These four verses provide a parenthetical exhortation, the first of a series of such exhortations following the author’s well-designed style and method. He will not discuss theology in the abstract, but constantly calls his readers to its practical significance and to the appropriate response. He writes indeed as an accomplished theologian but also as a preacher with distinct pastoral concerns.

2:1 If the Son is the one of incomparable splendor, then the readers must pay more careful attention to the message of salvation they have heard, lest they drift away. There were pressures working upon them to cause them to compromise the truth of the gospel. See 10:29; 12:25. Our author’s argument is that a proper assessment of the Son (this is the force of therefore) will result in the recognitio…