Races and Discipline (Hebrews 12:3-11)
In 490 BC, Pheidippides is said to have run a great distance to deliver the news of Greece’s victory over Persia, and then died from exhaustion. He needed to deliver the news before a ship from the enemy could arrive with false information—fake news. He dropped everything he was carrying and even stripped off his clothes to lighten his load for the race. This story is just a legend. It likely was invented, but from accounts dating back to around the time the New Testament was being written. It is unlikely that the writer of Hebrews knew of these accounts, but it does seem to fit well with the passage in Hebrews 12. The writer here tells us that we need to run our life’s race unhindered with our eyes on the goal.
Our lives are kind of like a long race running along a trail with obstacles, challenges, and dangers along the way.
Many people today tell us that the Christian life is a charmed one. Those who trust Jesus face no more problems: no poverty, no sickness, no obstacles. That is a lie. It is not what the Bible teaches. The Bible tells us over and over again, that God’s people still have problems. What we can know is that all those problems have been allowed to come our way by God Himself. We can know that He has allowed those problems into our lives for a reason. He uses problems to help us grow.
The writer of Hebrews tells us to look to the many “witnesses” from chapter 11 for inspiration. This is not a picture of a crowd at an arena looking at us and cheering us on. Instead, they are witnesses in the sense of people giving us testimony about their own races. They are examples. In Scripture, the idea of witnesses is often tied to death and martyrdom. In his work, Exhortation to Martyrdom, Origen said that a witness was “one of his own free will, chooses to die for the sake of religion, rather than save his life by renouncing it.” We see this idea not just here in Hebrews 11 and 12:1, but in Acts 22:20, Revelation 2:13, and even perhaps Nehemiah 9:26. Just as Pheidippides died at the end of his race, we all face death at the end of our lives. Will we die as faithful witnesses? Will we endure until the finish line?
The writer of Hebrews here, tells us to look to Jesus, not only as a goal and a focus for our race but as the ultimate example. We have not even suffered death for our faith, but Jesus was willing to face something even worse in our modern, soft, eyes: shame!
We need a goal—a finish line—in our race. We also need to endure. The biggest part of running a good race is finishing. Marathon runners are not usually aiming to be first across the finish line, they just want to cross that line. Here, the author talks about enduring—outlasting circumstances—not fainting—4 times here.
But enduring can be hard because the route is not easy. And we need to train, grow, and learn endurance. This passage uses terms for discipline 12 times.
When we suffer we need to remember the following things:
-We are not alone. Jesus is not just at the finish line. He runs with us.
-Others have had similar experiences. Witnesses are all throughout Christian history.
-God uses the hard things in our lives to help us grow and become better people.
-Our task is to endure, and God will see us through.
Our lives are kind of like a long race running along a trail with obstacles, challenges, and dangers along the way.
Many people today tell us that the Christian life is a charmed one. Those who trust Jesus face no more problems: no poverty, no sickness, no obstacles. That is a lie. It is not what the Bible teaches. The Bible tells us over and over again, that God’s people still have problems. What we can know is that all those problems have been allowed to come our way by God Himself. We can know that He has allowed those problems into our lives for a reason. He uses problems to help us grow.
The writer of Hebrews tells us to look to the many “witnesses” from chapter 11 for inspiration. This is not a picture of a crowd at an arena looking at us and cheering us on. Instead, they are witnesses in the sense of people giving us testimony about their own races. They are examples. In Scripture, the idea of witnesses is often tied to death and martyrdom. In his work, Exhortation to Martyrdom, Origen said that a witness was “one of his own free will, chooses to die for the sake of religion, rather than save his life by renouncing it.” We see this idea not just here in Hebrews 11 and 12:1, but in Acts 22:20, Revelation 2:13, and even perhaps Nehemiah 9:26. Just as Pheidippides died at the end of his race, we all face death at the end of our lives. Will we die as faithful witnesses? Will we endure until the finish line?
The writer of Hebrews here, tells us to look to Jesus, not only as a goal and a focus for our race but as the ultimate example. We have not even suffered death for our faith, but Jesus was willing to face something even worse in our modern, soft, eyes: shame!
We need a goal—a finish line—in our race. We also need to endure. The biggest part of running a good race is finishing. Marathon runners are not usually aiming to be first across the finish line, they just want to cross that line. Here, the author talks about enduring—outlasting circumstances—not fainting—4 times here.
But enduring can be hard because the route is not easy. And we need to train, grow, and learn endurance. This passage uses terms for discipline 12 times.
When we suffer we need to remember the following things:
-We are not alone. Jesus is not just at the finish line. He runs with us.
-Others have had similar experiences. Witnesses are all throughout Christian history.
-God uses the hard things in our lives to help us grow and become better people.
-Our task is to endure, and God will see us through.
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