Let brotherly love continue. Don’t forget to show hospitality to strangers, for in doing so, some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those who are in bonds, as bound with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you are also in the body.
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Hebrews 13:1-3 sits inside this longer paragraph.
Let brotherly love continue. Don’t forget to show hospitality to strangers, for in doing so, some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those who are in bonds, as bound with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you are also in the body. Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the bed be undefiled; but God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers.
Parallel Translations
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Let brotherly love continue.
Don’t forget to show hospitality to strangers, for in doing so, some have entertained angels without knowing it.
Remember those who are in bonds, as bound with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you are also in the body.
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Let brotherly love continue.
Be not forgetfull to lodge straungers. For therby have dyvers receaved angels into their houses vnwares.
Remember them that are in bondes even as though ye were bounde with them. Be myndfull of them which are in adversitie as ye which are yet in youre bodies.
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Let brotherly loue continue.
Be not forgetfull to intertaine strangers: for thereby some haue receiued Angels into their houses vnwares.
Remember them that are in bondes, as though ye were bounde with them: and them that are in affliction, as if ye were also afflicted in the body.
Cross-references (65)
- Matthew 25:35 (v2) for I was hungry, and you gave me food to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave me drink. I was a stranger, and you took me in.
- Genesis 18:1–19:3 (v2) Yahweh appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day. He lifted up his eyes and looked, and saw…
- 1 Peter 4:9 (v2) Be hospitable to one another without grumbling.
- Romans 12:13 (v2) contributing to the needs of the saints; given to hospitality.
- 1 John 4:20–5:1 (v1) If a man says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who doesn’t love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God…
Show all 63 cross-references
- 1 Peter 3:8 (vv1, 3) Finally, all of you be like-minded, compassionate, loving as brothers, tenderhearted, courteous,
- Matthew 25:36 (v3) I was naked, and you clothed me. I was sick, and you visited me. I was in prison, and you came to me.’
- Matthew 25:43 (vv2–3) I was a stranger, and you didn’t take me in; naked, and you didn’t clothe me; sick, and in prison, and you didn’t visit me.’
- Hebrews 10:34 (v3) For you both had compassion on me in my chains, and joyfully accepted the plundering of your possessions, knowing that you have for…
- Matthew 25:40 (v2) “The King will answer them, ‘Most certainly I tell you, because you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’
- Romans 12:15 (v3) Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep.
- 1 Corinthians 12:26 (v3) When one member suffers, all the members suffer with it. When one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.
- 1 Peter 1:22 (v1) Seeing you have purified your souls in your obedience to the truth through the Spirit in sincere brotherly affection, love one another from…
- Leviticus 19:34 (v2) The stranger who lives as a foreigner with you shall be to you as the native-born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you…
- Deuteronomy 10:18-19 (v2) He executes justice for the fatherless and widow and loves the foreigner in giving him food and clothing. Therefore love the foreigner, for…
- 1 Kings 17:10-16 (v2) So he arose and went to Zarephath; and when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her,…
- Titus 1:8 (v2) but given to hospitality, a lover of good, sober minded, fair, holy, self-controlled,
- Judges 13:15-25 (v2) Manoah said to Yahweh’s angel, “Please stay with us, that we may make a young goat ready for you.” Yahweh’s angel said to Manoah, “Though…
- Job 31:32 (v2) (the foreigner has not camped in the street, but I have opened my doors to the traveler);
- 1 Peter 2:17 (v1) Honor all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king.
- 2 Peter 1:7 (v1) and in godliness brotherly affection; and in brotherly affection, love.
- Colossians 4:18 (v3) The salutation of me, Paul, with my own hand: remember my bonds. Grace be with you. Amen.
- Isaiah 58:7 (v2) Isn’t it to distribute your bread to the hungry, and that you bring the poor who are cast out to your house? When you see the naked, that…
- Galatians 6:1-2 (v3) Brothers, even if a man is caught in some fault, you who are spiritual must restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; looking to…
- Hebrews 10:24 (v1) Let’s consider how to provoke one another to love and good works,
- 2 John 1:5-6 (v1) Now I beg you, dear lady, not as though I wrote to you a new commandment, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one…
- Romans 12:9-10 (v1) Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor that which is evil. Cling to that which is good. In love of the brothers be tenderly affectionate to…
- 1 Timothy 5:10 (v2) being approved by good works, if she has brought up children, if she has been hospitable to strangers, if she has washed the saints’ feet,…
- 1 John 2:9-10 (v1) He who says he is in the light and hates his brother is in the darkness even until now. He who loves his brother remains in the light, and…
- Romans 16:23 (v2) Gaius, my host and host of the whole assembly, greets you. Erastus, the treasurer of the city, greets you, as does Quartus, the brother.
