The big picture
The Book of Hebrews explains priesthood by beginning with ordinary human priests: they are taken from among people, appointed for people, able to deal compassionately with weakness because they share it, and unable to appoint themselves. Christ fulfills that structure while also breaking its limitation. He does not seize priestly honor, but receives appointment through God's word. His Sonship does not make obedience painless or suffering imaginary. "Strong crying and tears" belong to the description, and his completion as the source of eternal salvation comes through the path actually endured. Just as the argument reaches Melchisedec, however, the letter stops and looks at its hearers. The problem is not simply that the subject is difficult. They have become dull of hearing. Enough time has passed for maturity, but the class has regressed to milk. The chapter therefore makes priestly depth and human responsiveness part of the same issue. Difficult teaching requires trained hearing, not permanent retreat to the foundation.
Central truth
Jesus is the sinless high priest appointed by God whose obedient suffering equips him to give eternal salvation and receive needy people at the throne of grace. Hebrews confronts stalled maturity and ruinous rejection while grounding persevering hope in God's unchangeable promise and Jesus' entrance beyond the veil as forerunner.
The study notes have a page of their own
The movement by movement analysis, the words to trace, the verse by verse notes and where readers differ are written for someone studying alone. They are on the Deep Personal Reflections page for this chapter. This page is the lesson.
A chapter-specific teaching brief
These anchors come from this chapter itself. They help a teacher use the Level 1 overview, the Level 2 study, and the Scripture text as one lesson.
Open with the chapter’s first image
Hebrews 5:1: “For every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins:”
Slow down at the turning point
Hebrews 5:14: “But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.”
Keep this word trail visible
priest, high, strong, both, meat, Melchisedec
What to explain, in order
Teach the passage in this order. Each step names the verses it rests on, so every point can be shown in the text before it is applied.
Hebrews 4:14–5:10
Hebrews 4:14-15
A great high priest who feels with us
Start with “Seeing then”, which gathers all of chapters 1 to 4: the Son over the angels, the brother in flesh and blood, the voice we must not harden ourselves against. Explain that he “is passed into the heavens”, as the high priest passed through the curtain into the most holy place. Then read 4:15 slowly and explain the double negative: we do not have a priest who cannot feel with us. Explain “infirmities” as weaknesses of every kind. Stress “yet without sin” before you move on, because the class will need it when they meet 5:3 and 5:8.
Hebrews 4:16
The throne of grace
Give this one verse its own step. Explain that a throne is where judgement is given, and that this throne is named for grace. Explain “boldly” as freedom to speak, the confidence of someone who is welcome, not the casual manner of someone who owes nothing. Then name the two things received: mercy for what has gone wrong, and grace for what is coming. Explain “in time of need” as help that arrives when it is needed. Teach this here, before the priest's credentials, because the invitation is the reason the credentials matter.
Hebrews 5:1-4
What every high priest was
Lay out the job description of the Levitical high priest from 5:1: taken from among men, appointed on their behalf, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. Read Leviticus 16:6 so the class sees that Aaron first offered for his own sins. Explain “compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way” as gentleness toward those who sin through ignorance and wandering. Then read Numbers 16 to 17 briefly, where Korah claimed the priesthood and Aaron's rod budded, as background for 5:4. A priest must be called by God.
Hebrews 5:5-6
Called by God, after the order of Melchisedec
Show the pattern of 5:4 fulfilled in Christ: he did not take the honour; God gave it. Read the two psalm verses side by side, Psalm 2:7 and Psalm 110:4. The first names him Son and the second names him priest for ever, and both are spoken by God. Introduce Melchisedec only by name and by Genesis 14:18-20, and tell the class Hebrews will come back to him in chapter 7. Explain “for ever” now, because it is the word that sets this priest apart from every priest who died.
Hebrews 5:7-8
Strong crying and tears
This is the most moving part of the passage, so slow down. Read 5:7 and then Luke 22:41-44 and Mark 14:32-36, while saying that Hebrews does not name Gethsemane and the verse may describe more than one prayer. Explain “heard in that he feared” as heard because of his reverent submission. Then 5:8: the Son learned obedience through suffering. Make the distinction carefully: he did not learn to stop disobeying; he learned in his own experience what it costs to obey God to the end. Let the class feel how human this is.
