Christian fidelity: Be careful that none of you have a heart so evil and unbelieving that you will turn away from the living God. Hebrews 3:12
The Epistle to the Hebrews is probably an epistle written by Paul to believers from Judaism, and the letter is fundamentally an exhortation to follow the Christian precepts of life. This is why the spiritual meaning of this epistle must be understood in the differences that Paul had with the Judaizing Christians who wanted to impose the precept of circumcision among other things.
And so the apostle began his spiritual letter by declaring the superiority of Christ over all creation. While this affirmation seems very obvious, it must be remembered in this context that the first written texts of the New Testament were the letters of Paul, and the heresies were a common currency in the times of the early Church.
And after setting forth the foundations of the Christian faith and the doctrine of the Kingdom of God, the dominion or empire of God's perfections, among the most important themes of the Epistle to the Hebrews, is the theme of Christian fidelity, that is why without saying it openly Paul referred to the theme of the gift of fear of God (constancy, firmness, devotion, and equanimity) to achieve salvation and the growing in the true faith.
And to speak about this topic he referred first of all to the hardness of heart which is the opposite of the fear of God; the hardness of heart is what leads men to reject God, Paul taught, and for that, he quoted a text from the Old Testament, which refers to the protest that the Israelites made to Moses on the place that was called later Meribah. With this Paul established that the hardness of the heart is an impediment to accept the faith and following the path of Christ.
And so, to teach about that fidelity that is born from a heart of flesh that fears God, he referred to believers in these terms:
"Be careful that none of you have a heart so evil and unbelieving that you will turn away from the living God. Instead, in order that none of you be deceived by sin and become stubborn, you must help one another every day, as long as the word ´Today´ in the scripture applies to us" Hebrews 3:12-13.
In resume, Paul concluded that growing in the spiritual gifts, and in particular the gift of fidelity, is growing in faith.
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