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A Sabbath Rest Remains-Hebrews 4

March 7th, 2025

As we begin our examination of Hebrews 4, we must first consider the primary assertion of the Epistle to the Hebrews. The primary assertion of this Epistle is that the New Covenant in Jesus Christ is superior in every way to the Old Covenant in its various aspects. It begins in the first two chapters with an explanation of the superiority of Jesus as messenger of the New Covenant to angels as messengers of the Old Covenant. Chapter three then presents an explanation of the superiority of Jesus as mediator and law-giver of the New Covenant to Moses as mediator and law-giver of the Old Covenant. Chapter four is then a continuation of this assertion in relation to the superiority of the New Covenant sabbath in Jesus Christ to the Old Covenant sabbath in the law of Moses, presenting a thorough explanation as to the existence of a New Covenant sabbath and the nature of its superiority.

Chapter four begins, then, with the Greek word oun, which is translated as “therefore or consequently”. This usage obviously serves to connect to or continue the presentation in chapter three of “unbelief” as the phenomenon which prevents the people of God from entering His “rest” (Hebrews 3:16-19). The Greek term for rest used here is katapausis. This term is a compound word, consisting of the words kata and pausis combined to form one word. The term pausis essentially means “rest”, and the addition of the preposition kata (which basically means “down”) adds a settledness or permanence to this rest. It is this permanence which is the first aspect of the superiority of the New Covenant sabbath. The Old Testament term sabbath is the Hebrew Shabbat, normally translated as “rest”. Now this term can be used to represent two “types” of rest. It can refer to rest as either a pause or a ceasing of “work”. As we know from the Old Testament, this Old Covenant rest is essentially a “pausing” of work. It is a one day pause in the work process, one day to “rest” before resuming the work process the following day.

So we see here, in the usage of this particular Greek term, the first aspect of the inherent superiority of the New Covenant rest (sabbath). This term (katapausis) is used to refer to rest consistently in the first eight verses of chapter four, focusing repeatedly on the permanent nature of this New Covenant rest as opposed to the temporary nature of the Old Covenant rest. The use of oun here also serves to connect this chapter to the entirety of the Epistle to the Hebrews in it being a continuation of the assertion of the superiority of the New Covenant in Jesus to every facet of the Old Covenant, specifically in terms of the “Sabbath” found in each. Our next series of posts will examine Hebrews four more closely, in order to pursue a more thorough understanding of the existence of a New Covenant “sabbath”, and of its comprehensive superiority to the Old Covenant sabbath.
The Basic Principles of the World- Colossians 2:8

May 15th, 2024

Our previous post demonstrated the universality of “possession”, that human beings by nature are taken captive by an ideology or worldview. These ideologies are described as hollow and deceptive, lies of the devil rather than the truth of God. The “source” of these ideologies is the world rather than the Word of God, and the second part of verse eight enlightens as to what the source of these ideologies is. We begin with the Greek kata, in accordance with. These ideologies are by nature in accordance with the world rather than the Word of God, they are based upon “human tradition and the basic principles of this world”. The Greek translated as “human tradition” here is paradosin anthropos. The Greek paradosin literally means to “hand over” and refers to the passing along of human tradition from one generation to the next. Each generation of human philosophy builds upon what came before it, what has been handed down. It begins in human wisdom and “evolves” through human wisdom, generally absent of divine wisdom and used by the devil as his primary means of “possession”. These ideologies are also derived from and informed by the “basis principles of this world”. The Greek translated as basic principles here is stoicheia, a term primarily referring to the letters of the alphabet. Letters are the building blocks of words, and words are the building blocks of the expression of thought, and so we learn again here that theses hollow and deceptive philosophies are built upon the wisdom of the world as opposed to the wisdom of God. These ideologies are essentially constructed as each generation builds upon the
“insights” passed down from the previous generation, human “knowledge ” building upon itself one “block” at a time. What ultimately makes this aggregated wisdom hollow and deceptive is that it is built upon the aggregated wisdom of the world rather than on the revealed wisdom of the Word. There are a multitude of ideologies through which the devil takes people captive, but the one thing they have in common is that they are inherently unbiblical, and will end up making human beings captive to the false philosophies of the world rather than the true philosophy of the Word of God.
Do Not Be Taken Captive- Colossians 2:8