Hebrews 5:9-10
The author of eternal salvation
Explain “being made perfect” as being brought to completion for his task, the same sense as 2:10. Then show the result: “the author of eternal salvation”, meaning its source and cause. Stress “eternal”, which contrasts with the yearly sacrifices of the Day of Atonement. Read “unto all them that obey him” and connect it with 3:18-19, where unbelief and disobedience describe the same refusal. End with 5:10 and tell the class that Hebrews is about to interrupt itself in 5:11, because its hearers were not ready for what comes next.
Hebrews 5:11–6:20
Hebrews 5:11-14
Why Hebrews stops to scold
Explain that Hebrews interrupts its own teaching about Melchisedec because the hearers have become “dull of hearing”, which means sluggish, slow to take in. Show the irony: by now they should be teachers. Explain milk and “strong meat” as the first lessons and the fuller teaching that follows. Then stress 5:14: maturity comes “by reason of use”, from practice in telling good from evil. Teach this first so the class understands that the warning in chapter 6 is addressed to people who have stopped growing, and that the cure is exercise, not more information alone.
Hebrews 6:1-3
Build on the foundation
Read the six foundation stones aloud and explain each briefly. The phrase “repentance from dead works” means turning from works that lead to death; “baptisms” is plural and probably covers washings of more than one kind; laying on of hands was used for blessing, healing and commissioning. Then explain “not laying again the foundation” with the picture of a builder who pours the same footings every year and never raises a wall. Close the step on 6:3, “if God permit”, which reminds the class that growth is God's gift as well as their task.
Hebrews 6:4-6
The warning, read exactly
Read the verses slowly without commenting, then list the five privileges and the three statements: they fall away, renewal to repentance is impossible, and they crucify the Son afresh. Then set out the main readings fairly. Some read these as true believers who can fall away and be lost. Some read them as people who shared deeply in the church's life without saving faith. Some read the warning as a real danger God uses to keep his people from it. Some stress the present tense, impossible while they go on crucifying him. Do not settle it for the class; ask what each reading must explain.
Hebrews 6:7-8
The field that drinks the rain
Explain the farming picture from Deuteronomy 11:11 and Genesis 3:17-18, where thorns and briers belong to the curse. The land drinks in rain that “cometh oft upon it”, which matches the repeated tasting of 6:4-5. One field gives a crop and receives blessing; the other gives thorns and is “nigh unto cursing”, near to it, with burning as its end. Keep the image tied to its purpose: Hebrews is warning the hearers about themselves, not handing them a tool for judging one another.
Hebrews 6:9-12
Beloved, we are persuaded better things
Read 6:9 with warmth, because the tone changes. The only time Hebrews calls its hearers “beloved” is here, straight after the hardest warning. Show why: the writer has seen their love in serving the saints, and God has not forgotten it. Then point to “slothful” in 6:12, which is the same Greek word as “dull” in 5:11. The cure for sluggishness is diligence and imitation of those “who through faith and patience inherit the promises”. Teach this as part of the warning, not an afterthought; it is how Hebrews means the warning to be heard.
Hebrews 6:13-20
The oath and the anchor
Read Genesis 22:16-18 first, where God swears by himself to Abraham. Explain that people swear by something greater to end a dispute, and God had nothing greater, so he swore by himself. The “two immutable things” are God's promise and God's oath. Then describe a ship's anchor: it holds because it grips something fixed out of sight. The anchor of hope is fastened “within the veil”, where Jesus has gone ahead as “forerunner”. End on Melchisedec in 6:20, since Hebrews now returns to the teaching it paused at 5:10.
Where learners get stuck
The misreadings this passage tends to produce, and how to answer each from the text.
Hebrews 4:14–5:10
“Jesus never sinned, so he cannot really understand what I go through.”
Hebrews says he is not a priest who “cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities” (4:15). He “was in all points tempted like as we are”. Resisting temptation to the end means feeling its full pull, which those who give in early never do. His prayers “with strong crying and tears” (5:7) show a man under real pressure. Sinlessness makes his help trustworthy, not distant.
“Coming boldly means I can approach God casually, as if he owes me.”
