This exhortation is based upon the experience of Israel as described in Psalm 95. The thing to avoid is a “sinful, unbelieving heart. Heart in this case is not the emotions but rather the place of the will. A “sinful and unbelieving heart” would imply that the person is unsaved. The writer does not tolerate any within the congregation that are not believers, those persons are under God’s judgement and they are the ones that he is especially speaking to, in order that they do not bring shame to the church by recanting a faith they never shared.
If the unbelievers are Jews that “fall away” by returning to Judaism, how can the writer say that they are turning away from the living God? The Jews do recognize God. The point is that Judaism no longer presents the true revelation from God, it is inferior to the revelation that comes through Jesus in “these last days” (from 1:1-3).
A possible solution to the possibility of unbelief in the community of believers is that the “encourage each other daily.” The “daily” exhortation underscores the meaning of the word, this is an active effort on the part of the community of believers to help each other with their Christian walk. There is a positive aspect to this word (encouragement), but also a negative aspect, a pushing toward spiritual excellence which may take the form of a shove!
In the modern church we tend to think of the pastor as a professional exhorter, as long as he doesn’t get too personal or call during dinner or the football game to exhort us. Half an hour on Sunday is fine for most people (just don’t mention “sin”). This text says that the community ought to encourage the community. Mutual encouragement, but also exhortation – a sort of positive peer-pressure that encourages growth and development of a deeper relationship with God and each other.
The writer of Hebrews describes a whole church talking to each other and trying to keep each other from sin, a network of accountability that is virtually unknown in the modern church.
What are the people to encourage? That we not be deceived by sin and harden our hearts. Sin is deceitful, it is seductive. Satan does not appear as a slobbering evil dragon demanding your soul, he appears as an angel of light, a really nice guy with a good plan to help humanity, or maybe to help your family. He takes the truth and twists it into a sin that looks pretty good! Sin is a subtle deception, those are the best kind.
But if your community of believers is daily encouraging you not to harden your heart, it is much easier to do the right thing and avoid sin. I am not sure modern Christian communities are very good at this encouragement. On the one hand, they can become very legalistic and judgmental, even demanding of their members (to the point of being more like a cult than the Body of Christ). On the other hand, some churches are so lax in this sort encouragement that there is no call to deal with the flesh, nor any preaching on sin in the life of the believer. As they say these days, “it’s all good.”
It is not all good, it never was. Believers need to return to this sort of mutual encouragement for the building up of the Body of Christ.
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January 25, 2012 at 7:08 pm
kayleighholton
I believe it is crucial to encourage and exhort each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. Although it is sometimes hard to exhort without being judgmental, I believe it is necessary. It is important to encourage each other in love and compassion. It is important that we constantly remind each other who we are in Christ and who are to be in Christ. Sometimes we get down on ourselves and feel guilty for the sins that we have committed. It is crucial to not let each other believe the lies that Satan tells us. My mom gave me a little devotional about who we are in Christ. Satan is the father of lies. He deceives people into believing that his lies are true. But Jesus intercedes for us; through Christ we are redeemed and are dead to sin (Romans 6:11). We need to know who we are in Christ in order to defeat the enemy. The devotional says: “We need to learn who we are in Christ and confess the same out loud. I am what God says I am regardless of how I “feel” about myself. My feelings cannot change the absolute truth of God’s Word. We need to see ourselves [and others] in the light of God’s Word. Once we have heard and seen God’s truth we are to reckon it to be so.” To defeat Satan and to further The Kingdom we are to encourage each other and focus on the truths of God’s Word.
January 25, 2012 at 10:17 pm
Chris Anderson
It seems as if the author of Hebrews is speaking to fellow believers (Heb 3:1) throughout the text of chapter 3. The exhortation (Heb 3:13) to one another seems to be as an encouragement from one believer to another to guard against evil and unbelief that could cause a fellow believer to, “fall away from the living God” (Heb 3:12). The root of of their faith may not be very deep (Lk 8:13). We need to be there for fellow believers who are struggling, who are experiencing “spiritual weakness”, who need a loving hand to help prop them up in their time of quiet desperation. I know first hand what it was like to abandon my faith because of growing skepticism about Christ and the church. I also know what it is like to have a fellow Christian tell me he was “cutting off fellowship” with me because I had lost my spiritual way. It hurt. Phil, I am blessed when you say, “A possible solution to the possibility of unbelief in the community of believers is to encourage each other daily”. The encouragement we give is fueled by 1 Cor 13. Indeed, let us offer this encouragement to everyone we can. Slap the devil down.
January 25, 2012 at 10:54 pm
Erika
There are different emotions that can be lifted in a conversation of conflict. The encouragement in a relationship is a very important aspect to have. As it says in Psalm 95, “’They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they have not known my ways.’” Even though this is refereeing to the will of that person, they have turned away from the Lord; the body of Christ should still be an encouragement to those who are in need. There are times when non-believers pull one into joining their own, evil ways and that is when the body of Christ needs to be careful and not fall into temptation, but still being encouraging and helpful to others, “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching” (Hebrews 10:24-25). There will be many opportunities that the Lord will bring into our lives and we need to step up and take that chance to share the gospel. There is also a point in time when we are the ones who need encouragement. To take those encouraging words and apply them to our lives so we may pass those words of encouragement along so the Holy Spirit can work not only in one person’s life, but many. I think it is a great opportunity to share God’s love for us, by encouraging others and showing them love.
January 25, 2012 at 11:09 pm
Danae Olson
I notice alot of what P.Long is discussing in this post, in churches today. Why is it so hard for body of believers to be the church in a balanced way? Many are either in the legalistic/judgemental realm or on the opposite side, where “freedom” is taken advantage of and sin runs rampant. As the good proffesor points out, this is very unhealthy, and we must return to “mutual encouragement for building up the body of Christ”.
Also,Hebrews 3 makes it obvious that God was calling out to his people, and they intentionally hardened their hearts and disobeyed him. They were not ignorant of their sin, I think they knew exaclty what they were doing. God had been very real in their lives and had been blessing them, bringing them out of Egypt and slavery, and they still turned away. “Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those that Moses led out of Egypt?”.(Hebrews 3:16). This disobedience seems to expose unbelief in their lives and we struggle with that as well. God has revealed himself to us in ways that we cannot ignore either, and yet many times we still do. “For we have also had the gospel preached to us, just as they did, but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith”(Hebrews 4:2). Yikes! I know the author is not directly speaking to us today, but I think that his/her message is nonetheless very true for us!
January 26, 2012 at 12:40 am
jtuttle
It is interesting to think that some of the early church members fell away by returning to Judaism. Commonly we think of people falling away from the faith are falling away morally. It just seems odd that these people were not falling away a totally forgetting any kind of morals, instead the probably grabbed back onto more rules.
Another thing that grabbed my attention in this section of scripture had to deal with the accountability that the writer of Hebrews wanted to see present in that time. A verse like Hebrews 3:13 tells its readers to “exhort one another everyday… that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”
On the application side of these verses it seems like a good way to exhort or encourage by meeting with other true Christians. This helps people to be honestly accountable to each other which also reminds us of our ultimate accountability to God.