift away- washed away/ passively carried along due to a current/ this happens gradually and slowly

James 1:14–15 ESV

14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

Deuteronomy 6:10–15 “10 “And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—with great and good cities that you did not build, 11 and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and when you eat and are full, 12 then take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 13 It is the Lord your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear. 14 You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you— 15 for the Lord your God in your midst is a jealous God—lest the anger of the Lord your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth.”

Let us then pay attention to the testimony of God’s word in how we live personally/ congregationally, and missionally so we don’t enter into spiritual decay but instead grow in spiritual maturity

Ephesians 4:11–16 “11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”