Hey everybody, I'm Tim McEy and this is my podcast Exploring My Strange Bible.

I am a card carrying Bible history and language nerd who thinks that Jesus of Nazareth is

utterly amazing and worth following with everything that you have.

On this podcast I'm putting together the last ten years worth of lectures and sermons

where I've been exploring the strange and wonderful story of the Bible and how it invites

us into the mission of Jesus and the journey of faith.

And I hope this can be helpful for you too.

I also help start this thing called the Bible Project.

We make animated videos and podcasts about all kinds of topics in Bible and theology.

You can find those resources at thebibelproject.com.

With all that said, let's dive into the episode for this week.

All right, we're continuing on in our series of explorations in the New Testament letter to the Hebrews.

And in this teaching, these were lectures and teachings I gave many years ago, this one is focused on Hebrews chapter 7,

which begins a whole series of meditations that the author or the pastor of the letter gives about showing

that Jesus is the human embodiment of the priesthood from the Old Testament, but not your average Israelite priesthood,

but rather this unique one-of-a-kind priest that shows up in the book of Genesis named Melchizedek.

That's what the whole set of chapters of Hebrews 7 and then onward into the letter are all about.

First of all, why should you care?

Why should you care sitting here in the 21st century that Jesus of Nazareth and what he did in his life, death and resurrection

was a fulfillment of the even more ancient priesthood of this guy named Melchizedek in Jerusalem?

What does that have to do with anything?

Well, the pastor who wrote this letter is convinced that that matters a lot.

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