The boldness of 4:16 rests on the high priest, not on us, and we come “that we may obtain mercy”, which means we come as people who need it. The throne is still a throne, and the same chapter says all things are “naked and opened” before him (4:13). Boldness is the freedom of a welcomed child. It is not carelessness, and it is not a claim of rights.
“Jesus' prayer in 5:7 was not answered, because he still died.”
Hebrews says plainly that he “was heard” (5:7). He prayed to the one “able to save him from death”, and God brought him “again from the dead” (13:20). His prayer in the Gospels also included “nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt” (Mark 14:36). Being heard did not mean being spared suffering; it meant being brought through it. That is a pattern for believers whose prayers are answered in ways they did not expect.
“If Jesus learned obedience, he must have been disobedient first.”
Hebrews rules this out in 4:15 and again in 7:26, where he is “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners”. The verb in 5:8 is about experience: he learned obedience “by the things which he suffered”. A person can know what obedience is and still learn it in a new way by obeying when it costs everything. The Son had always done the Father's will; in his human life he did it through pain to death.
Hebrews 5:11–6:20
“I have sinned badly since I became a Christian, so Hebrews 6 says I can never come back.”
Hebrews 6:6 describes people who “fall away” and “crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame”, a public and continuing rejection of Christ. Whatever reading a tradition holds, this is not a description of a believer who sins, grieves and wants to return. The same letter invites the struggling to “come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy” (4:16). Teachers across traditions have noted that the desire to repent is not the hardness the passage describes.
“Hebrews 6 settles the debate: it proves that real believers can lose salvation,” or “it proves those people were never saved.”
Both statements claim more than the passage settles on its own. Christians in different traditions have read 6:4-6 as describing genuine believers, as describing participants who never truly believed, or as a real warning God uses to keep his people. Each reading has to explain the strong words of 6:4-5 and the confidence of 6:9. Present them fairly with their verses, and let the text's two halves, the warning and the encouragement, both stand.
“Leaving the first principles means we can move past basics like repentance and faith.”
The command is “not laying again the foundation” (6:1), which assumes the foundation stays where it is. A building does not leave its foundation; it stands on it. Repentance, faith, resurrection and judgement remain the base for everything built afterward. What Hebrews rebukes is a church that keeps pouring footings and never builds, so that people who should be teachers still need to be taught the beginning (5:12).
“My hope is only as strong as my feelings of confidence.”
Hebrews grounds hope outside the believer. God “confirmed it by an oath” so that “by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation” (6:17-18). The anchor is fixed “within the veil”, where Jesus has entered (6:19-20). Feelings rise and fall, but the anchor holds because of where it is fastened. The call to diligence in 6:11 is a call to keep holding the hope, not to manufacture it.
Learning objectives
- Identify the response commanded in Hebrews 4:14-16.
- Compare ordinary priestly weakness with Jesus' sinless sympathy.
- Explain why priestly appointment cannot be self-assumed.
- Trace the two scriptural declarations in Hebrews 5:5-6.
- Explain learned obedience without implying earlier disobedience.
- Connect Jesus' suffering with his saving priestly work.
- Identify the problem behind the milk comparison.
- Distinguish building on foundations from discarding them.
- Describe the severe warning in Hebrews 6:4-6.
- Explain the contrasting field outcomes in 6:7-8.
- Connect assurance with the encouragement in 6:9-12.
- Locate hope's anchor in God's oath and Jesus' entrance.
Teacher preparation
- Read Hebrews 4:12-16 together; prepare to move from complete exposure before God to permission to approach him.
- Read Leviticus 16:6 and Psalm 110:4; distinguish a priest's sacrifice for himself from Jesus' sinlessness.
- Gloss 'compassed with infirmity' in 5:2 as surrounded by weakness; explain 'profession' in 4:14 as confessed allegiance.
- Prepare the distinction between learning obedience by experience and correcting sinful disobedience in 5:8-9.
- Read Luke 22:41-44 as a related prayer account; do not identify 5:7 with one named event as though Hebrews names it.
- Read Hebrews 5:11-6:20 without stopping after 6:6; prepare warning and encouragement as one movement.