- 2 Thessalonians 1:3 (v1) We are bound to always give thanks to God for you, brothers, even as it is appropriate, because your faith grows exceedingly, and the love…
- 1 Timothy 3:2 (v2) The overseer therefore must be without reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sensible, modest, hospitable, good at teaching;
- Hebrews 6:10-11 (v1) For God is not unrighteous, so as to forget your work and the labor of love which you showed toward his name, in that you served the…
- Job 31:19 (v2) if I have seen any perish for want of clothing, or that the needy had no covering;
- John 13:34-35 (v1) A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also love one another. By this everyone will know…
- Acts 16:15 (v2) When she and her household were baptized, she begged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and…
- Acts 24:23 (v3) He ordered the centurion that Paul should be kept in custody, and should have some privileges, and not to forbid any of his friends to…
- Galatians 5:22 (v1) But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith,
- 1 Peter 4:8 (v1) And above all things be earnest in your love among yourselves, for love covers a multitude of sins.
- 1 John 3:10-18 (v1) In this the children of God are revealed, and the children of the devil. Whoever doesn’t do righteousness is not of God, neither is he who…
- Genesis 40:14-15 (v3) But remember me when it is well with you. Please show kindness to me, and make mention of me to Pharaoh, and bring me out of this house.…
- Genesis 40:23 (v3) Yet the chief cup bearer didn’t remember Joseph, but forgot him.
- Galatians 5:13 (v1) For you, brothers, were called for freedom. Only don’t use your freedom for gain to the flesh, but through love be servants to one another.
- Philippians 2:1-3 (v1) If therefore there is any exhortation in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any tender mercies and…
- Philippians 4:14-19 (v3) However you did well that you shared in my affliction. You yourselves also know, you Philippians, that in the beginning of the Good News,…
- 1 Thessalonians 4:9-10 (v1) But concerning brotherly love, you have no need that one write to you. For you yourselves are taught by God to love one another, for indeed…
- 2 Timothy 1:16-18 (v3) May the Lord grant mercy to the house of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain, but when he was in Rome,…
- 1 John 3:23 (v1) This is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, even as he commanded.
- 2 Kings 4:8 (v2) One day Elisha went to Shunem, where there was a prominent woman; and she persuaded him to eat bread. So it was, that as often as he passed…
- Jeremiah 38:7-13 (v3) Now when Ebedmelech the Ethiopian, a eunuch, who was in the king’s house, heard that they had put Jeremiah in the dungeon (the king was…
- John 15:17 (v1) “I command these things to you, that you may love one another.
- Acts 16:29-34 (v3) He called for lights, sprang in, fell down trembling before Paul and Silas, brought them out, and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”…
- Galatians 5:6 (v1) For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision amounts to anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith working through love.
- Ephesians 4:1 (v3) I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to walk worthily of the calling with which you were called,
- 1 John 4:7-11 (v1) Beloved, let’s love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves has been born of God, and knows God. He who doesn’t love…
- Revelation 2:4 (v1) But I have this against you, that you left your first love.
- Nehemiah 1:3-4 (v3) They said to me, “The remnant who are left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach. The wall of…
- Acts 2:1 (v1) Now when the day of Pentecost had come, they were all with one accord in one place.
- Acts 2:44-46 (v1) All who believed were together, and had all things in common. They sold their possessions and goods, and distributed them to all, according…
- Acts 4:32 (v1) The multitude of those who believed were of one heart and soul. Not one of them claimed that anything of the things which he possessed was…
- Acts 27:3 (v3) The next day, we touched at Sidon. Julius treated Paul kindly, and gave him permission to go to his friends and refresh himself.
- Ephesians 4:3 (v1) being eager to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
- Ephesians 5:2 (v1) Walk in love, even as Christ also loved us and gave himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling fragrance.
63 distinct cross-references across this passage (65 total citations).
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (30 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv1–3 1. Let brotherly love, etc. Probably he gave this…
1. Let brotherly love, etc. Probably he gave this command respecting brotherly love, because a secret hatred arising from the haughtiness of the Jews was threatening to rend the Churches. But still this precept is generally very needful, for nothing flows away so easily as love; when everyone thinks of himself more than he ought, he will allow to others less than he ought; and then many offenses happen daily which cause separations.
