(Tap footnote to read it. Old Testament quotations are underlined. "Love" with a caret ("^love") is agapé.1"agapé" The Greek words ἀγάπη (agapé, noun), and ἀγαπάω (agapaó; verb) are typically translated "love". However, unlike our English word "love" – which primarily speaks of affection and feelings – agapé centers on choice and behavior. It’s the "love" based on will, choice, behavior, and action; not feelings. (Feelings-based love is the Greek word φιλέω (phileó), which properly means "brotherly love/affection".) Thus, you could hate someone passionately and still treat him with "agapé". Agapé "love" is best understood as the pursuit of what is most beneficial to someone or something, regardless of the cost to yourself or the type of response received from the person or thing. It can also indicate a preference for someone or something over other things. )
Run with Endurance
- Consequently, we also – having so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, and having set aside every burden and easily ensnaring sin – we should run with endurance the race being set before us,
- looking away from everything else except1“looking away from everything else except” is one word in Greek with that exact meaning. the author and perfecter of our faith, Jesus, who in exchange for the joy set before Him endured the cross, having disregarded its shame, and He has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
- For consider the One who has endured such opposition from sinners against Himself so you won’t grow weary, fainting in your souls.
The Lord’s Discipline
- In struggling against sin, you didn’t yet resist as far as shedding blood,
- and you have completely forgotten the admonishment that is addressed to you as sons: “My son, don’t disregard the Lord’s discipline, nor faint when being rebuked by Him.
- “For the Lord disciplines whom He ^loves, and scourges every son whom He welcomes.”2quotation/allusion to Proverbs 3:11-12
- You endure discipline, for God treats you as sons; for what son exists whom his father doesn’t discipline?
- But if you are without discipline (of which all have been partakers) then you are illegitimate children and not sons.
- Furthermore, we indeed had discipliners in our fathers of the flesh and we were revering them. And won’t we much more be submitted to the Father of spirits and shall live?
- For indeed, they were disciplining us for a few days according to the discipline seeming best to them. But His is the discipline benefiting us, for us to partake in His holiness.
- And indeed, all discipline doesn’t seem to be a joy in the present, but grief. But afterwards it returns the peaceful fruit of righteousness to the men who have been strenuously trained3“strenuously trained” is one word in Greek. It literally means to train naked or in a loincloth, and was used of athletes who trained themselves for the Olympic games, which were conducted clad thus. Figuratively – as it’s used here – it means to constantly train with rigorous effort and practice. through it.
- Therefore, lift up the *weary hands and the *weak knees
- and make the paths straight for your feet, so the lame won’t be dislocated,4“dislocated” could also be translated “turned away” or “turned out” (of joint). It was used as a medical term for spraining or dislocation. However, elsewhere it’s used for “turning away” in the sense of wandering into error. but rather might be healed.
Pursue peace and holiness
- Pursue peace with all men, and holiness (without which no one will see the Lord),
- watching carefully, lest someone falling short of the grace of God, or lest some root of bitterness springing up might disturb you, and through this many might be defiled;
- lest there’s some fornicator or profane man, like Esau who sold his own firstborn’s birthright for one meal.
- For you *know that even wishing to inherit the blessing afterward, he was rejected; for he didn’t find a place for a changed mind although he earnestly sought it with tears.
- For you haven’t approached a mountain capable of being touched, and *burning fire, and darkness, and blackness, and a whirlwind,
- and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice of words, which the men who heard begged the word not to be spoken to them anymore,
- for they weren’t enduring the thing being commanded: “If even an animal touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.”5quotation/allusion to Exodus 19:12-13
- And the thing appearing was so fearful that Moses said: “I’m terrified and trembling.”6quotation/allusion to Deuteronomy 9:19
- But you have approached Mount Zion, and the city of the living God (the heavenly Jerusalem) and myriads of angels,
- and the festival assembly, and the church of the firstborn *enrolled in the heavens, and God the judge of all, and the *perfected righteous spirits,
- and the mediator of a new covenant (Jesus), and the sprinkled blood of purification speaking of better things than the blood of Abel.
- See that you don’t refuse the One speaking. For if these men didn’t escape on earth after having refused the One divinely warning them, then much more we won’t escape the One who is from the heavens after turning away from Him,
- whose voice shook the earth back then. But now, He has promised saying: “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heaven.”7quotation/allusion to Haggai 2:6
- And the phrase “Yet once more” plainly declares the removal of the things being shaken as *created things, so the things not being shaken might remain.
- Therefore, in receiving an unshakable kingdom we should have grace, through which we might minister to God in a pleasing way, with pious reverence and fear.
- For also, our God is an utterly consuming fire.
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