Adult Bible Study Online

Finding deeper meaning in life

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Lesson text: Hebrews 1:1-4, 8-12
By: Omar Eby
Email: ebyo@emu.edu

Jesus is superior to angels—“much superior to the angels” (1:4 NRSV)—declares the anonymous author of Hebrews. Worship angels? Paul warns his friends at Colossae: “Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you for the prize. Such a person goes into great detail about what he has seen, and his unspiritual mind puffs him up with idle notions” (2:18 NIV).

“Worship of angels was a religious, not a secular, distraction,” writes David M. Morrow to the teachers of this lesson. Worship of angels seems silly to Western minds. Would anyone in our church argue with this assertion: “Jesus is much superior to angels”? That ancient distraction is hardly ours.

But we have our own religious distractions. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, an egoist with a vitriolic twist to liberation theology, is a distraction from his parishioners’ agenda: a judgment against the USA’s preemptive military strikes; a call for medical equity; a recovery of humility among the world’s nations; etc. Here, religion distracts from a discussion of national policy. Wright’s religious verbal grenades are a distraction from the teachings of the Prince of Peace. Might not his return to a sound mind also be a religious distraction, unless “the Son as the radiance of God’s glory” (1:3) is the chief focus of worship and not the penitent grenadier?

Some find the TV fundamentalist preachers to be religious distractions. Are not the messages by John Hagee, James Dobson, and Pat Robertson examples of leaders who preach a North American Christianity that distracts from “Jesus is Lord”? Have they become angelic distractions whose words are cited as infallible truth? Can people who seek “finding deeper meaning in life” through the mindless embrace of religious celebrities still miss hearing what “God has spoken to us by his Son”?

We are not distracted from our worship of the “Son in his radiance” by cherubic or powerful angelic beings. But does our discussion of how to worship (whether by pipe organ, electric guitar, or a cappella voice) become a distraction from worship that is self-abandon and transcendent?

Editor's Note:
Today begins the summer quarter of the Adult Bible Study, “Images of Christ.” Reta Halteman Finger, Harrisonburg, Virginia, wrote the student lessons. David M. Morrow, Wenatchee, Washington, prepared the Adult Bible Study Teacher.

ABSOnline writer of this weekly online feature is Omar Eby, Harrisonburg, Virginia, retired Eastern Mennonite University English teacher. Omar, a graduate of EMU, holds graduate degrees from Syracuse University and the University of Virginia. He is author of several books of fiction, biography, and personal experience, some published by Herald Press. Omar has taught an intergenerational Sunday school class at Weavers Mennonite Church for more than 25 years.

Readers may respond to Omar by using his email address at the beginning of this writing. Readers also may contact the editor at horsch@mpn.net.

This message relates to the Adult Bible Study. For additional information on Adult Bible Study or Adult Bible Study Teacher, send email to info@mpn.net. To order either publication call Mennonite Publishing Network at 1 800 245-7894.