Hebrews chapter 11

vs 31

I like disobedient more than unbelieving. The story tends to indicate That the Caananites did in fact believe that God was with Israel, and so it was their disobedience to God, their wickedness, that made them ripe for punishment.

vs 32

No time to talk about David! I am surprised that Gideon is in this list, as one of the people who could be pointed to as the most faithless hero of the Bible.

vs 33-37

I don't really know what to say about all these different things. There are actions of faith in what we might call everyday benal activities (like administering justice). There are miraculous things like receiving the dead back to life. Then there are a large number of what you might call persecutions, like being sawed in two (Was that Isaiah? It's not biblical, it's just a Jewish tradition that one of the prophets was sawn in two, I don't remember who it was. No reason to not believe it though.) They may well all be attributable to one person or another (the raising of the dead is likely a reference to Elijah, for example).

The point being that the common factor amongst all these things is faith. But please note that this is a particularly Jewish argument. A humanist, a satanist, or a vegetarian could name their own heroes and say, "The one common factor between all these great achievements is that they believed in the furtherance of humanity, the power of the devil and they all ate vegetables." So there's no point saying "Look at all the things people with faith can do," because people without faith have done almost all these things too.

I think it does illustrate two things, though. One, these people, many of whom were otherwise not special, were able to accomplish things because of faith. Sure, some of them were very special (Samson is an obvious example, although perhaps not of faith, but he is in the list). The second one is discussed further down, but I will basically put as they all shared a common purpose in serving God, in one way or another.

vs 38

The bit I wanted to focus on was "The world was not worthy of them" - a bit of editorial in an otherwise historical list of happenings. And this idea of world unworthiness is really where this list is headed - that the focus of the faithful is on something other than this world.

vs 39

I will just quickly point out that vs 33 does in fact say, "Gained what was promised," so I think we need to realise that that probably means someone gained some specific promise of God, rather than the more general promise of God of the eternal relationship in heaven. Now there are so many questions you can ask here - what about Enoch? Does this mean that all these people are still asleep waiting for the second coming to get itself over with so they can get into heaven? I think we have to read it a little less individually. Abraham has yet to see the fulfilment of all the world being blessed through him. Moses has yet to see God's people be given rest. David has yet to see his son crowned King over God's people for eternity. The promises they worked forward towards were for all of God's people, not just themselves (David's is a bit of a misnomer, but God still uses it as a promise for the people).

When heaven breaks open and a flood of Christians enter, we'll know what it's about.

vs 40

We live on the flip side of Jesus' first coming. But we all will together have lives on the flip side of Jesus' second coming. Except for a handful of people, perhaps, depending on your rapture beliefs. We're all equally waiting for it. Even people like Enoch, because the promise is about more than just one or two individuals who might be in heaven - it's about seeing the whole thing come to fruition.