GREATER THAN MOSES
Opening Prayer
Thank you, Father, that because Christ lives and reigns, in him, eternal life is mine.
Read HEBREWS 3
For additional translations of the passage, use this link to Bible Gateway.
Jesus Greater Than Moses
3 Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest. 2 He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house. 3 Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. 4 For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. 5 “Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house,”[a] bearing witness to what would be spoken by God in the future. 6 But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory.
Warning Against Unbelief
7 So, as the Holy Spirit says:
“Today, if you hear his voice,
8 do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion,
during the time of testing in the wilderness,
9 where your ancestors tested and tried me,
though for forty years they saw what I did.
10 That is why I was angry with that generation;
I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray,
and they have not known my ways.’
11 So I declared on oath in my anger,
‘They shall never enter my rest.’ ”[b]
12 See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. 14 We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end. 15 As has just been said:
“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion.”[c]
16 Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? 17 And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies perished in the wilderness? 18 And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? 19 So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.
Footnotes
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- Hebrews 3:5 Num. 12:7
- Hebrews 3:11 Psalm 95:7-11
- Hebrews 3:15 Psalm 95:7,8
New International Version (NIV)Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Reflect
We share friendships and a common purpose with groups of people. But life is busy. We get distracted. Over time, relationships fragment and their significance diminishes. How easily can that happen to your relationship with Christ?Until Christ came, no one had ever surpassed Moses as the person through whom God communicated with his people. The writer made a comparison between Moses and Jesus by saying that God’s people were ‘God’s house.’ God called Moses ‘faithful in all my house,’ rebuking Aaron and Miriam for not taking their brother Moses seriously (Numbers 12:7). Moses may have been the steward of this house, but Christ is far more. He is its creator and builder. Moses had to contend with the rebellious behavior of God’s people in the wilderness, belligerently testing God, as the quotation from Psalm 95 describes (vv. 8–11). This same behavior led the writer to urge Hebrew readers who had accepted the salvation of Christ to persevere, so that there would be ‘no evil unbelief lying around that will trip you up and throw you off course, diverting you from the living God’ (vv. 12–14, The Message). Like the people of Israel, they too could come under God’s judgment.
These are serious words. The ascended Jesus calls for our full attention (v. 1) for we are not only at home in the ‘house’ Jesus built, but we have become his younger brothers and sisters (2:11; 3:1).
Apply
What things are yours that you can use to fight against temptation to stray from the truths of the gospel?
Closing prayer
Light of the World, help me to see clearly the path you set before me. Help me to never stray from those convictions of faith that called me to follow you.
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