He calls love brotherly, not only to teach us that we ought to be mutually united together by a peculiar and an inward feeling of love, but also that we may remember that we cannot be Christians without being brethren; for he speaks of the love which the household of faith ought to cultivate one towards another inasmuch as the Lord has bound them closer together by the common bond of adoption. It was therefore a good custom in the primitive Church for Christians to call one another brothers; but now the name as well as the thing itself is become almost obsolete, except that the monks have appropriated to themselves the use of it when neglected by others, while at the same time they show by their discords and intestine factions that they are the children of the evil one.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 3 He cometh to the second table, the sum whereof…
He cometh to the second table, the sum whereof is charity, especially toward strangers and such as are afflicted.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–3 1 Let brotherly love continue.
1 Let brotherly love continue.
Ver. 1. Let brotherly love continue] It shall continue in heaven; pity therefore but it should on earth. No such heaven upon earth, next unto communion with God, as the communion of saints.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–3 The apostle in this chapter pursueth his counsel to…
The apostle in this chapter pursueth his counsel to the subjects of the unmoveable kingdom of Christ, for their performing suitable duties to such a privilege, and especially such as more immediately terminate on their neighbour, and are contained in the second table of the Redeemer’s laws; as the chief and fundamental one, brotherly love. Let love, a fruit of the Spirit, show forth itself and its existence in you, in pre-eminence, and in duration, by disposing always the inward man, mind, will, and affections, to seek the good, to speak all the good to and of, and to do all good to their Christian brethren, to all true Christians, eminently styled by the Spirit the brotherhood, Mat 12:50; 28:10; Joh 13:34,35; 20:17; 1Co 13:1-13; Eph 4:32; 1Th 4:9; 1Jo 3:14,16.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv1–3 Love being the fountain and foundation of all moral…
Love being the fountain and foundation of all moral duties, our apostle begins with it, and places it at the head of all the rest, as comprehending our whole duty towards our neighbour.
Note here, The duty commanded is love; the special duty recommended is brotherly love, or that brotherly affection which every true Christian chiefly bears to all his fellow members in Christ for grace’s sake; and the manner of the injunction or command is, that his brotherly affection do continue and constantly abide, not in the pretence and appearance of it only, but in the truth and reality of it, for there are innumerable occasions which will be ready to impair and weaken it, if it be not well grounded; alas, unsuitableness of natural temper, differences in judgment, and matters of opinion, inconsistent worldly interest, readiness to provocation, or to be provoked, pride on the one hand, or envy on the other, will sadly occasion the temporary decay, yea, at last the total loss of this noble grace, if it be not well grounded and deeply rooted.
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Learn hence, That brotherly love is very apt to impair and decay, if we endeavour not continually its preservation and revival. Lord, how marvellous is it, that so many amongst us can persuade themselves that they are Christians, and yet be not only is the power and glory of Christianity will run very low, yea, the concerns of religion will more and more run to ruin.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v1 The design of Christ in giving himself for us…
The design of Christ in giving himself for us is that he may purchase to himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. Now the apostle calls the believing Hebrews to the performance of many excellent duties, in which it becomes Christians to excel.
I. To brotherly love (Heb 13:1), by which he does not only mean a general affection to all men, as our brethren by nature, all made of the same blood, nor that more limited affection which is due to those who are of the same immediate parents, but that special and spiritual affection which ought to exist among the children of God. 1. It is here supposed that the Hebrews had this love one for another. Though, at this time, that nation was miserably divided and distracted among themselves, both about matters of religion and the civil state, yet there was true brotherly love left among those of them who believed on Christ; and this appeared in a very eminent manner presently after the shedding forth of the Holy Ghost, when they had all things common, and sold their possessions to make a general fund of subsistence to their brethren. The spirit of Christianity is a spirit of love. Faith works by love. The true religion is the strongest bond of friendship; if it be not so, it has its name for nothing. 2. This brotherly love was in danger of being lost, and that in a time of persecution, when it would be most necessary; it was in danger of being lost by those disputes that were among them concerning the respect they ought still to have to the ceremonies of the Mosaic law. Disputes about religion too often produce a decay of Christian affection; but this must be guarded against, and all proper means used to preserve brotherly love. Christians should always love and live as brethren, and the more they grow in devout affection to God their heavenly Father the more they will grow in love to one another for his sake.
