Hebrews: All About Faith

The eleventh chapter of Hebrews is one of the best known of the great chapters of the Bible. It has been called the Westminster Abbey of Scripture because the heroes of faith are enshrined here. Perhaps that is a misnomer, for I have been in Westminster Abbey and it gave me the sense of being in a tomb. There are a lot of dead people there, but there are no dead people in this chapter. These are all living saints, triumphant men and women who have lived life and gone on into a new relationship. I prefer, then, to call this The Parade of the Heroes of Faith.

This past week I attended two graduation exercises for local schools. At each, able young orators with admirable self-assurance told us what was wrong with the world and what improvements we can expect when their generation takes control. Behind all the truly fine words there was evident one philosophy. It was that the human mind, educated to a high degree, was, in its collective manifestation, a completely adequate instrument with which to solve human problems. Now, the writer of Hebrewschallenges that philosophy head-on. He says that man's reason, operating alone, invariably misinterprets the evidence, and that it was never intended so to operate; that reason is a beautiful instrument designed of God and excellently suited for the realm in which it was intended to operate, but that man's reason, as it exists now, is deprived of an essential dimension of life. That missing dimension is an absolutely necessary ingredient if we ever expect to solve our problems.

We are drawing now to a close in these studies in this great epistle of Christian life and liberty. The author of this letter has reviewed the exciting facts about Christian faith, and now, in this twelfth chapter, he comes to the practical exhortations that follow the presentation he has made. What he has to say is, "Never give up!"  "You have started right," he says, "now hang on, never give up." It is all summarized in one verse. He says to these Christians then, and to us now,

The closing word of this letter is highly practical, crowded with many helpful things. This unknown writer (whom I strongly suspect to be the Apostle Paul) felt very much like the sentiment of a limerick I often quote,