Last night was the third week of our Hebrews Bible Study. We covered chapter 5 where we now learn that Jesus, the "Son" who is greater than the angels (chapters 1 and 2) and greater than Moses (chapters 3 and 4), is now a high priest. He is not an Aaronic high priest, but rather our High Priest in the order of Melchizedek. There are differing takes on who this Melchizedek character was, but we concluded that he was Jesus (whether pre-incarnate, spiritual, actual, or otherwise we cannot ultimately know). This should not be a theological sticking point, however, and more about this will follow in the coming chapters.
We also learn an interesting point: Jesus learned obedience through suffering. This clearly suggests that believers will experience some measure of suffering to learn obedience and to be remade in the image of Christ. Now, I think there needs to be a distinction between suffering we bring upon ourselves, which Christ clearly did not do, and suffering through which we learn obedience and are made perfect. For example, Christ suffered because of his compassion for others, for the lost sheep of Israel, and leading up to his crucifixion in the garden of Gethsemane.
Finally, there is an additional hard reality for believers to confront, that many if not most believers are still "infants" partaking "only of milk." This reality becomes crystal clear in chapter 6 which we will cover next week, but merits mention now. This is a wake-up call to the church to move on to "solid food." A level which, if we are completely honest, we must confess we have not yet reached (generally speaking), as we will see when we study what the author believes to be "milk," or "elementary teachings" next week.