General Editor’s Preface

PERHAPS NO ISSUE PERPLEXES the modern church more than why baby boomers don’t go to church. Even if you factor in the return of many such families when children arrive and parents decide to get them “churched,” the baby boomers qualify as the modern church’s lost generation.

A popular way to analyze this problem is to bring all the power of the social sciences to bear. Mailed surveys, demographic analyses, and personal interviews have provided researchers with a wealth of information. The result has been user-friendly services complete with new formats, positive messages, and relevant preaching styles. Much of this is useful.

But it is just possible that the best thing to do would be for every church member to read and study the message of Hebrews. As George Guthrie shows in the pages that follow, Hebrews was written to immature Christians who were tempted to fall away from church attendance and returned to their pre-Christian lifestyle. It was written to “encourage discouraged believers drifting away from real Christianity by bolstering commitment to draw near to God and to endure in commitment to Christ,” and it was “especially relevant for those tempted to turn from Christianity or Christian fellowship to preconversion patterns of life.” Sounds like the baby-boomer church attendance problem may not be as unique as we sometimes think.

The real issue, of course, is to take a close look at what the unknown author of Hebrews prescribes to the early church to deal with this situation. No social science here! In fact, the prescription is almost pure theology. The message of Hebrews can be summed up in a single phrase: “God speaks effectively to us through Jesus.” If we can just unpack those seven words of all their theological meaning, we have a way to approach baby boomers (and Generation Xers, and whoever else) with the message of the gospel that will demand a hearing.

God speaks. First-century people had trouble with the idea that only one God spoke to them. Twenty-first century people have trouble with the idea that any God would speak to them. The secularizing of the twentieth century has done its work. This thinking is not the work of spiritual skepticism so much as the work of distributing any spirituality that is not generated by our human desires and abilities. We want to do it our way, and in the process we forget to listen for the voice of God. God speaks.

Effectively. God’s voice is not a crying in the wilderness, a spitting in the wind. It is effective. First-century people believed the gods made a difference; twenty-first century people cannot believe it. When George Gallup asks Americans if they think their religion can help solve the world’s problems, most say no. The author of Hebrews says yes.

To us. As self-centered as twenty-first century people are, there is still a doubt that a God (if one exists) would speak (if we could hear) in such a way that makes a difference in solving the world’s problems. God speaks to me? But that is part of Hebrews’ message: We are the target audience of God’s effective speaking.

Through Jesus. The key to understanding the message of Hebrews is to recognize that in Jesus, God’s unique Son, we have the ultimate solution to the world’s problems. Jesus is how God has chosen to act once and for all. Jesus is superior to the priests, the prophets, the law. A Jesus-less gospel is a gospel deserving rejection. Without Jesus we should sleep in on Sunday morning. With Jesus, nothing should keep us from our Sunday morning pew.

These seven words and four ideas are what the author of Hebrews used to communicate gospel truth to a generation on the verge of throwing it all away. These seven words and four ideas have the same power to heal today—the power to save us from our sins (even baby boomers).

—Terry C. Muck