Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Hebrews

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Angels are weird.... well our belief about angels are weird.

The modern belief and the ebb and flow of fascination over the course of history.

What comes to mind when you think of an angel?

What is the image?

Think about the movies over time you have seen with angels.

Can you name them....

Michael (beer drinking cigarette smoking angel)

Last week we introduced this new sermon series

Angels in the outfield (ghostly, way too creepy for a children’s movie, baseball fan angels)

Meet Joe Black (this one is probably closer to what we see in the bible.

The appearance as one of us and yet something still quite off.

That is of course until Joe Black hooks up with the main character.)

Today we will talk a little bit about angels as the author compares Jesus to angels.

Buckle up.

Last week we introduced this new sermon series, Drift.

If you missed it, I really encourage you to go back and take a listen from the archives in the podcast or on the website.

This book of the bible which we will spend the next few months exploring is written to a people, perhaps, at the height of Christian persecution before the ransacking of the temple in Jerusalem.

The message is simple… it is do not drift.

And he did this in a sermon....

Last week we introduced this new sermon series, Drift.

If you missed it, I really encourage you to go back and take a listen from the archives in the podcast or on the website.

This book of the bible which we will spend the next few months exploring is written to a people, perhaps, at the height of Christian persecution before the ransacking of the temple in Jerusalem.

The message is simple… it is do not drift.

And he did this in a sermon....

Goals for the sermon:

1.

To elevate Jesus as superior to anything and anyone else.

Showing that Jesus is worthy of all their devotion

2. challenge the readers to remain faithful to Jesus despite the persecution

Warning motif:

He will do this through some parenthetical warnings.

These breaks in the narrative as we see this week and next week, are like the preacher pausing to make sure we are getting something important.

So the pattern for our series will be some teaching and then a warning or application to the audience.

It is homiletics at its best here.

First teaching about the superiority of Jesus and then the challenge in the warning.

More than an angel

Today we turn our attention to the first comparison of Jesus.

His superiority to angels.

And this is a challenge to us I think.

I struggled to get behind the text and explore what the context might be that Jesus be explicitly set apart from angels.

First I need to do a little teaching about the worldview of the biblical writers.

Some of this is uncomfortable but it is important.

Michael Heiser writes....

You might find that experience uncomfortable in places.

But it would be dishonest of us to claim that the biblical writers read and understood the text the way we do as modern people, or intended meanings that conform to theological systems created centuries after the text was written.

Our context is not their context .

Seeing the Bible through the eyes of an ancient reader requires shedding the filters of our traditions and presumptions.

They processed life in supernatural terms.

Today’s Christian processes it by a mixture of creedal statements and modern rationalism.

Today’s Christian processes it by a mixture of creedal statements and modern rationalism.

I

Heiser, Michael S..

The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible (pp.

14-15).

Lexham Press.

Kindle Edition.

Heiser, Michael S..

The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible (pp.

14-15).

Lexham Press.

Kindle Edition.

Biblical authors saw the world through supernatural lens.

They believed in spiritual beings and encountered spiritual beings in different ways.

They believed in a cosmic and spiritual war that parallels the battle that we see in the flesh, even is the driver of the battle over the human heart.

They believed in angels and demons, they encountered angels and demons and wrote about them.

Allow me to give you one example of this supernatural worldview....one of the words for God in Hebrew is elohim.

When we see that word it is quickly translated to God in our english bibles, but what do you do with a verse like

Elohim presides in the great assembly; he renders judgment among the elohim....

Who is the subject here?

the first Hebrew word Elohim is singular and most certainly refers to Yahweh, but who is the “great assembly” and who is He rendering judgment over, the other elohim.

The other plural gods… what could this possibly mean.

elohim is not simply what we translate as capital G God.

It is more likely to be spiritual beings of sort.

Casting a picture that Yahweh is the supreme uncreated supernatural being.

The hebrew writers believed in a supernatural world where this is the reality.

Paul writes....

What do you think Paul is talking about here?

It’s not that he watched too many horror flicks.....This is their worldview.

“The story of the Bible is about God’s will for, and rule of, the realms he has created, visible and invisible, through the imagers he has created, human and nonhuman.

This divine agenda is played out in both realms, in deliberate tandem.”

― Michael S. Heiser, The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible

And they believe in good spiritual beings, like angels.

An angel or the hebrew and the greek equivalent is not so much an identity marker as it is a job description.

It would be like me calling the person who fixes my leaky sink a plumber like it is his name.

Angels are messengers.

They are all throughout the bible for one purpose, that is a mission of God.

They are to point to God and accomplish God’s task.

Angels have the coolest roles in scripture....

A major function of angels is as messengers and instructors.

The thought of angels speaking to someone was not foreign to the audience of the NT ().

As well as by a direct presence, angels often deliver their message in a dream (; , , ) or a vision (; ).

Moses received the Law from an angel (, ; ; ).

Angels were witnesses to the incarnation ().

Paul assumes that angels can preach a gospel () and the Pharisees assume that an angel could have spoken with Paul (). Angels are harbingers of the births of John the Baptist () and Jesus ().

They advise Joseph about the nature of Mary’s child ().

They proclaim the birth of Jesus to the shepherds ().

They warn Joseph to flee to Egypt with Mary and Jesus () as well as when to return ().

They give instructions to the women at the tomb ( = = ).

Two angels speak to the disciples at Christ’s ascension ().