Heb.2:1 – Therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away.
This is a powerful verse which gives a vivid picture of someone headed toward shipwreck. The original language describes a ship that has not been moored properly and is drifting away toward a possible disaster. This is a picture of the warning the author of Hebrews is giving to all of us, we must be anchored lest we drift back into the destruction which characterizes this world. How do we anchor ourselves? Again, that’s what Hebrews is all about, fix your eyes on Jesus because He is the anchor of our soul. Here is how Barclay describes this enlightening verse.
“But both these words also have a nautical sense. Prosechein (give the more earnest heed) can mean to moor a ship; and pararrein (drift away) can be used of a ship which has been carelessly allowed to slip past a harbour or a haven because the captain has forgotten to allow for the wind or the current or the tide. So, this first verse could be very vividly translated: ‘Therefore, we must the more eagerly anchor our lives to the things that we have been taught in case the ship of life should drift past the harbour and be wrecked.’ It is a vivid picture of a ship drifting to destruction because the pilot is asleep. For most of us, the threat of life is not so much that we should plunge into disaster but that we should drift into sin. There are few people who, deliberately and in a moment, turn their backs on God; there are many who day by day drift further and further away from him.”
I’m sure this is a warning all of us can relate to. Certainly a Christian who is walking closely with the Lord doesn’t get up one day and launch out into gross sin, it’s always way more subtle than that. It starts with a small compromise in some area of your life. These small compromises are possible because we have grown cold or apathetic in our spiritual life. One compromise leads to the next and suddenly you realize you have drifted way off course. When did the problem start? It started when you took your eyes off of the Pearl of Great Price. Looking away from Jesus is where the drifting always starts. Get hold of the Anchor Who has entered behind the veil for us, this is the place where we will always remain stedfast.
