If you can remember back to the beginning of the book of Hebrews, and at least as far back as Chapter Four when the reader was asked to believe the gospel, then Chapter Eleven will make a lot more sense. This particular chapter is showing how the foundational people of the Jewish lineage put their faith in God. Look at how Abel put his faith in God, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, the prophets, and the judges. The author of Hebrews is doing his best to show how trustworthy God is so that the reader will be willing to put faith in God for their salvation. "All of these, [the people in the OT] though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect [or complete or whole]." Essentially, the author is giving the reader an abundance of examples of the nature of God and faith in him so that the reader will be bolstered to put faith in Jesus as the means for salvation. We probably miss the point of this chapter because we get caught up in the stories. The stories are fantastic and should be inspiring, but we still don't want to forget the cultural context and that the audience was Jewish.