Author’s Note: Happy Sunday! In a major pivot from my recent post on the NBA, here is something I wrote a couple of months back that has stayed in the drafts for far too long. I hope you enjoy it!
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Think back to your time in Sunday School. Little blue school chairs were laid out in a semicircle. Felt boards on the walls. Rows upon rows of white, speckled ceiling tile, but don’t just think back to the layout of the room–think about what was discussed.
Noah and the Ark. Abraham and the offering. Jacob and his brother. Joseph and his coat. Moses and the bush. Joshua and the wall. Rahab and her cord. Samson and his strength. David and his giant victory. Solomon and the temple. Jonah and the big fish. I could go on and on and on. These men and women were characters in a story, and its structure was laid out like a comic book of sorts.
Because of course, right? These were the stories that could be drawn in the sand, thrown on the felt board, or drawn on cardstock. After a while, in our Bible verse memorization journey, we entered the “Hall of Faith,” where, oddly enough, so many of these Old Testament characters found their place in the canon.
These stories aren’t just a token of Western Christianity. For thousands of years, people have heard the tales as a means to see the faith laid out in actionable ways.
Which leads us to Hebrews 11–the most popular and highly referenced section of the book, both for its discussion of who was left in and left out and for the out-of-context definition of faith. We love it!
But an important question to ask: why is it there? Or, at the very least, what else is there?
Well, for starters, it’s important to know that Hebrew Christians were in a moment of crisis. Many had fled Israel or been placed in other nations for safety. Persecution was rampant; ask Stephen or Saul. Jesus was not a good name to say, and this letter had been passed around as an encouragement for why to press on, pointing to tenets of the Jewish faith that come into conversation with Christianity.
Like we see in Hebrews 11, the order is one thing, but the stories are another. Thinking about friends and family members who deconstruct their faith today, the stories of their youth are reimagined as opportunities to brainwash and persuade them toward the institution. An honest question people have about the meaning of their faith is–do the stories even matter, or did I get them all wrong?
So you can imagine the level of crisis plaguing Jewish Christians. Still, not only that, the second most famous passage, Hebrews 12:1-2, appears in the immediate aftermath of the chapter and rarely appears in discussions of the Hall of Faith, which I believe is in our best interest to rename after the scriptural name, the Cloud.
Time for a tangent: Why the Cloud, you may ask? In fact, the great Cloud, because the writer of Hebrews begins chapter 12 by saying, “Therefore, because we have such a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us,” referencing all previously mentioned witnesses of faith in chapter 11, “let us cast off every hindrance and sin that easily ensnares us.”
But this cloud is not a cumulonimbus (my favorite kind, shoutout to Russell) floating high above us; each believer is a drop in its makeup, but the writer of Hebrews relays the picture of a grand stadium, one so large and expansive that the onlookers can’t spot the individuals; all we can see is the one mass with and among us.
Now that you’re catching my (cloud) drift, let’s go back to Sunday School.
Hebrews 11 can easily be drawn as a seamless connection from the Old Testament to the New Testament, and for the original audience, there was an element of that, but the purpose of the connection to the writer’s discussion of faith was important- but why? We have faith so that we may endure, not to check a box.
You’re not alone in the struggle. The struggle has been following the Hebrew people from the jump. Don’t lose sight of the stories of your youth.
All of the people mentioned in Hebrews 11 either spent a period of wandering or war, or were in the fierce minority of public opinion and fell subject to persecution. Let’s run down the list.
Verse 4: Abel was killed by his brother out of spite when he had sincere faith.
Verse 7: No one listened to Noah when the Ark was built.
Verses 8-20: Abraham left his family to wander into the unknown and start his own people, according to a promise from a God he barely knew.
Verse 21: Jacob lied to his dad, fled his family, and served as a shepherd for years.
Verse 22: Joseph was sold to a foreign people by his brothers and spent time in prison after being called a liar.
Verses 23-39: Moses was raised as an outsider, killed a guy, and lived an additional forty years as an outsider before God called him.
Verse 30: Joshua wandered for forty years because the people lacked faith, even though Joshua did.
Verse 31: Rahab risked her life to trust what would have been deemed impossible.
Verses 32-34: Gideon, Barak, Samson, and Jephthah all went to war against a foreign adversary to deliver their people from bondage, and the people of Israel thought Samuel was doing such a bad job that they longed for a monarchy instead.
Meaning? The current struggle for the Hebrew people was not new. All of the so-called heroes were just normal people who were misunderstood and cast aside or cast out because of “conventional wisdom.”
When the writer of Hebrews says, “Women received their dead, raised to life again. Other people were tortured, not accepting release, so that they might gain a better resurrection,” in verse 35, that’s not harkening back to the old stories–they were experiencing that now. Wives and mothers heard this, not thinking of old prophets against rebel kings, but of fathers and sons who stood for Christ.
With this in mind, looking at all the other chapters in Hebrews, it becomes far easier to spot their purpose: Jesus did not render the religion of your fathers pointless; he is what it all points to. The Judaism they left and were crucified to leave does not have to be rendered useless. The priesthood, covenants, Sabbath, and ideas of faith were nothing new to the Hebrew people. As we know from our time in Sunday school, their stories had been passed down for centuries.
But perhaps the greatest connection of all, harkening back to the Old Testament, not mentioned in Hebrews 11, is the cloud that is God’s presence covering Mt. Sinai in the book of Exodus—what an inescapable image, captured perfectly by
So, sure, if we take Hebrews 11 by itself, it’s a fun chapter about different Bible characters and a good definition of faith that we can proof-text until the day we die.
But what does it mean? The writer says in verse 40, “God had provided something better for us, so that they would not be made perfect without us.”
In times of crisis, the stories of your youth matter. It should go without saying, but Sunday School matters, folks. These stories not only serve a purpose but also signify that, as the body of Christ, we are not alone. They reinforce and sustain the truth that God is with you and has not left–present then and now with his Church, so we must endure. Christ is our centerpiece, hope, and peace forever. May we continue to trust in him, and may the Cloud rally behind us.
Enjoyed this, Noah. Also, appreciated the Up reference!