- Gloss 'strong meat' as solid food, 'perfection' in 6:1 as maturity, and 'immutable' in 6:18 as unchangeable.
- Prepare a comparison of major readings of 6:4-6: genuine apostasy, exposed but unconverted participants, and a hypothetical warning; label them as interpretations.
- Read Genesis 22:15-18 for God's oath to Abraham; trace the promise and oath in Hebrews 6:13-18.
- Prepare milk, field, and anchor word cards; plan no public diagnoses of anyone's salvation or spiritual maturity.
Evidence and interpretation checks
Explicit
Establish from Hebrews 4:15-16 that Jesus is tempted without sin and that mercy and timely help are offered at the throne of grace. Establish from Hebrews 6:4-6 the participants' named privileges and the stated impossibility of renewal after the described falling away; do not quietly weaken the language.
Scripture-supported
Compare Leviticus 16:6 with Hebrews 5:3 and 4:15; distinguish ordinary priests' need for personal atonement from the sinless priest. Compare Genesis 22:16-18 with Hebrews 6:13-18; assurance rests on God's promise and oath, not the reader's ability to manufacture confidence.
Strong inference
Infer from Hebrews 5:7-9 that being heard does not require being spared the obedient suffering through which Jesus completes his saving vocation. Infer from Hebrews 5:14 and 6:10-12 that mature discernment involves practiced obedience, love, and patient endurance rather than merely advanced vocabulary.
Possible or traditional reading
Present Gethsemane as a possible setting behind Hebrews 5:7, using Luke 22:41-44; acknowledge that Hebrews does not name the garden or one prayer. Set the genuine-apostasy, exposed-participant, and hypothetical readings of Hebrews 6:4-6 alongside the wording; identify what each must explain without declaring the debate settled.
Limit
Do not make Hebrews 5:8 mean Jesus first resisted God, or 4:15 mean he experienced every individual's exact circumstances. Do not equate every lapse, unwanted thought, or anxious question with Hebrews 6:6's repudiation; 6:9-12 explicitly continues to encourage the hearers.
Discussion with answer guidance
1. Why does Hebrews 4:16 invite approach immediately after describing Jesus as sinless?
What a good answer contains
Because his sinlessness is not distance but strength. He “was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (4:15), and so “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace” (4:16). The confidence rests on him, not on the visitor's record, and what we come for is “mercy” and “grace to help in time of need”. A good answer notices that people come needing mercy, which assumes they have failed. A weak answer makes boldness depend on our own performance.
Show teacher guidance
Tie confidence to a sympathetic high priest, not to the visitor's flawless performance; retain the need for mercy.
2. What makes the priest of 5:1-3 compassionate, and what makes him unlike Jesus?
What a good answer contains
He is compassionate because he is weak himself: he “can have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way; for that he himself also is compassed with infirmity” (5:2). That same weakness means he must “offer for sins” for himself as well as the people (5:3). Jesus shares the testing but not the sin (4:15), so he needs no offering for himself. A strong answer names both the likeness and the difference. A weak answer makes Jesus just like Aaron.
Show teacher guidance
Identify shared weakness and sacrifices for his own sins; distinguish that from Jesus' temptation without sin in 4:15.
3. What do Aaron in 5:4 and the declarations in 5:5-6 establish about appointment?
What a good answer contains
That no one appoints himself: “no man taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron” (5:4). Christ too “glorified not himself to be made an high priest” (5:5); God declared him Son with Psalm 2:7 and priest with Psalm 110:4, “Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec” (5:6). A good answer sees that the priest's authority comes from God's word. A weak answer turns the passage into a discussion of personal ambition only.
Show teacher guidance
Expect God's call rather than personal ambition; the priest does not print his own credentials.
4. How can the prayer in 5:7 be heard when verses 8-9 still speak of suffering?
What a good answer contains
Because being heard is not the same as being spared. Jesus “offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared” (5:7). Yet he still suffered and died, and verse 8 speaks of “the things which he suffered”. A good answer notes that God's answer came through death, in resurrection and exaltation (13:20), while leaving room for how Hebrews means it. A weak answer concludes that the prayer failed.
Show teacher guidance
Reject the equation of answered prayer with avoided pain; explain obedience completed through suffering while leaving the precise answer's form open.
