Hebrews: Sermon, Bible Class and Small Group Resource
In the Fall of 2002, Rubel Shelly and John York preached through Hebrews at the Woodmont Hills Family of God in Nashville, Tennessee. They entitled their series “Strength for the Journey.” At the same time I provided resource teaching material for the Bible classses and some small groups used that material as well.
Rubel’s sermons are available here and John’s are available here. Rubel and John identified the text and provided a summary of their homiletic point. I then constructed a teaching resource based on their chosen text and summary. So, I followed their division of the text into chucks.
Each lesson was divided into (1) Teaching Materials and (2) Teaching Options. Under the teaching materials, I provided (a) exegetical notes and (b) pointed out what I thought was the theological substance of the passage.
I have uploaded the 106 pages of single space material to my Classes page. I hope they are helpful to some.
Outline of Lessons
- Outline of Hebrews
- Introducing Hebrews
- God Must Really Love Us (Hebrews 1:1-4)
- Fascinated by Angels (Hebrews 1:5-2:18)
- In Awe of Moses (Hebrews 3:1-19)
- Awed by Joshua (Hebrews 4:1-13)
- Our Compassionate High Priest (Hebrews 4:14-5:10)
- We are At Risk! (Hebrews 5:11-6:20)
- Jesus: Eternal High Priest of the Melchizedekan Order (Hebrews 7:1-28)
- Looking to Jesus: A Better Covenant (Hebrews 8:1-13)
- Looking to Jesus: Ministry in the Heavenly Tabernacle (Hebrews 9:1-10)
- Looking to Jesus: The Perfect Sacrifice, Part I (Hebrews 9:11-28)
- Looking to Jesus: The Perfect Sacrifice, Part II (Hebrews 10:1-18)
- So? (Hebrews 10:19-39)
- Take Heart From Others’ Stories (Hebrews 11:1-40)
- Eyes on Jesus! (Hebrews 12:1-13)
- Why Even Think of Turning Back? (Hebrews 12:14-29)
- A Final “Word of Exhortation” (Hebrews 13:1-25)
March 5th, 2009 at 9:06 am
John Mark,
I love Hebrews; word for word it’s about as challenging as anything in Scripture with a deep, rich theology that can keep one busy a lifetime. I’ve found Lane’s commentary (Word) to be especially helpful, especially with the structure of the book.
Have you ever noticed that onoma (name) occurs 4 times, two of which may function as bookends in 1:4 and 13:15. 1:4 introduces the term and 1:5 indicates the specific name the author has in mind is “Son.” And the(?) point of the book may come in 13:15 where onoma occurs again, stating that believers need to continue confessing/professing his name. At least I believe this offers a legitimate way of reading the book.
Thanks for sharing your material. It will come in handy the next time I work through it.
March 5th, 2009 at 10:38 am
I, too, love to study and preach from Hebrews. I find Lane’s earlier work “A Call to Commitment” to be an excellent analysis of the book. Also, the Knox Preaching Guide volume on Hebrews by William G. Johnsson is an excellent resource. Both of these pale, of course, in comparison to the material just posted. I had access to it when it was being prepared (I started my series a month behind John and Rubel), and found it quite helpful.
March 5th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Thanks for posting this!
March 5th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Thanks for sharing, John Mark. I really do appreciate your generosity.
March 5th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Wow, thanks, Johnny…”pales”. Methinks you doth compliment too highly. 🙂 Or, were you talking only about John and Rubel? 🙂
March 6th, 2009 at 9:12 am
JMH,
In the introductory materials, when referencing the outline of Hebrews, you make this statement: “Your books also contain some help along this line, especially Guthrie…” In flipping through the materials, I didn’t notice a bibliography. Could you please let us know to which books you were referring, including Guthrie, for those of us who aren’t familiar with all the authors and commentaries? Thanks.
March 6th, 2009 at 9:51 am
Brian,
I believe the Hughes commentary on Hebrews that John Mark has in mind is “A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews” by Philip Edgecumbe Hughes. It is published by Eerdmans, copyright 1977.
March 6th, 2009 at 10:02 am
Brian,
Oops. My bad. John Mark recommended Hughes to me, but obviously you were asking about Gutherie. How my mind associated Guthrie with Hughes I don’t know, unless it was that the two books sit side-by-side on my shelf. The Gutherie volume is The NIV Application Commentary by George H. Guthrie (published by Zondervan, 1998). Sorry about the confusion, but the Hughes commentary is also helpful.
March 7th, 2009 at 8:30 am
Guthrie and Hughes, Johnny has it correct. 🙂 Apparently, I failed to post a bibliography with the material. I will check on that when I get home. I am presently in NJ.