Exhortation
I was in a Bible study with Patrick yesterday and one of the passages we discussed was this one:
“But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.” - Hebrews 3:13-14 ESV
This is where I need to confess another one of my sins…I multitask. Even using the word “multitask”, in some ways, is trying to evoke some admirable quality to my fault. The bottom line is that when I’m in a group of people studying something, I want to read ahead. I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a small group with Patrick, but I’m sure he scans the room and, at least for me, if he sees me “multitasking”, he’ll call out a question to me. In this case, we were talking about the above passage and I was trying to read the study note in my Bible when I got nabbed. Patrick asked me what I thought the word “exhort” meant. My attention snapped back and I think I said something like “encourage.”
By the way, the note in my study Bible says “His counter to this danger is both to encourage personal commitment (take care) and to call on the church to walk together in mutual encouragement (exhort one another) ‘as long as it is called “today”’” (sorry for the multiple levels of quote marks but that happens when you have someone quoting a footnote that quotes a book of the Bible with a passage with an embedded quote).
In our group discussion, Patrick really emphasized how important it is for us to encourage one another. Suffice it to say, that there was a lot more to the discussion.
Fast forward to this morning (for me). I signed up for a Word of the day email because, well, I like to expand my vocabulary. My desire to broaden my vocabulary started in 3rd grade when I read a book called Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur Clark. It’s a sci-fi book but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that I thought the title was ren-dev-ous (phonetically) instead of rendezvous (it’s really hard to explain how I mispronounced the name of title and missed that that encounter was the focal part of the story). Anyway, I remember realizing the importance of understanding at least the context of the word and, when I didn’t know the word, it was worth my time looking up.
This morning, my word of the day was (you guessed it) “exhortation.”
ex·hor·ta·tion
noun
noun: exhortation; plural noun: exhortations
1. an address or communication emphatically urging someone to do something."no amount of exhortation had any effect"
I fired off a message to Patrick and his response was “that’s a strange definition”. Like the note in my study Bible, he emphasized the positive mutual encouragement intent of “exhortation” while the dictionary (Oxford Languages definition) emphasized the intensity of the urging without the positive aspects.
So, words and their meaning matter and they matter in context as well. I like how this source summarized Hebrews 3:13
This passage is a warning to Christian believers not to allow stubbornness, sin, or a lack of faith to rob them of God's promised blessings. The nation of Israel suffered when it failed to "hold fast," and spent forty years wandering in the desert. So too can a Christian suffer when they lack trust and faith in God.
One key to avoiding this pitfall is the influence of other Christian believers. One of the great benefits of healthy church relationships is loving correction. Having a meaningful, personal relationship with other Christians means "watching each other's back." This means warning our brothers and sisters in Christ when they are being pulled away into sin and helping them to resist temptation and error. The author's urgency is highlighted by using the phrase "as long as it is called 'today.'" This, in more modern terms, could be stated as "do it while you still can."
If you’ve read this far with me, I want to you to know that I love each and everyone of you and I believe the world is a better place because you are in it.
