"…that God may open a door (Col. 4:3)"
Sermons by Callahan Maynard
But does suffering provide any value? What can it possibly mean to consider it joy “whenever you face trials of many kinds”?
Enduring trials is “pure joy?” Surely not. Perhaps our struggle with this idea is the thought that “joy” equals “happiness.” In this lesson, Callahan explores this and other powerful ideas presented in James 1.
We are, in many ways, like Mephibosheth – broken and subject to death – but we have gained our freedom, because “anyone who has died has been freed from sin” (Romans 6:7). But Christian freedom is based on the decision to first…die.
This chapter is a reassurance to 1st-century Christians that the promised “rest” of God is still available; it has not somehow passed them by. In fact, that “rest” is not the promised land of Old Testament Israel, but an eternal rest, one accessible through obedience.
The first chapter of Hebrews is focused on the supremacy of Jesus Christ, a topic of great importance to 1st century Jews who struggled to give up on Moses, the law, and the old covenant.