5. What does Jesus learn in 5:8 if 4:15 says he is without sin?
What a good answer contains
He learned obedience by doing it under cost. “Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered” (5:8). He did not move from disobedience to obedience, since 4:15 says he was without sin. He learned what obedience is by carrying it through suffering to the end. A good answer holds both verses and says that knowing about obedience and obeying through pain are different. A weak answer drops either 5:8 or 4:15 to make the tension go away.
Show teacher guidance
Distinguish undergoing obedience's cost from moving from disobedience to obedience; do not resolve the tension by ignoring either verse.
6. How does 'eternal salvation' in 5:9 extend beyond momentary relief?
What a good answer contains
It is salvation that does not wear off. “And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him” (5:9). Jesus is its author or source, and it lasts because his priesthood lasts “for ever” (5:6). The phrase “them that obey him” describes those who respond to him in trust, as 3:18-19 joins disobedience to unbelief. A good answer keeps Jesus as the source. A weak answer either drops obedience or makes it the price.
Show teacher guidance
Connect the lasting saving result to the Son's completed priestly work and the stated response of obedience.
7. Why is milk a rebuke in Hebrews 5:12 when everyone begins by needing it?
What a good answer contains
Because of the time that has passed. “For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God” (5:12). Milk is right for a babe; the rebuke is that grown believers still need it. The mature are those who “by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil” (5:14). A good answer names stalled growth, through lack of practice. A weak answer looks down on beginners.
Show teacher guidance
Point to elapsed time and the expectation of teaching; the problem is arrested development, not contempt for beginners.
8. What should remain in place when learners move beyond the foundation in 6:1-3?
What a good answer contains
The foundation itself stays. Hebrews lists it: “repentance from dead works”, “faith toward God”, the doctrine of baptisms, laying on of hands, “resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment” (6:1-2). The command is “not laying again the foundation”, which means not pouring it again, as a builder who keeps starting over. A strong answer says growth builds on these truths and never discards them. A weak answer treats the basics as childish things to leave behind.
Show teacher guidance
Identify the listed foundational teachings; leaving foundation work does not mean demolishing the foundation.
9. Which privileges make the falling-away warning in 6:4-6 so severe?
What a good answer contains
Hebrews names five: those “who were once enlightened”, who “have tasted of the heavenly gift”, who “were made partakers of the Holy Ghost”, who “have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come” (6:4-5). The weight of the warning comes from how much they have received. A good answer lists these from the text before any discussion of what they mean. A weak answer jumps straight to a theological position and skips the words.
Show teacher guidance
Name enlightenment, tasting, and participation from the text before discussing competing explanations of the participants' spiritual condition.
10. What receives rain in 6:7-8, and what determines the contrasting outcomes?
What a good answer contains
The same rain falls on both pieces of ground. One “bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed” and receives blessing; the other “beareth thorns and briers” and is “nigh unto cursing” (6:7-8). What differs is what grows, not what was given. A good answer connects this with 6:4-6: the people had received much, and the question is what came of it. A weak answer turns the field into a way of sorting other members of the class.
Show teacher guidance
Attend to cultivated growth versus thorns; do not turn the field into an elaborate scheme for identifying classmates.
11. Why call the hearers 'beloved' and remember their service in 6:9-12?
What a good answer contains
Because the warning is meant to rescue, not to condemn. “But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak” (6:9). Hebrews remembers their “work and labour of love” in ministering to the saints (6:10) and urges “the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end” (6:11). A good answer sees the warning and the encouragement as one pastoral act. A weak answer treats 6:9 as an apology for being too harsh.
Show teacher guidance
Locate confidence, remembered love, and continuing diligence; encouragement belongs to the argument, not an apology for it.
12. Where does the anchor enter in 6:19-20, and who has already gone there?
What a good answer contains
The anchor enters “into that within the veil”, the most holy place, “Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus” (6:19-20). An anchor holds a ship because it is fixed somewhere the ship is not. A good answer says our hope is held by where Jesus is, not by how hopeful we feel. Hebrews adds that God gave both a promise and an oath, “two immutable things” (6:18). A weak answer reduces hope to optimism or positive thinking.