April 12th, 2024

A persistent teaching of the New Testament is that every human being is a servant of someone or something, that we all have a “master”. So the question arises as to just what form this master takes, and it is here where we find the answer to this question. Our verse at hand begins as follows in the NIV: “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy”. This is presented as a command, for the verb translated as “see to it” is the present active imperative of blepo, which essentially means to “see”. Now we must note here that there is more than one form of seeing, and the seeing here refers not to the eyes, but rather to see as to perceive or understand. We are to be on the lookout or on the alert perceptively, because the captivity we must avoid is a captivity of our “understanding”. The reason we are to be on the alert is given here as due to the fact that we may be “taken captive”. The Greek term “captive” here is the present participle of sylagogeo- to be carried off as a prisoner. This captivity may be understood as a more subtle form of the demon possession we see in the Gospels, for our enemy now seeks to possess us through more subtle means. The means of this “possession” is referred to here as “philosophy”, the Greek term philosophias- literally a friend or lover of wisdom. This term refers to our fundamental means of perceiving and understanding reality, our worldview or the ideology which undergirds all of our thinking and perceiving. As this verse indicates, all human beings are possessed by an ideology, a worldview, a philosophy, and our enemy seeks to deceive us into being possessed by an unbiblical ideology. There are many of these “ideologies”, and they are all referred to here as “hollow and deceptive”. The Greek terms used here are first “kenos” then “apate”. Kenos is commonly translated as “vain”, here in the sense of futile or useless. Apate is a word referring to a deception or delusion, so we find that all of these “philosophies” are deceptive and futile as a means of perceiving and understanding reality. So, what we ultimately find here is that all human beings are possessed by a “philosophy” or ideology, and that those possessed by any ideology other than a biblical one are ultimately servants of the kingdom of darkness rather than the kingdom of light.
Hidden With Christ- Colossians 3:3-4

November 22nd, 2023

Colossians 3:3 tells us that our “life is now hidden with Christ in God”. This rather mysterious verse at first seems very difficult to ascertain the meaning of. What could it be telling us that our life is “hidden”? This post will examine the verse in some detail, and will demonstrate its connection to verse four, in order to get at what we believe Paul really intends to communicate here. We will begin at the beginning of verse three, which reads as follows: “for you have died”. The Greek translated “have died” here is the aorist active indicative from of apethnesko- to die or decay. The aorist indicative is the simple past tense in Greek, and the indicative makes this a statement of fact, so Paul is telling us here 1) we have died in the past 2) our death is a settled fact. So, what death does Paul have in mind? The indicative fact of our death is followed soon (in verses 9-10) by another factual statement, that we “have taken off the old man and put on the new”. So, we may safely conclude here that the one who has died in verse three is our “old man”, and our life here is that of the “new man”. Having established this fact, Paul then relates another fact to us, that our life is “hidden”. In order to comprehend this phrase, we must first examine its component parts. The first is the word life, which in Greek here is te zoe. When we see the word life, our first instinct is to conclude here that Paul refers to our biological life, life as defined by a biologist. This is not the case here, for the word used for life here is zoe rather than bios, the Greek word for biological life. The Greek word zoe is used in the New Testament to refer to a special kind of “life”, eternal life. Life is defined by God, who is the source of life. To be alive is to be united to God, to be dead is to be separated from Him, those who are alive are those who have been united to God through faith in Christ. Those who are dead are those who have been separated from God due to their sin. For our purposes here, we will propose the definition of eternal life as “life as God intends it to be lived, united to Him and carrying out His purpose and plan for us”, just as Christ did. As we now examine the word “hidden”, the meaning here will begin to become more apparent. The Greek translated hidden here is the perfect passive indicative of krypto- to hide, conceal or bury. The use of the perfect tense here refers to an action completed in the past and having effects in the present as well as on into the future, a once and done type of activity. The indicative again is a statement of fact, and what we ascertain here is that the life God intends for each of us to live is hidden or concealed from us and is uncovered “with Christ in God”. To complete the thought process which Paul began here, we must continue on to verse four which tells us that “when Christ, who is our life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory”. The Greek appears here is the aorist passive subjunctive of phaneroo- to manifest, display, show. The aorist tense with the subjunctive has no specific time frame in the Greek, it simply tells us that any time Christ is made manifest through us, the life which God intends for us to live is revealed to us. As we grow to know Christ and become conformed to His image, the purpose and plan for each of us will be uncovered before our eyes. This interpretation is further supported by the conclusion of verse four, which tells us that “then we will also appear with Him in glory”. Now this appearing with Him in glory does not refer to our future dwelling with Christ in heaven, for glory here is not a place but a state of being. The Greek glory here is doxa, which literally refers to someone’s reputation. To bring glory to God is to enhance His reputation, and as created beings, we bring God glory by doing what He created us to do, for any creation brings glory to its creator by doing what it has been created to do. This includes the believer as well, and so what Paul is essentially telling us in these two verses is that God has a “life” He has created us to live, a purpose and plan for each of us. This purpose is revealed to us as we grow to know Christ and live out our own unique created purpose. Doing so will cause Christ to be revealed through us, and for God to be glorified by us and through us, for our life which is “hidden with Christ in God” to be uncovered and lived out as God intends it to be lived.
Set Your Minds- Colossians 3:2

