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The theme of the book of Hebrews is the superiority of Christ over Moses and the old law. In our text, the Hebrew writer described the privileged position we have in Christ. This is more than just fellowship with God and our fellow Christians. It includes the angels and “the righteous.” But what did he mean by “the spirits of the righteous made perfect”? Who were they? What does perfection mean? We will consider these in our lesson.

In every area of life, there are certain things that must be done first before something else can be done. It does not mean that the second action is unimportant, but the sequence is. Sometimes this is of necessity (Proverbs 24:27); other times it is of divine decree (Mark 16:16). Matthew records a few times in which Jesus taught that something must be done first before something else could be done. Let us notice what Jesus said and see what lessons we can learn.

It is easy to allow ourselves to worry about various things in life. Some people become so consumed by anxiety that they find it difficult to function. In our text, Jesus gave eight reasons why we should not worry.

One of the notable points of disagreement we have with the religious world is over baptism. We teach that baptism is necessary for salvation, yet many religious people reject this. Our text is often used to argue that baptism is NOT necessary, but that was not Paul’s point. We need to understand what this verse means and what the Scriptures teach about baptism. Hopefully, this study will help us defend the truth and lead others to understand the gospel.

When Paul got to Rome, he spoke to the Jews who lived there about Jesus. Some would not believe, even though the truth should have been obvious to them. Why did they miss the truth? Their hearts were dull, their ears could not hear, and their eyes were closed (v. 27). Sadly, the same thing happens today. People miss some obvious truths in God’s word. Why do they miss the obvious? There are different reasons, and we will consider four reasons in this lesson.

It is natural for us to prefer that others remember us favorably. But what would we want God to remember about us? Four times, Nehemiah asked God to remember him for something. What were they? We are going to see what we can learn from the four things Nehemiah wanted to be remembered for.

Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem to help rebuild the wall around the city. But he and the people faced opposition. In our text, we learn how they handled it. Today, we face opposition from the world. We are involved in a spiritual battle for the cause of Christ. How do we handle it? We can learn from what Nehemiah and the people did as they built the wall.

The New Testament describes fellowship as something to be valued, built, and maintained. The “right hand of fellowship” was a symbol of acceptance and approval. But we cannot accept and approve of everyone. There are limts to fellowship. We will discuss them in this lesson.

When Jesus came to earth, many did not understand who He was or why He was here. Many also do not understand Jesus today. Several misunderstandings about Jesus are found in John 7. Most of them were partially right, but missed the whole truth about Jesus. We are going to consider how people misunderstood Jesus in John 7 and see what we can learn from it.

The church in Laodicea was condemned for being “lukewarm.” They thought they were in “need of nothing,” but they were not spiritually healthy. They needed to “be zealous and repent.” At times, we may be like the Laodiceans – not what we should be, but not completely unfaithful either; not zealously serving God, but not willfully rejecting Him; instead, we are in a state of spiritual mediocrity. What does this look like? How can we change it?