I love living where we can easily drive to a sandy beach or walk near a rocky shoreline. One Sunday this summer, we took a ferry to an island where we worshiped with a community of believers who live there year-round, managing the complexity of ferry schedules for needed trips to the mainland. I wonder if living in Maine has made me more aware of nautical metaphors when they appear in Scripture.
The first warning the writer of Hebrews issues in his letter tells me that he must have had experience mooring a boat:
Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.”
(Hebrews 2:1)
“Tie fast the vessel of your faith to something solid!” he warned. And the “therefore” at the beginning of the sentence sends me back to his recommended mooring, the supremacy of Jesus Christ described in Hebrews 1. If Jesus is not seated “at the right hand of the Majesty on high,” if he is not “superior to the angels,” if he is not both the creator and the sustainer of the universe, we’re in big trouble!
Doctrine, the truth about who Jesus is and what he had done for them in securing their salvation, was to be the safe harbor for the recipients of Hebrews. Persecution was a constant concern, and it would have been tempting for them to abandon their new faith and return to their Jewish roots and the Old Covenant way of doing business with God. After all, the Roman Empire was used to dealing with the Jewish population. It was just this weird bunch of Christ-followers who had turned the world upside down that Rome felt compelled to wipe out.
“Pay close attention to the message,” he urged them. “Don’t drift away!”
“Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.” (Hebrews 2:1)
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The Danger of Drifting
You and I also live in a cultural context that is hostile to our faith. Obviously, we’re not faced with the same kind of persecution, but we are floating in a sea of distraction. The device in our pocket claims our time, and the current of our busy lives leaves us breathless and mentally scattered. We are subject to the tidal pull of cultural Christianity that requires only “good behavior” and some level of affiliation with a church.
Like the first readers of Hebrews, truth will be our safe harbor. God has spoken, and we hear his voice when we open our Bibles. He has made “purification for sins,” and we avail ourselves of that cleansing as we walk in righteousness by the power of the Holy Spirit. Christ is our advocate at the right hand of the Father, and our prayers are heard; our hearts are known.
Therefore…
It’s time to pay attention.
We must not drift away.
The chilling question floats in on the biblical writer’s next sentence:
“How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?” (Hebrews 1:3)
- Does your life look different from one who has given only intellectual assent to the truth?
- When you feel the tug toward a safe, cultural expression of your faith, do you give in?
- Are you bearing spiritual fruit as evidence that you are fighting the drift?
It’s time to pay attention. We must not drift away.
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Holding You in the Light,
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