You can only put your bull rope on one way. You can only put a headstall on one way. Designs may change over the decades but the equipment functions the same way today as it did 100 years ago.
Hebrews 13:7-9 Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. 8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. 9 Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings. It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace, not by eating ceremonial foods,which is of no benefit to those who do so.
Verse 8 reminds us that Jesus is the same, always.
Our culture wants us to reject our faith. It wants us to choose a different pattern to run saying the way we do it now is outdated and doesn’t work. It doesn’t fit with the rest of the way the world lives its collective life.
But in his letter to the Hebrews, Paul is reminding us that no matter what other influences are out there, pressuring us to let go of what we believe, Jesus has always been the same and that’s what we are to follow from the example set by Christian leaders who have gone before us. The applications of scripture may change as our culture changes, but what those verses mean are just as consistent as Jesus is.
He cautions us not to get carried away by other teaching that’s out there. The values in our culture shift almost weekly and sometimes are changing so fast that they seem to contradict each other as we strive to not offend anyone and make everyone value the same morals and attitudes.
There are different faiths and beliefs out there beyond our culture and even within our churches, there can be false teaching, different from a pastor making a mistake with scripture, but choosing to teach popular ideas that actually contradict what the Bible teaches.
Matthew 7:15-16 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?
That’s why it’s so important for us all to be at least familiar with what the Bible teaches.
If we don’t have an idea of what scripture teaches, it is harder to recognize when we are listening to false teaching. False ideas that go against scripture are pushed on us by our culture and false ideas can even be pushed on us by those who say they are representing God when really, they are teaching something as opposite to that as a bush of thorns producing grapes.
Instead of false teaching and beliefs, Paul wants us to be strengthened by God’s grace, which is what we come under through a saving faith in Jesus. The grace we receive is this: that instead of being condemned for our sins, which God will condemn equally, we can all be seen as right and perfect before God through our belief in the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus and the act of repenting and asking for forgiveness of sins. That comes through our understanding Jesus’ death on the cross was in place of our sins so that in faith, repentance and the seeking of forgiveness, we could be saved. That’s grace! Receiving forgiveness when we really deserve punishment.
In Hebrews, Paul wants us to recognize that following anything else is as useless as eating the food that is prepared in part of a different belief’s ceremonies. If Jesus never changes, following something different will do us no good.
You don’t have to be a barrel racer to know that to have a qualifying time, you don’t get to make up your own course. There is a set pattern that’s followed, even if it’s take from the left or the right, the cloverfield course is the same. As Christians, the path we follow is the one set out by Jesus and his teachings we find in the Bible.
His death on the cross and the salvation it brings us, isn’t changed by our culture. All we need to do is believe in Christ’s life, death and resurrection, confess we sin, repent and seek forgiveness. It will always be given, just as it was 2,000 years ago, as it will today and as it will tomorrow and so on.
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