“The principles involved may apply also to Gentiles, and used by Gentiles to begin to understand the significance of the Hebrew religion....I do not see how this can be a problem for you.”
Really? You wish away a significant passage in Hebrews as only applying to saved Jews (like Peter and Paul), and claim it doesn’t apply to imardmd1, Mr Rogers, or others...and you wonder why I have a problem with it?
“Let us go forward, then, to mature teaching and leave behind us the first lessons of the Christian message. We should not lay again the foundation of turning away from useless works and believing in God; 2 of the teaching about baptisms and the laying on of hands; of the resurrection of the dead and the eternal judgment. 3 Let us go forward! And this is what we will do, if God allows.
4 For how can those who abandon their faith be brought back to repent again? They were once in God’s light; they tasted heaven’s gift and received their share of the Holy Spirit; 5 they knew from experience that God’s word is good, and they had felt the powers of the coming age. 6 And then they abandoned their faith! It is impossible to bring them back to repent again, because they are again crucifying the Son of God and exposing him to public shame.
7 God blesses the soil which drinks in the rain that often falls on it and which grows plants that are useful to those for whom it is cultivated. 8 But if it grows thorns and weeds, it is worth nothing; it is in danger of being cursed by God and will be destroyed by fire.”
Nothing in there suggests it only applies to Jewish Christians. Does this passage, a few chapters later, only apply to Jewish Christians?
” 25 The Jewish high priest goes into the Most Holy Place every year with the blood of an animal. But Christ did not go in to offer himself many times, 26 for then he would have had to suffer many times ever since the creation of the world. Instead, now when all ages of time are nearing the end, he has appeared once and for all, to remove sin through the sacrifice of himself. 27 Everyone must die once, and after that be judged by God. 28 In the same manner Christ also was offered in sacrifice once to take away the sins of many. He will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are waiting for him.” - Hebrews 9
The book of Hebrews teaches about Jesus Christ to a Hebrew audience, but Jesus is not divided. He is not one Jesus to the Jews and a different Jesus to the Gentiles. He does not save Gentiles without regard for how they then live their lives but demand changed lives from Jews. One standard.
“Concerning election and predestination, we might use the analogy of a great ship on its way to heaven. The ship (the church) is chosen by God to be his very own vessel. Christ is the Captain and Pilot of this ship. All who desire to be a part of this elect ship and its Captain can do so through a living faith in Christ, by which they come on board the ship. As long as they are on the ship, in company with the ship’s Captain, they are among the elect. If they choose to abandon the ship and Captain, they cease to be part of the elect. Election is always only in union with the Captain and his ship. Predestination tells us about the ship’s destination and what God has prepared for those remaining on it. God invites everyone to come aboard the elect ship through faith in Jesus Christ.”
Your reply still does not displace who the audience of the book was when it was written. I have no idea why you continue to fight the facts. The writer of the epistle explains to Jews the significance of their OT training to understand NT doctrines. Most Gentiles at that time had no sense of what the Jewish religion was about, and doubtlessly little interest in exploring the details of a now-dead religion.
I fail to see how the last paragraph of your note has any bearing on this little debate. In my estimate at the time of the Rapture, all the visible earthly churches will remain on earth, have plenty of members remaining in them, and be functioning. In actuality, the only two places in Hebrews where the term "church" is used have no place in this irrelevant distracting citation. The first mention in Chapter 2 is a quotation from Psalm 22 and refers to Jewry, while the one in Chapter 12 is about His Church already established in Heaven, not a ship going to that destination. Hebrews is not about the Church or churches on earth. It is about the Jews and about how and why God chose them to prepare for their Messiah, the Great Shepherd, to fulfill the Law and to present Him to the world as Savior.
In the formation of early Christianity, the Gentiles educated in Greek philosophy were more interested in Platonizing the interpretation of the Bible than in explaining the meaning of the New Covenant to individuals raised in Jewish traditions.So the letter to the Hebrews written then is still of great value in reaching out to Jews today, not in dealing with local Gentile church problems.
But if you want to dig into it to understand the Jewish culture and religion before the time of Christ, well, sure, why not? Essentially though, your interests was not its primary purpose, eh?
For your information, I memorized the whole book, word for word, over a nine-year period, so I've got a pretty good idea of what its purpose was and what it was about.