Hebrews Helps for Reading and Understanding the Message

Hebrews is one of the great literary masterpieces of the New Testament. Some of the problems we encounter in understanding the book may come from our tendency to put New Testament teaching into Pauline "pigeonholes." Hebrews is not a doctrinal statement concerning God's method of justification; it is rather an admonition to faithfulness in the face of difficult, threatening circumstances. It was not written to Christians in general, but was written to a specific group of Christians who were struggling with questions about integrating two religious systems-how, why, is it necessary, why cannot we return to the previous system? A great challenge in the study of Hebrews is to understand what are the contemporary parallels and applications for Christians today.