Show teacher guidance
Identify the place within the veil and Jesus the forerunner; hope is secured by his entrance, not by optimism.
Responsible application
Heart and habits
Ask the class to revise a fictional prayer that assumes a person must become presentable before seeking the mercy named in 4:16.
Relationships and community
Have groups write a compassionate response to a struggling learner without claiming that compassion makes wrongdoing harmless.
Authority received, not seized
Use 5:4-6 to assess a hypothetical leader who treats confidence and self-promotion as proof of divine appointment.
Assurance with an object
Ask the class to rewrite 'just be more hopeful' so that hope rests on the promise, oath, and forerunner in 6:17-20.
Session plans
Two timings of the same lesson. The shorter keeps the reading, the central discussion and one response; the longer gives the confusions and the application their own time.
Hebrews 4:14–5:10
45 minutes
Come to this throne
Read 4:14-16 twice. Take question one and confusions one and two.
Every high priest
Read 5:1-4 with Leviticus 16:6. Take questions two and three.
Son and priest
Read 5:5-6 beside Psalm 2:7 and Psalm 110:4. Name Melchisedec and say chapter 7 will return to him.
Do not hurry past the tears
Read 5:7-8 slowly. Take questions four and five, and confusions three and four.
Eternal salvation
Read 5:9-10 and take question six. Hand out the sheet, read the key verse together and pray at the throne of grace.
90 minutes
Who would you go to
Ask the group whom they would go to with a failure they were ashamed of, and why. Then read 4:14-15.
Tempted yet without sin
Take question one and confusion one. Read Matthew 4:1-11 to show what tempted in all points looked like.
The throne of grace
Read 4:16 alone. Explain boldly, mercy and grace. Take confusion two and leave a minute of silent prayer.
What the priesthood was
Read 5:1-4, Leviticus 16:6 and Numbers 17:1-10. Take questions two and three.
Son and priest for ever
Read 5:5-6 with Psalm 2:7, Psalm 110:4 and Genesis 14:18-20. Explain “for ever” as the word to watch.
Strong crying and tears
Read 5:7-8 with Luke 22:41-44. Take questions four and five and confusions three and four. Invite anyone to say how a hard answer to prayer has shaped them.
The source of eternal salvation
Read 5:9-10 and 3:18-19. Take question six and discuss obedience as the response of trust.
Handout and prayer
Read the key verse together and pray, giving each person time to bring one need to the throne of grace in silence.
Hebrews 5:11–6:20
45 minutes
Why stop the lesson
Read 5:11-14. Take question one and explain dull of hearing.
Footings that stay
Read 6:1-3. Take question two and confusion three, using a sketch of a foundation.
Face the warning
Read 6:4-8 slowly. Take questions three and four. Set out the readings in confusion two without choosing, and read confusion one aloud for anyone who is afraid.
Beloved
Read 6:9-12 and take question five. Point out that slothful in 6:12 is the same Greek word as dull in 5:11.
The anchor
Read Genesis 22:16-18 and Hebrews 6:13-20. Take question six and confusion four. Hand out the sheet, read the key verse and pray.
90 minutes
Stuck in the first lesson
Ask what happens to a student who repeats the first week of a course for years. Read 5:11-14 and take question one.
The six foundation stones
Read 6:1-3. Explain each item on the list. Take question two and confusion three.
The warning, read exactly
Read 6:4-6 twice. Take question three. Give groups one reading each from confusion two to present fairly, each explaining both 6:4-5 and 6:9.
Pastoral care
Read confusion one aloud and 4:16. Invite anyone who fears they have gone too far to speak with you afterwards.
Rain on two fields
Read 6:7-8 with Genesis 3:17-18. Take question four and keep the image aimed at ourselves.
Better things
Read 6:9-12. Take question five. Ask whose faith and patience the group could imitate, and name them.
Promise, oath and anchor
Read Genesis 22:15-18, then Hebrews 6:13-20. Take question six and confusion four. Draw an anchor with its line running behind a curtain.
Handout and prayer
Read the key verse together, point to the take-home line, and pray for steady hope for anyone who is afraid.
