Hebrews 13:7-9 “Imitate Their Faith”

Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ the Redeemer Church of Manhattan, KS, 1 Mar. 2019

Omitting the greyed-out text should bring verbal delivery time down around 45 minutes.

Intro

v.7 Keep in mind those who are leading y’all – the ones who ut­tered to y’all the word of God, of whom y’all should be research­ing the outcome of their lifestyle; keep imitating their faith.

    1. Μνημονεύ­ετε/remember/be mindful of your leaders who spoke God’s word to you

    2. ἀναθεωροῦντες/Considering/Researching the outcome of their lifestyle – the end-result of their conduct/their way of life, and

    3. μιμεῖσθε/mimic/follow/imitate their faith

v.8 Jesus is the Anointed One – past/yesterday5 and present/to­day the same – and even into eternity.

v.9 Stop getting sidetracked with divergent and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be confirmed by grace rather than by foods with which those who participated were not benefited.

CONCLUSION

APPENDIX: Greek Text & English Versions of Hebrews 13:7-9A


Greek NT

NAW

KJV

7 Μνημονεύ­ετε τῶν ἡγουμένωνB ὑμῶν, οἵτινες ἐλάλησαν ὑμῖν τὸν λόγον τοῦ Θεοῦ, ὧν ἀναθεωροῦν­τεςC τὴν ἔκβασινD τῆς ἀναστροφῆς μιμεῖσθε τὴν πίστιν.

7 Keep in mind those who are leading y’all – the ones who uttered to y’all the word of God, of whom y’all should be research­ing the out­come of their lifestyle; keep imitat­ing their faith.

7 Remember them which have the rule over you, who [have] spok[en] unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation.

8 ᾿Ιησοῦς Χριστὸς χθὲςE καὶ σήμερον ὁ αὐτός καὶ εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας.

8 Jesus is the Anointed Onepast and present the same – even into eternity.

8 Jesus Christ the same yester­day, and to day, and for ever.

9 διδαχαῖς ποικίλαις καὶ ξέναις μὴ παρα­φέρεσθεF· καλὸν γὰρ χάριτι βεβαιοῦσθαι τὴν καρδίαν, οὐ βρώμασιν, ἐν οἷς οὐκ ὠφελή­θησαν οἱ περι­πατήσαντεςG.

9 Stop getting side­tracked with divergent and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be con­firmed by grace rather than by foods with which those who partici­pated were not benefited.

9 Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be estab­lished with grace; not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied [there]in.


1Indeed, several commentators wrote that considering the glories of heaven which they have obtained is the very thing encouraged here. cf. Rev. 7:14-17

2Most commentators, however, considered these leaders to have been dead. Chrysostom seemed to consider them to be still alive, though, and other commentators, such as Calvin applied this passage to living pastors despite their stated interpretation of it being a posthumous rememberance.

3Dr. Brown commented, “...the members of a church should equally guard against basely submitting to a tyranny which Christ has never instituted and lawlessly rebelling against a governmnent which He has appointed.”

4I’m unclear on whether Dwight Zeller was mentored personally by A.T. Robertson or whether it was through Robertson’s books, but Dr. Zeller was very big on Robertson’s Word Pictures (and of Vincent’s Word Studies which were clearly a great influence on Robertson) and followed the same school of grammar.

5“'[Y]esterday' means all the time that is past" ~John Chrysostom, c.400AD

6P. E. Hughes wrote, “Origen had prepared the way by supposing that our author was speaking of the immutability of Jesus Christ… Athanasius argues, against the Arians, that the immutability of the Son… implies his consubstantiality with the Father… Gregory of Nazianzus goes further… to indicate a distinction of the natures in Christ … also… Cyril of Alexandria and Theodoret. But it is difficult to believe that any differentiation of this kind was in the mind of the author of the epistle.”

