David Carey Dixon - February 5, 2023
Maturing in the Steps of our High Priest (Hebrews 4:14-16, 5:1-14, 6:1-3)
Our Christian faith is very much rooted in Judaism; we cannot -- nor would we want to -- separate ourselves from those roots, because they nourish our understanding of our Jewish Messiah (who is also the universal Messiah), and of His earthly background and all that God did in preparation for His coming (the history of Israel = OT). One of the New Testament images from those roots is of Jesus as our High Priest, a theme especially developed in the letter to the Hebrews. As such, Jesus set an example for us of submission, obedience, sacrifice, and intercession, and He also calls us to imitate that example in the fulfillment of our own priestly role. But in our Scripture focus for today, we see the need first to acknowledge those areas of life where we have been slow to learn, and consequently have not yet fully assimilated basic truths of God’s Word. We must reject our old pattern of knowing good and evil through our fleshly appetites (where Adam and Eve failed), and train ourselves instead on God’s standard. Jesus as our High Priest calls us to follow in His footsteps, learning from Him how to submit and obey, as well as sacrifice and intercede on behalf of a world that is utterly disoriented and lost.
Scripture References: Hebrews 6:1-3, Hebrews 5:1-14, Hebrews 4:14-16
