This week's epistle text focuses on the final section of the homileticist's long exhortation to his community. The central concern of the writer throughout Hebrews is that Christians realize how their membership in the new covenant gives them special privileges as well as special responsibilities.

The fierceness with which this writer demands Christian fidelity to the new covenant suggests that there may have been some backsliding or at least some questionable behavior manifesting itself in the community the writer addresses. It is clear that, according to the author, there is no second repentance, no second chance, for one who first accepts, then rejects, the gifts of the new covenant Christ offers. In Hebrews 12:14-17 the author uses Esau as a prime example of eternal loss when one's bi…