7“The emphatic point of the statement is Christ. They lived and died in the faith that Jesus is THE CHRIST – the Messiah. The readers were tempted to surrender this faith and to return to Judaism which denied Jesus's messiahship (comp. Heb. 10:29). Hence the writer says, ‘hold fast and imitate their faith in Jesus as the Christ. He is ever the same. He must be to you, today, what he was to them, yesterday, and will be forever to the heavenly hosts – Christ.’” ~Vincent’s Word Studies In the New Testament

8ποικίλαις I think that this word “divergent” has better connotations than “diverse” or “various” because it parallels “strange” and gets at the basic idea of not leaving the true faith. John Brown of Edinborough (as well as Stuart and Macknight) preferred this meaning, “‘Divers doctrines’ are doctrines different from the doctrines of pure Christian­ity...” Most commentators and lexicographers, however, maintain that this word has more to do with multiplicity and variety. Viz. P.E. Hughes: “...diverse, that is, which offer the specious attraction of variety… History bears ample testimony of the astonishing fecundity of the heretical mentality.” (He later admitted, however, “...the adjective car­ries the pejorative sense of that which is at variance with the truth.”) cf. Delitzsch: “implying a complex of precepts and doctrines leading away from the plain and simple truth” and Owen “...‘various’ because of their number...”

9Some commentators thought this meant the continuance of Jewish ceremonial distinctions between clean and unclean foods (Robertson, Owen, Brown). Others agreed with the view taken here that participation in the Levitical sacrifices was more in view (Hughes, Spicq). Still others thought it referred to gnostic Essene diets (F. F. Bruce), but Hughes countered that interpreting “by foods” as “by abstention from foods” would lead to the absurd interpretation of “by grace” meaning “good for the heart to be confirmed by abstaining from grace.” Calvin supported all three positions in his commentary.

10“The fondness of man for what is material in religion, and his disrelish of what is spiritual, is strikingly illustrated in the extreme difficulty which was experienced by the primitive teachers of Christianity in weaning the Jews, even such of them as by profession had embraced the Gospel, from their excessive attachment to a system which had so much in it to strike the senses as Judaism.” ~John Brown, The Epistle to the Hebrews

11With meats stands for the whole system of ceremonial observances, in contrast with grace, working on the heart. See Heb. 9:10. This ceremonial system yielded no permanent benefit to those who lived under it. See Heb. 7:25; 9:9, 13, 14; 10:1, 2, 4." ~Marvin Vincent

AThe Greek is the Majority text, edited by myself to follow the majority of the earliest-known manuscripts only when the early manuscript evidence is practically unanimous. My original document includes notes on the NKJV, NASB, NIV, & ESV English translations, but since they are all copyrighted, I cannot include them in my online document. Underlined words in English versions indicate a standalone difference from all other English translations of a certain word. Strikeout usually indicates that the English translation is, in my opinion, too far outside the range of meaning of the original Greek word. The addition of an X indicates a Greek word left untranslated – or a plural Greek word translated as an English singular. [Brackets] indicate words added in English not in the Greek. {Pointed Braces} indicate words added in Greek to the original. Key words are colored consistently across the chart to show correlations.

BNote that this is a present participle, not an aorist as the NIV translates it. All the same, the vast majority of commentators consider the referent to be Christian leaders who have died, primarily because the verse speaks of the “end” of their lives.

COnly here and Acts 17:33

DOnly here and 1 Cor. 10:13 (“the way out” of temptation)

EIt appears that in the 9th century, the spelling convention for this word changed to drop the initial epsilon. Five of the six known Greek manuscripts from the first millennium spell it with the initial epsilon, so contemporary critical editions like the Nestle-Aland and United Bible Societies Greek New Testaments all spell it εχθες, whereas the traditional Greek editions (Textus Receptus, Majority Text, Patriarchal) spell it χθες. There is no difference in meaning.

FThe KJV “carried about” is a translation of the Textus Receptus περιφερεσθε, which is only found in one Greek manuscript copied in the 14th century (with partial corroboration in two other manuscripts). All other manuscripts support the reading I used here (“carried away/sidetracked”), which is also used in the Greek Orthodox as well as in modern critical editions.

GSix Greek manuscripts (including 4 of the 6 which date to the first millennium) spell this participle in the present tense περιπατουντες, indicating that it is a continuing practice (viz. NIV “those who eat”), but the vast majority read as above in the aorist tense (viz. KJV & NASB “occupied” and ESV “devoted”), which is also the reading of the traditional editions of the GNT.

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