Your Proclamation: In the paragraph beginning “All these died in faith,” get more philosophical. These are long, difficult sentences, so you must go over them carefully until you see the structure formed by the various clauses. The gist is that the ancients could have chosen not to believe God’s promises. But even though many of them did not enjoy the fulfillment of those promises (they saw the promised homeland only from afar, remaining “aliens” where they were), they kept believing. So God is proud to be called their God.

In the last paragraph, the author of Hebrews tries to get inside the head of Abraham as he struggled with what seemed like the calamitous breaking of God’s original promise. “One son, Isaac! Just one son, after all these years, and now you want me to sacrifice him? Yet you are God, and even from the dead you must be able to fulfill your promise.” This faithfulness, the author of Hebrews says, is what God rewarded by staying the sacrifice and returning Isaac to his father. You should sound amazed that Abraham “was ready to offer his only son.” The author offers as the reason for Abraham’s willingness his faith in the promise. Abraham’s belief in that promise is depicted as even stronger than his love for his son, and the author retrojects onto Abraham the reasoning that God could “raise [the promised descendants] even from the dead.” Make it sound as amazing as it is.