The end of the Sermon on the Mount — through the eyes of a listener
We sat down as He began to teach.
We knew how rabbis spoke; they quoted Moses, they leaned on what had been said before. But He said: “You have heard that it was said… but I say to you…”
He pressed the Law into the heart: anger, desire, enemies, prayer, hidden faithfulness. And when He finished, He said:
“Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does them is like a man who built his house on the rock.
The rain fell.
The streams rose.
The winds struck that house…
and it did not fall.”
His words?
And suddenly, I remembered what Moses had said:
“The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me… to him you must listen.” (Deuteronomy 18:15)
I kept watching Him — the way He spoke, the way He did not hesitate. The authority. The calm. The weight of His words.
And quietly, almost afraid to finish the thought, I asked myself: Is He the One… or are we still waiting for another?
From my study in Hebrews: imagining how the letter was first heard.
The reader’s voice is softer now. The letter is ending.
My son leans against me, tracing the edge of my sleeve. I barely notice. I am listening to the last lines. “Now may the God of peace… who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep…”
The words move through the room like evening light.
We have heard about altars. About blood. About suffering outside the gate. About a covenant that cannot be shaken.
And now… peace. Not fragile peace. But the peace of the One who brought Him up.
The great Shepherd!
I think of the morning offerings in Jerusalem, the psalms the Levites sing, the smoke rising straight into the sky. And yet these words rise higher.
If He has been brought up, if the covenant is eternal, if we have such a High Priest…
Tonight one word in Hebrews 11:13 would not let me go.
“They saw the promises from afar and greeted them.”
The Greek word is aspasamenoi... to greet warmly, to welcome someone as they approach. It’s the kind of word used for embracing a friend, for receiving someone with affection.
They did not receive the promises. They did not hold them. They did not see them fulfilled.
But they greeted them.
Almost like someone scanning the horizon, recognizing a familiar figure in the distance, and lifting a hand before the person even arrives.
What surprised me is that my Statenvertaling adds the word “believed” — “they saw them from afar, and believed, and greeted them.” But “believed” is not actually in the Greek text. And somehow, adding that word makes it smaller. Because “believe” can sound like agreement.
But “greeted” is warmer than that. It is relational. It is welcoming.
They didn’t just believe the promise was true. They welcomed it before it came.
And that is more beautiful than I had ever noticed.
For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.
This week I read Hebrews 10. “By one offering He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.” And it made me look back.
At the church culture I once lived in (long ago, in a different church), Christ was spoken of as glorious. Holy. Exalted. But He was not freely offered. There was no clear invitation to come. No open call: come to Him. What I heard most clearly was this: He is holy… and He is angered by unfaithfulness.
So even after I believed, I lived extremely carefully. When I sinned, I felt the distance return. I held back.
And I worked. I worked.
Trying to regain favor. Trying to prove I was serious. Only when it felt lighter did I dare to come—to confess, to ask for mercy. I had to qualify again—by feeling real, sufficient grief—before I could approach Him.
But over time, God let the light rise.
Through other books. Through my own Bible reading. Through conversations with my husband, who came from a different church background.
Little by little, I began to see that He was not like I had feared.
One sacrifice. For all time. Confidence to enter.
I love reading Hebrews again. It gives me solid ground.
This week I noticed something small in Hebrews 8:1.
Most of my Bibles say: “who is seated at the right hand…”
But the Greek says: He has gone to sit.
Only my Telos Bible renders it beautifully: “He has gone to sit down.”
In Greek you can still feel the movement. And that makes it come alive to me. Not just a High Priest who happens to be there, already seated. But One who has gone to take His seat.
My translation simply says “sins.” But the Torah passages behind it speak specifically about sins committed in error... unintentional sins.
That startled me.
For “high-handed” rebellion, the Torah prescribes no sacrifice. There is no cultic remedy provided.
The rabbis recognized that distinction too. They speak in categories: unintentional sin, deliberate sin, defiant rebellion. And Yom Kippur is not treated as an unlimited ritual that erases everything indiscriminately.
The system itself had boundaries.
And now Hebrews feels deliberate. If the old structure had boundaries, the writer is building toward something. I can feel it.
—
In Hebrews 9:7 the Greek does not say “sins” (hamartiai). It says agnoēmata—sins committed in ignorance.
From my study in Hebrews: imagining how the letter was first heard.
I sit still while the letter is read. At first I am listening… and then, without noticing, I drift.
My husband has counted the journey: the ship, the road, the cost. “This year we will go up,” he said. I nodded, though we both know I will stay. The boy is too small.
And suddenly I am there in Jerusalem… in the courts, hearing the Levites lift the psalms, watching the smoke rise, standing among the women before the Name. It is not only sacrifice. It is belonging.
Then the reader’s voice pulls me back: “We have such a High Priest… seated at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.” Seated! Priests stand. They return again and again. But to sit… that means something is complete.
And I remember the Messiah’s words… that the hour is coming when worship would not be bound to Jerusalem alone. That the Father seeks worshipers.
