Foundation:
The Essentials of Our Faith
Based on Hebrews 6.1-3, this Bible study explores and explains the topics described by the Biblical author as “elementary” and “foundational.” These topics are just as fundamental to our faith today as they were in the first century.
Introduction
I had long wanted to create a Bible study based on Hebrews 6.1-3. It seems a brilliant, and exceptionally useful but underutilized passage, so with that as my premise, I set off to investigate.
My primary source text is the Bible, and what I’ve emerged with, I think, is a is Biblically based and supported theological framework for the New Life that will hopefully help believers everywhere draw nearer to the Father through the Son.
At a minimum, this Bible study serves as a preface to a deeper study into the book of Hebrews, famously one of the most difficult New Testament epistles to understand. And so, with Jesus Christ as our cornerstone, we endeavor to lay a foundation upon which our spiritual maturity can be anchored.
The Simplicity of the Gospel
This theological framework is not complex. It need not be. God is not impressed with our intellect, and it is important that we remember the Gospel is easy enough that children understand it. It serves no useful purpose to make it more difficult than it needs to be.
Before you get concerned that I’m preaching an easy gospel, I want to remind you that the living of your faith will not be easy. Nobody escapes this world unscathed.
I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world.”
John 16.33
When the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonders that He did and the children shouting in the temple complex, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant and said to Him, “Do You hear what these children are saying?” “Yes,” Jesus told them. “Have you never read: You have prepared praise from the mouths of children and nursing infants?”
Matthew 21:15–16
Our blueprints
The layout of this Bible study follows that of a general building plan. equating the construction of a building with our spiritual life.
As is true of any construction project, location matters. It is important that we build upon bedrock. In the context of this study, that bedrock is the Bible. There are ideas and concepts in the pages that follow that may well be disruptive to established beliefs, stay with it. The intention is not to ruffle feathers, but rather to use the Bible to establish a shared and solid foundation that we can trust, based on the most trustworthy book in history, the Bible.
With so many potential building sites to choose from, it can all too easy to lay your foundation on non-essential issues. This book is an effort to locate our foundations in a similar manner to how those first century followers of “the Way” were building their foundations of faith. Those first several generations of Christians were faithful enough that they catapulted Christianity to the forefront of world religion. Their faith was so rooted on the solid rock that many would die a martyr’s death.
The order presented by the author gives us an idea as to the importance of each topic, so we’ll begin at the beginning with repentance from dead works and work our way through the list.
- Dead Works
- Faith In God
- Ritual Washings
- Laying on of Hands
- Resurrection of the Dead
- Eternal Judgment
“Therefore, everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them will be like a sensible man who built his house on the rock. The rain fell, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and pounded that house. Yet it didn’t collapse, because its foundation was on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of Mine and doesn’t act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, the rivers rose, the winds blew and pounded that house, and it collapsed. And its collapse was great!”
Matthew 7:24–27