Journal: Journal of Ministry and Theology
Volume: JMAT 04:2 (Fall 2000)
Article: The Intentional Structure of Hebrews
Author: Rodney J. Decker

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JMAT 4:2 (Fall 00) p. 80

The Intentional Structure
of Hebrews

Rodney J. Decker

Associate Professor Of New Testament
Baptist Bible Seminary, Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania

This article examines the intentional structure of Hebrews. What is the author of Hebrews trying to accomplish and how does he do it? The issues of structure and genre contribute both to determining the author’s purpose and to understanding how he implemented that purpose. The article will address each of these aspects. In doing so, it will assume the tentative conclusions suggested in the first article in this series.1

Contemporary Views Of The Purpose Of Hebrews

There will be a clearly defined purpose for any literary work that is worthy of that designation. A proper understanding of that piece of literature necessitates the correct identification of the writer’s purpose.2 This section will summarize the views of selected

JMAT 4:2 (Fall 00) p. 81

twentieth-century scholars in regard to the theme and purpose of Hebrews. There is variety in how these writers discuss the purpose of Hebrews. Some do so in an abstract manner based solely on the book’s teaching. Others make a very deliberate attempt to place a discussion of purpose within the framework of the historical setting that occasioned the letter. Because of this and other differences there will be a certain amount of unevenness in the summaries that follow.

Nairne, 1915

Nairne views the recipients of Hebrews to be a group of Jews “in peril of losing their Christian faith, partly because of pressure from without, partly, however, because the faith they had was so imperfect that it held them by a feeble tie.” They had never thoroughly embraced Christianity and perhaps now wondered if there was any real difference between their new faith and the old. These recipients were a small, exclusive group of hellenistic scholars (not a church) who found themselves in a tremendous crisis. The crisis, Nairne suggests, is the outbreak of the Jewish War in A.D. 68. These men were being pressured into returning to Judaism to make common cause against Rome. Their imperfect understanding of Christianity is the specific occasion for the writing of Hebrews. It is an attempt to redress their deficiencies in the knowledge of the faith and to encourage them to make a definite break with Judaism. The primary means the writer uses to accomplish this goal is to teach them of the priesthood of Jesus. “These imperfect Churchmen need a new and special instruction. This Epistle provides it. ‘Think of our Lord as priest, and I will make you understand,’ say...

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