Useful Bible Studies > Hebrews Commentary > chapter 1
For Jesus and the first Christians, their Bible contained only the books that we now call the Old Testament. Like us, they taught that the Bible is the word of God. Many different people were its human authors. But they did not merely write down their own thoughts, like any other book. Instead, they wrote words that came from God himself (2 Peter 1:20-21).
That is why the first Christians described the authors of the Old Testament as ‘prophets’. A prophet is someone who speaks (or writes) God’s word. He declares God’s messages.
The first Christians even described people like David as prophets. We do not usually call David a prophet today. But Peter did (Acts 2:29-30). And Peter added that David had described future events (Acts 2:31). God showed David what would happen to Christ.
The author of the Book of Hebrews teaches that this is true about each Old Testament book. A book may seem to be about history, for example 2 Samuel. Or it may seem only to contain songs and prayers, like Psalms. It may seem to be about law, like Deuteronomy. Or it may seem to be about rules for ceremonies, like Leviticus. But the author of Hebrews shows how passages from these books are really about Jesus.
The Old Testament authors did not always know that they were writing about Jesus. But God’s Holy Spirit showed them what they should write. And that was how they could write these things.
Next part: God the Father and the Son (Hebrews 1:2)
Please use the links at the top of the page to find our other articles in this series. You can download all our articles if you go to the download page for our free 450 page course book.
© 2014, Keith Simons.