Monday, December 01, 2008

Hebrews 1:1

A great number of important ideas are here in the first two verses of the book of Hebrews.  God reveals himself by speaking.  He does so in various different ways, down through time and history.  There is a being called the Son through whom He speaks, and through whom He also created the world.  This Son has been appointed an heir.  These are the last days.  

There is no effort on the part of the writer to prove the existence of God, nor the idea that He speaks and has spoken.  He is apparently writing to those who accept these as truth.   God exists and speaks to us.

Speech is important.  We are speaking beings that live in time.  Our words are so important that more often than not they are all that remains of us when we die.  Millenia after their death, we the living still read the words of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Homer, Moses, and Jesus.  The ability to speak and understand speech is hard-wired into our brains, and one of the largest areas of the motor cortex in our brains controls the organs of speech.  Speech, or its proxy the written word, is undeniably our chief means of exchanging ideas of any kind.  

If we posit, for the sake of argument, that there is a God that both created us and remains interested in us, would it not be our expectation that He would use speech and words to communicate with us?  Furthermore, since we are the kind of being that exists in a sequential timeframe, and uses words to communicate between generations and pass knowledge down to those who come after, is it surprising that God would likewise reveal himself gradually over time?  We may be slow learners when it comes to history, but we do eventually learn.  These opening verses in Hebrews assert that God does use speech to reveal himself to us, and does so down through history.  In the past, he used those men and women called "prophets", but finally he has used this being called "the Son".  


Return

It has been a long time since I have written here.  Writing takes discipline, and I have not been exercising discipline very much lately, I'm afraid.   I am also somewhat uncertain what place a blog should have in my life.  Is it a type of journal?  If so, it is too public for sharing one's deepest thoughts, the ones whose discernment and recording may be most beneficial to me.  Is it a type of conversation?  Perhaps, but with whom?  

There is an effort involved in writing a blog that must have some sort of return, I think.  Not simply a return to me, the writer, but some benefit accruing to the readers.  One has to believe it is worth the effort.  

I have been encouraged to write by some who have been my readers in the past.  I am full of self-doubt; my life has had many failures recently, and I have felt very much less capable than I once felt.   Nevertheless I will attempt to take up the practice of writing again.