November 13th, 2023

In verse one of chapter three, Paul tells us to “set your hearts on things above”, which ultimately means to choose to make that which we value and desire above all else to be the things of heaven, the things of God. Here in verse 2, Paul then tells us also to “set your minds on things above, not on earthly things”. What Paul does here is make us aware of one of the primary results of “setting our hearts on things above”. We will recall that this is an admonition to make these “things above” that which we value and desire above all else. When we choose to do so, our minds will naturally be set upon things above as well. The Greek term translated as “set your minds” is phroneite, here as a present imperative verb. This is a compound word, comprised of the words phren and noeo. Phren is a word referring to the diaphragm and noeo is a word referring to our thinking. The question then arises as to why Paul would use a word referring to the diaphragm here. The diaphragm is the body part which essentially controls our breathing, controls the flow of air we intake. The basic idea here is one of control, we are to control our thinking, to think about what we think about. We are in control of (and accountable for) what we set our minds on, and we tend to think about (set our minds on) that which is most valuable to us, that which desire above all else. What Paul then tells us here is to set our minds on “things above, not on earthly things”. His primary emphasis is upon our “thinking”, upon the means by which we ultimately define reality, upon the source of our “worldview”. We ultimately get our worldview from others, and two “sources” are presented here, referred to as heaven and earth. These of course refer to a worldview which is derived from the Word of God or one which is derived from any other source. One whose heart is set upon things above will live out of a biblical worldview, while one whose heart is set upon the things of earth will live out of an earthly worldview. The worldview which we adopt will ultimately determine how we think and what we choose to think about, so we must take great care assure that we “set our minds on things above”, that we make the deliberate choice to live out of a Biblical worldview, and reject the temptations of the enemy to accept and live out of any other worldview.
Set Your Hearts – Colossians 3:1

May 9th, 2023

Paul begins here with the Greek ei, normally translated as “if” (as in NIV), but the Greek syntax here communicates a more definite idea. He begins here with what is known as a first class conditional statement here, or what is also known as a condition of fact. Paul here is making a factual statement, a reality which is true for all who have been raised with Christ and may be more precisely rendered in English as “since”. Since Paul informs us in Colossians 2:12 that all believers have been raised with Christ, this statement applies to all believers, and so also does the command which follows. The verb translated as “raised up” is the aorist passive indicative of sunegeiro, to raise up with”, telling us something which is a factual statement about something which happened in the past. All believers, as a matter of fact, have been raised up with Christ and are the subjects of the command which follows. The command which Paul gives begins with the present active imperative of zeteo, the root of which refers to seeking after something, so the question arises as to why the NIV would translate this one word with the phrase “set your hearts”? The word zeteo contains within it the connotation of something much more intense than mere “seeking”. We seek after what we find to be of the highest value to us, what we “seek” is that which reflects our deepest, innermost desires, what is our driving force, what we value above all else. This seeking is a heart level choice, what we prioritize in our lives. This is why Paul uses it here as a command (an imperative), it is something we must choose to do, and place above all other choices in our lives. So we can see now why the NIV chooses to translate this as “set your hearts”, for Paul here is referring to a heart (innermost or most “central”) level choice we must continually make, and that choice is that what will be most precious to us, what we will seek after above all else, is “things above”. These things above are the Greek ta ano, literally that which is above or upwards. This obviously is a reference to heaven, to the place where God dwells, and is used here as a metaphor for the things of God and the will of God. Therefore, we can conclude here that Paul is commanding all believers to make the seeking after the will of God the number one priority in their lives, that their highest value and deepest desire would be the knowing and doing of God’s will in their lives. A fact of human existence is that we pursue what we regard as most precious to us, and we are commanded by Paul here to make the will of God the thing which we decide is most precious to us, as well as what we seek after above all else.

A Sabbath Rest Remains-Hebrews 4

The Basic Principles of the World- Colossians 2:8

Do Not Be Taken Captive- Colossians 2:8

Hidden With Christ- Colossians 3:3-4

Set Your Minds- Colossians 3:2

Set Your Hearts – Colossians 3:1