While Hebrews 3:7-4:13 focused on what happens when we fail to head God's Word to us, 4:14-5:10 moves on to the positive side of the equation and the benefits of trusting God in faith, namely having an eternal high priest who stand before God on our behalf.

To make the point the author of Hebrews compares Jesus to the Old Testament priestly orders of Aaron and Melchizedek.

Christ is similar to both these orders in that, other priest were selected by God from among the people to be set apart as those who would stand before God and deal with sins on behalf of all the people. You get a taste of this in Exodus 28 & 29.

At the same time, there are some major differences between Christ and other priests. First, other priests would have to go through a long process of cleaning their own sins before they could stand before God on behalf of others. The best example of this would be the high priests preparation for Yom Kippur in Leviticus 16.

In the first four verses, the author of Hebrews reveals to us a great deal about the character of God, namely, that throughout Biblical history, He has been seeking to share a word of grace that is delivered in it's fullness with Jesus. The chapter closes by reaffirming this with a statement that God's angels are sent out to serve those who are to receive this word of grace from God.

Between this opening and closing, God addresses the person of Christ, humanity in general, and angels.

Concerning Christ, the author identifies His eternal existence with God and His ultimate rule and reign over all creation, a role He received because He addressed the issue of sin.

We should pause for a moment here to consider how Hebrews talks about sin. If we look at Paul or popular Christianity in the US today, sin is predominantly about things that we do, so, as a result, we come up with lists of sins and things that we tell people to avoid.

There are, however, no such lists in Hebrews. Rather than sin being a commission (something we do), sin is portrayed as a condition (part of our nature). This condition then reveals itself in different ways in different people. This of course can be helpful in our contemporary culture where, for far too long, Christians have been about the business of saying, "We don't do these five things, so we're better than the people who do those five things." It's this universal condition that Christ came to address.

Using the language of Hebrews and Genesis, the term "image" is a good way to understand this. In Hebrews, Christ is revealed to be made in the exact image of God. In Genesis, Adam and Eve are revealed to have been created in God's image, however, after the Fall, Adam and Eve's third child, Seth, is said to be born in the image of Adam (Genesis 5:3). In the book of Hebrews, Christ has come to restore this fallen human image.

Of course, if Christ is going to accomplish this, He has to be far more than just an angel, as some were apparently trying to claim. To challenge this, Hebrews 5:1-13 pulls texts from the Old Testament that speak of both Christ and angels.

Now some could debate this selection of texts as some of them very specifically refer to people in the place and time where they were first written, however, to jointly apply these texts, a practice known as typology, is very common. The basic idea is that you have the Old Testament application, the type, which is then fulfilled in a much greater way in the New Testament, the antitype. So, when David writes in Psalm 2 that he is God's son, it's accurate, however it is accurate in a much greater way with Jesus.

This use to typology again reveals that Jesus is intimately linked to human over angels, and that His work will be done for the benefit of humanity rather than the benefit of angels.

Discussion Questions:
1. If the entire Bible is about God proclaiming a word of grace to people, how should that effect the work of the Church in the world?

2. What impact does sin as condition rather than as commission have on how you think about both sin and people?

Jonah chapter 3 does an amazing job of portraying the grace of God, first to Jonah and then to the people of Nineveh.

While Jonah spent chapter 1 running away from God and chapter 2 not taking responsibility for his sinful actions, Jonah 3 opens with God calling Jonah to be His voice to the people of Nineveh once again. There is no suggestion of Jonah's past failings, rather, God offers Jonah a clean slate and a chance to start anew.

Taking advantage of this opportunity Jonah goes to Nineveh and, in the Hebrew, offers a five-word sermon about God overturning the city. This prompts the question, what does it mean to overturn? While it could be a military coup or fire from heaven destroying everything, another option is mass repentance on the part of the people so that, rather than following their own desires, they seek to honor God. This of course it what happens, fulfilling Jonah's sermon in an unexpected way.

This of course is what God wants to do in all of our lives. He desires us to not trust in ourselves, but to follow the example of those in Nineveh and realize that our only hope in this life and the next is to cling to the grace of God. What's different between those in Nineveh and us, is that we have the direct promise from God that He will forgive those who trust in Him.

The conversion of the Nineveh also opens an interesting discussion on what it means to be a follower of Jesus. After all, the people of Nineveh had five words to shape their understanding of Yahweh, yet this was enough for God to look upon them graciously. To this end, we could define a disciple as someone who, in as much as they know Jesus, wants to follow Him, and who wants to know Jesus more.

Discussion Questions:
1. How has God overturned your life?

2. The people of Nineveh fasted and prayer to deepen their faith in God. What do you do in your life that reminds you that God has overturned your life?

3. Given the above definition of being Jesus' disciple, how well do you know Him and what more do you want to know?

As we explored the second chapter of Jonah, we ran across three interesting points.

First, Jonah's prayer from the belly of the fish isn't an original work, rather, what we see going on is Jonah praying bits and pieces from the Psalms (see Psalms 18:1-12, 69:1-18, and 88). Given that Jonah historically took place after the Psalms were written and incorporated into Jewish worship through a lectionary of readings that matched the Jewish festival year, we can assume that Jonah's prayer was shaped by his worship in Jerusalem.

The second thing we noticed is what's missing in Jonah's prayer, namely confession of his sin, some inkling of repentance, or accountability for his actions. Instead he blames God for casting him into the sea (v3) and sees himself as being holy while pointing out sins of others that he himself is guilty of (v8). Given this hypocrisy, it's no wonder that the fish wanted to vomit him out.

This reminds us of Christ in Revelation 3:16 when he tells the Laodicea that they were lukewarm. This was a good chance to remind ourselves that this passage isn't about being either totally for or totally against God, rather, it's a reference that compares the water in the town of Laodicea to the works of the Christians there. Nearby towns had hot springs that were healing and cold water that was refreshing, but Laodicea has lukewarm water that was useless. In the same way, the works of the Christians of Laodicea had no value to the Kingdom.

Finally, we found it interesting that, as you read through the prayer of Jonah, his salvation wasn't being spit out upon the land, rather, according to Jonah, salvation was being swallowed by the fish. This fits with something theologians call, the theology of the cross, that is, God isn't found in the beautiful and the glorious things of this life, rather, he's found in the midst of death and suffering.

Discussion Questions:
1) Jonah's life events triggered thoughts of corporate worship and God's Word, what is it that is most often triggered in your mind during everyday events? Do you think this is shaping you in a positive or negative way?

2) In what areas of your life do you find yourself struggling against hypocrisy? What is it that makes you want to be like Jonah and not act according to your beliefs?

3) Where do you see yourself dying right now? How is God using that to transform you and raise you to new life?

A couple weeks ago I was listening to a class from Cal Berkeley on the Foundations of American Cyberculture (it's available through iTunes U). During one of the sessions the professors shared a few quotes from various individuals who were instrumental in the early development and mass expansion of the Internet.

The comments themselves spoke as if humanity had been a new world, a fresh space where we could create culture and community from scratch. They spoke with extreme idealism of a realm where the challenges of racism, classism, and sexism would become obsolete.

Here we are, just a few years later, and this perfect world is dominated by pornography and the need to eliminate virtual bestiality on Second Life.

This of course shouldn't really surprise us, after all, history is replete with examples of utopic dreams gone awry. With so many examples of our attempts to redeem our world coming up short, how should we respond? While some would suggest that we simply need to go back to the drawing board and try harder, maybe it's time we recognize our deficiencies and look to another source of redemption.