As a kid, I loved Hebrews 11 with its hall of famed Bible heroes who lived by faith. I imagined them among the heavenly crowd of witnesses watching us run the race of faith (12:1). I may not have been popular among my peers, but I knew the real heroes were cheering on my faithfulness.
Things got more complicated as I began seriously studying the Old Testament. I quickly began to realize that most of those listed in Hebrews 11 were not exactly heroic, to put it mildly. Some of them were certifiable schmucks. And even those with a mostly positive spin in the Old Testament were rather hard to imitate.
Abel got credit for bringing a better sacrifice, but we don’t do that anymore. Enoch was whisked away without dying, but we’re never told why he merited special treatment. Noah thanked God for rescuing him from the flood by getting hammered and then cursing his disrespectful son.
Abraham traded his wife for a slave—twice! Sarah laughed at God’s promise and then mistreated her Egyptian slave. Isaac didn’t do much at all and ended his life having been bamboozled by his son. Jacob made a career out of tricking family members. Joseph was arrogant. Moses didn’t seem to understand who he was and failed to comply with the single command God gave Abraham. The Israelites were terrified at the Red Sea instead of trusting Yahweh.
Rahab was a prostitute. Gideon was a coward and idolater. Barak lacked bravery. Samson was driven by lust. Jephthah was essentially a thug who made a rash vow. David coveted his neighbor’s wife and murdered him to get her. Samuel’s sons were out of control.
I see problems with not just one or two but virtually all the “heroes” of faith listed in Hebrews 11. Either they aren’t very exemplary or it’s not feasible to imitate them. If Hebrews 11 was a list of heroes, I would expect to see the Hebrew midwives make the cut, or at least Deborah, Joshua, Caleb, Hannah, Elijah, Josiah, and Daniel. These Old Testament saints are truly worth emulating—yet none of them make the list.
But I recently revisited this chapter with a new question: What if this passage is not about glorifying moral examples or all-star heroes? And what if that kind of approach misses the point of the passage?
Perhaps the people in Hebrews 11 are like those in the long lines at Disneyland waiting to ride roller coasters. Their willingness to wait over an hour for a three-minute ride is not a badge of honor. It simply illustrates that they trust the Imagineers who designed the ride to provide a fun and safe experience. And when people stumble off the ride, wide-eyed and slightly out of breath, we don’t clap them on the back and congratulate them for a tremendous achievement—we ask them what the ride was like. The ride is what’s impressive, not the riders.
In other words, these figures aren’t heroes—they’re beneficiaries of God’s grace by faith.
In my younger years, I envisioned faith as a kind of counterfactual wishful thinking. But faith is not optimism with a religious cloak on. Faith is rooted in God’s own promise. It’s the refusal to cave to the Serpent’s suggestion “Did God really say …?” (Gen. 3:1, emphasis added). How does this play out in the context of Hebrews 11?
Throughout the chapter, the writer alludes directly or indirectly to things God has said. Two threads run through the entire chapter: the promise of God and each person’s trust in that promise over what they could see with their own eyes.
Consider verse 29: “By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as on dry land; but when the Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned.” With this example, the idea of imitation falls apart completely. First, Exodus tells us that the people were terrified, not trusting (14:10). They railed against Moses and wished they hadn’t left Egypt.
But even if we set aside their less-than-stellar response, if the Israelites ultimately passed through the sea by faith, then shouldn’t the Egyptians be rewarded for following their example? Why do the Egyptians drown when they attempt the same feat? The difference is their relationship to God’s word.
Yahweh had urged the Israelites to cross the sea in response to his promise—that he would set them free from oppression in Egypt. For the Israelites to step onto the sea floor was an act of faith. What seemed dangerous was really God’s means of deliverance.
To the Egyptians, God had made a different demand: “Let my people go!” For them to cross the sea floor in pursuit of the Israelites was a direct violation of God’s command. Their crossing was the opposite of faith; it disregarded and even defied God’s word to them.
It’s worth remembering here that not all those who left Egypt were descendants of Abraham. Exodus 12:38 tells us that “many other people” went with the Israelites. That group undoubtedly included some Egyptians. So what distinguishes the Egyptians who made it across the sea from those who drowned? Their relationship to God’s promise. Only those who crossed by faith made it to the other side.
In other words, the folks in Hebrews 11 are not heroes but ordinary men and women who shared one thing in common: They believed what God said and that what he promised was better than what they could see. The author of Hebrews is not holding up an impossible standard. He’s pointing to regular people who trusted the right voice and acted accordingly.
Now that we understand these are not heroes, let’s take a closer look at one more person from Hebrews 11 to illustrate why he appears in this chapter. Joseph is an interesting case study.
When Joseph was a young man, his brothers sold him into slavery, but by the end of his life, he had risen to the second-highest position in Egypt. He had wealth, prestige, a wife, and sons. But instead of relying on these assets, Joseph rooted his own future in God’s promise to Abraham. In Genesis, God had said to Joseph’s great-grandfather Abraham,
“Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there.But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions.” (Gen. 15:13–14)
Joseph believed in this promise—so much so that he was willing to stake his future on it. If his body left Egypt, Joseph would not be worshiped by the Egyptians. Egyptians were obsessed with preparing for the afterlife, and families visited the tombs of their ancestors as a way to venerate them for years to come.
Yet before he died, Joseph told his brothers to carry his bones back to Canaan. His father had given similar instructions, making Joseph promise to bury him in Abraham’s cave. So Joseph followed his father’s example.
Hebrews 11 reads, “By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions concerning the burial of his bones” (Heb. 11:22). The glitter of worldly power did not blind Joseph to his true identity; the accolades of Egypt did not drown out his memory of God’s promise to Abraham.
Instead of throwing his lot in with Pharaoh, Joseph chose to identify as a Hebrew in recognition of Israel’s special relationship with God. Joseph did not anchor his hope in what this world had to offer. He banked everything on the promise of Yahweh, even when it looked self-defeating.
That doesn’t make him an all-around hero. Remember, it’s the ride of faith, not the rider, that should impress us. Joseph simply recognized the roller coaster worth riding and climbed on.
In her commentary on Hebrews, Amy Peeler defines faith as “trust in God, based on divine revelation, that results in tangible expressions of obedience.” What would it look like for us to take seriously the promises Jesus announced before his ascension? And what might our tangible response be to these promises?
Jesus said that his kingdom was not of this world and that he was in the midst of making all things new. He also promised to be with us always and to return soon. If we were to live as if all this is true, we would be not fatalistic but full of hope. We would act not as consumers but as stewards and generous neighbors. We would eschew political loyalty in exchange for principled decision making.
The bottom line in Hebrews 11 is an encouragement to cast our lot with Jesus because he has promised that the best is yet to come. Our greatest temptation as believers is to treat what we can see as ultimate and lose sight of what God has promised. This world is marked by fear and uncertainty, but we know who wins in the end.
I’m relieved to see that faith does not require hero status and is not limited to moral examples. The Lord knows our religious exemplars can drop like flies. But by this matrix, any one of us could be a candidate for inclusion in Hebrews 11. The point is not who we are but who we trust.
Ultimately, Hebrews doesn’t tell us to imitate Abraham, Sarah, Samson, or Jephthah but to stick with Jesus and trust his promise that he will return. And believing that changes everything.
Carmen Joy Imes is associate professor of Old Testament at Biola University and author of Bearing God’s Name, Being God’s Image, and a forthcoming book, Becoming God’s Family: Why the Church Still Matters.
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