Adapting the lesson
Hebrews 4:14–5:10
Children
Use two word cards, mercy and help, and explain that mercy is forgiveness when we have done wrong and help is strength when something is hard. Tell them Jesus knows what it is to be tempted and was sad enough to cry when he prayed. Do not ask them to name their wrongs aloud; let them pray quietly.
Youth
Ask whether a perfect person could understand someone who keeps failing. Let them argue, then read 4:15 and show that resisting to the end means feeling temptation fully. Read 5:7 and talk honestly about prayers that seemed not to work. Keep the stress on coming boldly when they have messed up, not only when they feel good.
Adults
Spend time on the priestly background in Leviticus 16 and Numbers 16 to 17, and on the two psalms. Give real time to 5:7-8, the harder questions about answered prayer and learned obedience, and let people speak from experience. Ask what it would change to come boldly rather than staying away until they feel worthy.
One to one
Ask whether they find it easier to approach God when things are going well or when they have failed. Read 4:15-16 and pray it with them. If they are carrying an unanswered prayer, read 5:7 and talk about Jesus' own tears before saying anything about answers.
Hebrews 5:11–6:20
Children
Bring a small anchor or a picture of one and show how it holds a boat in a storm. Read 6:19 and say that Jesus has gone ahead to God and our hope is tied to him. Talk about growing up in faith like growing taller. Do not teach the warning of 6:4-6 to young children or ask them about falling away.
Youth
Compare a player who learns the rules but never practises with one who plays every week, and read 5:14. Many young people have heard frightening things about 6:4-6, so read it plainly, set out the readings, and read 6:9 straight after. Make sure anyone afraid knows they can talk with you.
Adults
Give the most time to 6:4-6 and the readings of it, and let different traditions in the room be heard with respect. Then ask the practical question of 5:12: who among them should be teaching by now, and what keeps them from it. Close on the oath and the anchor so no one leaves with the warning alone.
One to one
Ask whether this passage has ever frightened them. If it has, listen first, then read 6:9-10 and 4:16 and pray with them. If they are drifting, read 5:12-14 and talk about one practice that would exercise their faith. End by reading 6:19 together.
Song and video learning lab
A song or video may interpret, compress, or dramatize the text. Its value becomes clearer when its choices are compared with Scripture.
- Before the media: the exact passage and its central movement.
- During the media: the words, people, events, and emotions the artist emphasizes.
- After the media: what it clarifies, what it leaves out, and what belongs back in the biblical text.
Handout
One page for learners to take home. The print button prints this section alone.
Hebrews 4:14–5:10
The passage in brief
Jesus is our great high priest. He was tempted in every way we are, yet never sinned, so he understands us and can help us. Because of him we can come boldly to God's throne of grace to receive mercy and help. Every high priest in Israel was chosen by God, and Jesus did not choose himself either: God called him Son and priest for ever. In his life on earth Jesus prayed with loud cries and tears, learned obedience through suffering, and became the source of eternal salvation.
A verse to keep
Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.
Hebrews 4:16 · King James Version
Questions to take home
How is Jesus like us, and how is he different, according to 4:15?
What two things do we receive at the throne of grace in 4:16?
What did Jesus do in the days of his flesh, according to 5:7?
This week
Each night this week, bring one failure and one need to God in prayer, trusting Jesus as your high priest.
Hebrews 5:11–6:20
The passage in brief
Hebrews pauses to warn its hearers that they have stopped growing: they should be teaching others by now, but still need the first lessons. It calls them to build on the foundation of repentance and faith and grow up. Then it gives a solemn warning about those who have received much from God and turn away from Christ. Straight after, it calls the hearers beloved and expects better things of them. Our hope is sure because God promised and swore an oath, and Jesus has gone ahead of us into God's presence. That hope is an anchor for the soul.
A verse to keep
Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil;
Hebrews 6:19 · King James Version
Questions to take home
What does 5:14 say helps a believer grow mature?
What does Hebrews remember about the hearers in 6:10?
Where is the anchor of our hope fixed, according to 6:19-20?
This week
Choose one way to practise your faith this week, and thank God each day that your hope is anchored in Jesus.
Music and video connected to the passage
Related media appears when its Scripture reference overlaps this study. Music and video can illuminate a theme while the biblical text remains the foundation.