I still long for Zion. I always will. But as I listen, something steadies inside me. If our Messiah is seated in the true dwelling, then the Presence of the Holy One is not fragile. It does not depend on whether I can make the journey this year.
Hebrews 6 and 7 used to feel like a drawer in my Bible I almost never opened.
Abraham. The oath. Psalm 110. Melchizedek. I knew it mattered. I just couldn’t see the picture. So I left it there.
Studying it together, I finally slid the drawer open. And suddenly it shone 📖✨
Melchizedek stands before Levi. Before Aaron. Before Sinai—before the whole covenant priesthood that I thought defined everything.
And Psalm 110 doesn’t gently suggest; it thunders an oath: “You are a priest forever.”
Not Aaronic.
Not inherited.
Sworn. 🔥
What I thought was a quiet side compartment turned out to be carrying gold. Ancient gold. Structural gold. The kind the first hearers would have recognized immediately.
I’m still a little stunned I almost left it closed.
When Hebrews keeps returning to Psalm 110, it’s not reaching for a prooftext. It’s listening. This psalm speaks about one figure, seated at God’s right hand as king, and named by God as priest.
Not from Aaron.
Not by lineage.
But by God’s own oath.
That’s the key 🔑
The writer of Hebrews isn’t adding something new. He is letting the psalm say what it already says: that the Messiah can be both king and priest, because God Himself appointed Him so.
I once heard: when the New Testament quotes the Old, it asks you to read the whole passage, not just the line. It opens a door back into the larger story.
So… when Hebrews quotes that line from Psalm 110 in chapter 5, I go back and read the whole psalm. It’s a simple habit I once picked up, and it has helped me more than I can say.
In Hebrews 4 the writer uses an unexpected word: “We have a great High Priest.” In Greek that word is μέγας (megas)—yes, where the word “mega” comes from.
That immediately shifts the picture. A regular high priest was limited: one day a year, one place, one brief moment behind the curtain. Important… but small in reach.
But megas says: this priesthood is not small, not temporary, not fragile. This High Priest has gone through the heavens and remains. His work doesn’t flicker on and off—it endures.
And then Hebrews does something beautiful. It doesn’t repeat the word “great.” It shows what mega means:
“We have a High Priest who is able to sympathize with our weaknesses.” His greatness is not distance, but nearness. Not power held above us, but strength that stays with us.
For a tired community under pressure, that one word mattered. You don’t just have a high priest—you have a mega one.
From my study in Hebrews; imagining how the letter was first heard
I keep listening as the letter is read aloud. It speaks of Moses, faithful within God’s house. And suddenly I am startled… this is not history, this is my life.
The wilderness comes back to me: the long road, fear learning to speak first.
Do not harden your hearts.
How easily unbelief breaks loose when the path runs through thorns and the wilderness does not end. Oh, this creeping... creeping unbelief, how quietly it comes. I do not want to test God. I want to follow Him.
My breath loosens.
Father in heaven,
free me from this unbelief.
I lift up my eyes.
Only the Messiah before me.
—
But speak to one another each day, as long as it is still called today, so that none of you may be hardened by the deceit of sin. (Hebrews 3:13)
“The One who has done the greatest thing of all for you, must be concerned about you in everything, and though the clouds are thick and you cannot see His face, you know He is there. 'Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face.' Now hold on to that. You say that you do not see His smile. I agree that these earth born clouds prevent my seeing Him, but He is there and He will never allow anything finally harmful to take place. Nothing can happen to you but what He allows, I do not care what it may be, some great disappointment, perhaps, or it may be an illness, it may be a tragedy of some sort, I do not know what it is, but you can be certain of this, that God permits that thing to happen to you because it is ultimately for your good. 'Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous; nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness...' (Hebrews 12. 11)." (Spiritual Depression Its Causes and Cure, 145)” ― Martyn Lloyd-JonesMartyn LLoyd Jones
* To behold is to look intensely — it's much more than a glance.
Have you been hurt and betrayed by someone close to you? A spouse, a close friend, someone in your church family you had confidence in? The pain of disappointment is suffocating and tears flow freely.
It helps me think how disappointed Jesus must have been when He asked His closest friends to watch and pray — repeatedly — and instead they slept. Or when a man He discipled betrayed Him for a few silver coins, or when Peter denied He was his disciple.
What did Jesus do? He loved. He forgave. He blessed.
These are the responses we can have to those who disappoint us. It will hurt. We may grieve over the lost trust, but in our pain, let us like Jesus, love, forgive, and pray for those who disappoint us. And remember, the same Jesus who was disappointed by those He loved most will never be a disappointment to us.
💔 The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit (Psalm 34:18).
Broken hearts think God is far away, when he is really most near to them; their eyes are holden so that they see not their best friend. Indeed, he is with them, and in them, but they know it not.” (Spurgeon)]
A bird with a broken wing, an animal with a broken leg, a woman with a broken heart, a man with a broken purpose in life – these seem to drop out of the main current of life into shadow. They go apart to suffer and droop. The busy rush of life goes on without them. But God draws nigh.” (Meyer)
Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrew 4)
