Tag Archives: Paul

Hebrews 12:1: Two Ways to Improve Your Race

“Therefore let us also, who have all these witnesses surrounding us like clouds, cast from us all encumbrances and sin which is always prepared for us; and let us run with patience the race that is appointed for us.” (Hebrews 12:1 AENT pg.424).

Notice here how we are encouraged to remove ourselves not only from sin, but ALSO from “encumbrances.”

Encumbrances must be somehow different from “sin:”  Why else would the writer distinguish the two using the separator “and?”  Therefore, we can improve our Race by removing (1) sin and (2) encumbrances from our lives.  Here we will focus on #2. However, the NT definition of sin may surprise you: Check here and here.

Back to “encumbrances:”  Are there things in your life which slow down your race, even if they’re not firmly in the “sin” category? Take a moment and prayerfully consider this.

Chocolate may not qualify as sin, but it could be an encumbrance; caffeine and alcohol are arguably in this same category.  With what reading material do we fill our minds?  Which TV shows, movies, music do we allow past the gates of our eyes & ears?  Which relationships hinder our walk, and which friends exhort us higher?  Our expenditures of time, money, and resources: Are these an encumbrance to our race?  It is up to the individual to decide for themselves.

Consider the witnesses who surround us who are mentioned in the previous chapter:  Hebrews 11.  Consider the shortness of this present life compared with eternity.  Are we really running our race with patience, efficiency, with a goal to actually win?

Don’t you know that they who run in the stadium, run all of them; yet it is one who gains the victory.  You run so as to attain.  25. For everyone who engages in the contest restrains his desires in everything. And they run to obtain a crown that perishes; but we, one that does not perish.  26. I therefore so run, not as for something unknown; and I so struggle, not as struggling against air;  27. But I subdue my body, and reduce it to servitude; lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should despise myself.  (1 Corinthians 9:24-27 AENT pg.514.)

May the Messiah Y’shua bless your race.

Teddy,
Yerubilee

Do you find the translation of these NT verses to be attractive?  They have been translated into English directly from the Aramaic–the language spoken by Messiah Y’shua.  More info at the link below:

P.S.  The Aramaic-speaking Syrian church has always known without a doubt that the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews was Paul the Apostle.  This fact was only debated in the West, never in the East.

Philippians 3:20-21 from Aramaic Source Texts

But our concern is with heaven and from thence we expect our Life Giver, our Master, Y’shua the Mashiyach who will change the body of our abasement, that it may have the likeness of the body of his glory according to his great power, whereby all things are made subject to him. (Phil. 3:20-21 AENT)

This is a powerful, encouraging Word.  Our concern is not with earthly things, but Kingdom things and Kingdom issues.  Our earthly physical body will be changed in the end – we will be transformed – puts things into perspective, doesn’t it?  This is the GREAT HOPE.
Backing up a little to verse 17, let’s get more of the context:

Be like me, my Brothers; and contemplate them who walk after the pattern you have seen in us.  For there are many who walk otherwise; of whom I have often told you, and I now tell you with weeping that they are adversaries of the stake of the Mashiyach;  whose end is destruction; whose Elohim is their belly and their glory their shame; whose thoughts are on things of the earth. (Phil. 3:17-19 AENT)

Is your Elohim your belly?  Or rather, is your Elohim the King of kings and the Master of masters?  

Your Elohim, personally speaking, is whom you serve; it is whom you strive to please.  

If your number one priority is your own comfort, your own provision for yourself, even your own diet preferences (“I know the Word says don’t eat such-and-such, but I’ll pick my theologies according to how I want to live; all that old stuff is done away with, right?”) then the answer for you is clear.  If your choices are made according to the ways of the world (“looking out for Number One = mySELF”), then your Elohim is your own belly.  
If, on the other hand, you care to “be like Paul,” and to “contemplate them who walk after the pattern you have seen in us,” then you will not serve your belly; and you will not be “adversaries of the stake (cross) of the Mashiyach.”  
Paul said “be like me” in these other places as well:

 

1 Cor 4:16  (and my ways v.17) 
1 Cor 11:1,2
1Thess 4:1-7, 11
2 Tim 3:10
So, what is Paul’s “way of life?”
For direct evidence, check out these passages:
Acts 20:16
Acts 21:20-24
Acts 24:14
Acts 25:8
Acts 26:20
Blessings to you, in the name of Y’shua the Messiah.

 Aramaic English New Testament:

“…the NT Time Bomb!” – Rev. Frederick Brown Harris, Chaplain to the US Senate.

A new translation from qualified Eastern manuscripts

With amazing insights!

 

Available at:

http://JTOD.org/AENT.cfm

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