Page 494 - Demo

5:16 Milk is the food of infants; only as they mature are children able to eat solid food. How mature are we in our spiritual lives?
6:5 The early Church struggled with how to deal with apostates—people who professed faith in Jesus and became active members of the community, only to fall away. To do this, according to the rigorous attitude towards sin re ected here, is to “recrucify” Christ. Later, the sacrament of reconciliation (penance) developed to help bring people who had sinned gravely back into the community of Christ.
6:13 God promised Abraham, “I will bless you and make your descendants as countless as the stars of the sky and the sands of the seashore” (Genesis 22:19).
CHAPTER 5
i. [5:12] 1 Cor 3:1–3.
CHAPTER 6
a. [6:1] 9:14.
b. [6:2] 9:10; Mk 7:4 / Acts 6:6; 8:17; 13:3;
19:6; 1 Tm 4:14; 5:22; 2 Tm 1:6.
c. [6:4] 10:26, 32; Ps 34:6; 2 Cor 4:6.
d. [6:6] 2 Pt 2:21.
e. [6:7] Gn 1:11–12; Dt 11:11.
f. [6:8] Gn 3:17–18; Mt 7:16; 13:7;
Mk 4:7; Lk 8:7.
g. [6:11] 3&:14.
h. [6:12] 5:11; Gal 3:14; Eph 1:13–14.
i. [6:13] Gn 22:16.
j. [6:14] Gn 22:17.
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HEBREWS 
IV. JESUS’ ETERNAL PRIESTHOOD AND ETERNAL SACRIFICE
Exhortation to Spiritual Renewal. 11* About this we have much to say, and it is di cult to explain, for you have become sluggish in hearing. 12Although you should be teachers by this time, you need to have someone teach you again the basic elements of the utterances of God. You need milk, [and] not solid food.i 13Everyone who lives on milk lacks experience of the word of righteousness, for he is a child. 14But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties are trained by practice to discern good and evil.
61Therefore, let us leave behind the basic teaching about Christ and advance to maturity, without laying the foundation all over again: repentance from dead works and faith in God,a 2instruction about baptisms* and laying on of hands, resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment.b 3And we shall do this, if only God permits. 4For it is impossible in the case of those who have once been enlightened and tasted the heavenly gift* and shared in the holy Spiritc 5and tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come,* 6and then have fallen away, to bring them to repentance again, since they are recrucifying the Son of God for themselves* and holding him up to contempt.d 7Ground that has absorbed the rain falling upon it repeatedly and brings forth crops useful to those for whom it is cultivated receives a blessing from God.e 8But if it produces thorns and thistles, it is rejected; it will soon be cursed and nally burned.f
9But we are sure in your regard, beloved, of better things related to salvation, even though we speak in this way. 10For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love you have demonstrated for his name by having served and continuing to serve the holy ones. 11We
earnestly desire each of you to demonstrate the same eagerness for the ful llment of hope until the end,g 12so that you may not become sluggish, but imitators of those who, through faith and patience,h are inheriting the promises.*
God’s Promise Immutable. 13* i When God made the promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, “he swore by himself,” 14and said, “I will indeed bless you and multiply” you.j 15And so, after
*[6:2] Instruction about baptisms: not simply about Christian baptism but about the di erence between it and similar Jewish rites, such as proselyte baptism, John’s baptism, and the washings of the Qumran sectaries. Laying on of hands: in Acts 8:17; 19:6 this rite e ects the infusion of the holy Spirit; in Acts 6:6; 13:3; 1 Tm 4:14; 5:22; 2 Tm 1:6 it is a means of conferring some ministry or mission in the early Christian community.
* [6:4] Enlightened and tasted the heavenly gift: this may refer to baptism and the Eucharist, respectively, but more probably means the neophytes’ enlightenment by faith and their experience of salvation.
* [6:5] Tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come: the proclamation of the word of God was accompanied by signs of the Spirit’s power (1 Thes 1:5; 1 Cor 2:4).
* [6:6] They are recrucifying the Son of God for themselves: a colorful description of the malice of apostasy, which is portrayed as again crucifying and deriding the Son of God.
* [6:12] Imitators of those. . .inheriting the promises: the author urges the addressees to imitate the faith of the holy people of the Old Testament, who now possess the promised goods of which they lived in hope. This theme will be treated fully in Heb 6:11.
* [6:13] He swore by himself: God’s promise to Abraham, which he con rmed by an oath (“I swear by myself,” Gn 22:16) was the basis for the hope of all Abraham’s descendants.
* [6:15] He obtained the promise: this probably refers not to Abraham’s temporary possession of the land but to the eschatological blessings that Abraham and the other patriarchs have now come to possess.