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II. To hospitality: Be not forgetful to entertain strangers for his sake, Heb 13:2. We must add to brotherly kindness charity. Here observe, 1. The duty required - to entertain strangers, both those that are strangers to the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to our persons, especially those who know themselves to be strangers here and are seeking another country, which is the case of the people of God, and was so at this time: the believing Jews were in a desperate and distressed condition. But he seems to speak of strangers as such; though we know not who they are, nor whence they come, yet, seeing they are without any certain dwelling place, we should allow them room in our hearts and in our houses, as we have opportunity and ability. 2. The motive: Thereby some have entertained angels unawares; so Abraham did (Gen. 18), and Lot (Gen. 19), and one of those that Abraham entertained was the Son of God; and, though we cannot suppose this will ever be our case, yet what we do to strangers, in obedience to him, he will reckon and reward as done to himself. Mat 25:35, I was a stranger, and you took me in. God has often bestowed honours and favours upon his hospitable servants, beyond all their thoughts, unawares.
III. To Christian sympathy: Remember those that are in bonds, Heb 13:3. Here observe,
1. The duty - to remember those that are in bonds and in adversity. (1.) God often orders it so that while some Christians and churches are in adversity others enjoy peace and liberty. All are not called at the same time to resist unto blood. (2.) Those that are themselves at liberty must sympathize with those that are in bonds and adversity, as if they were bound with them in the same chain: they must fell the sufferings of their brethren.
2. The reason of the duty: As being yourselves in the body; not only in the body natural, and so liable to the like sufferings, and you should sympathize with them now that others may sympathize with you when your time of trial comes; but in the same mystical body, under the same head, and if one member suffer all the rest suffer with it, Co1 12:26. It would be unnatural in Christians not to bear each other's burdens.
IV. To purity and chastity, Heb 13:4. Here you have, 1. A recommendation of God's ordinance of marriage, that it is honourable in all, and ought to be so esteemed by all, and not denied to those to whom God has not denied it. It is honourable, for God instituted it for man in paradise, knowing it was not good for him to be alone. He married and blessed the first couple, the first parents of mankind, to direct all to look unto God in that great concern, and to marry in the Lord. Christ honoured marriage with his presence and first miracle. It is honourable as a means to prevent impurity and a defiled bed. It is honourable and happy, when persons come together pure and chaste, and preserve the marriage bed undefiled, not only from unlawful but inordinate affections. 2. A dreadful but just censure of impurity and lewdness: Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge. (1.) God knows who are guilty of such sins, no darkness can hide them from him. (2.) He will call such sins by their proper names, not by the names of love and gallantry, but of whoredom and adultery, whoredom in the single state and adultery in the married state. (3.) He will bring them into judgment, he will judge them, either by their own consciences here, and set their sins in order before them for their deep humiliation (and conscience, when awakened, will be very severe upon such sinners), or he will set them at his tribunal at death, and in the last day; he will convict them, condemn them, and cast them out for ever, if they die under the guilt of this sin.
V. To Christian contentment, Heb 13:5, Heb 13:6. Here observe, 1. The sin that is contrary to this grace and duty - covetousness, an over eager desire of the wealth of this world, envying those who have more than we. This sin we must allow no place in our conversation; for, though it be a secret lust lurking in the heart, if it be not subdued it will enter into our conversation, and discover itself in our manner of speaking and acting. We must take care not only to keep this sin down, but to root it out of our souls. 2. The duty and grace that is contrary to covetousness - being satisfied and pleased with such things as we have; present things, for past things cannot be recalled, and future things are only in the hand of God. What God gives us from day to day we must be content with, though it fall short of what we have enjoyed heretofore, and though it do not come up to our expectations for the future. We must be content with our present lot. We must bring our minds to our present condition, and this is the sure way to contentment; and those who cannot do it would not be contented though God should raise their condition to their minds, for the mind would rise with the condition. Haman was the great court-favourite, and yet not contented - Ahab on the throne, and yet not contented - Adam in paradise, and yet not contented; yea, the angels in heaven, and yet not contented; but Paul, though abased and empty, had learned in every state, in any state, therewith to be content. 3. What reason Christians have to be contented with their lot. (1.) God hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee, Heb 13:5, Heb 13:6. This was said to Joshua (Jos 1:5), but belongs to all the faithful servants of God. Old Testament promises may be applied to New Testament saints. This promise contains the sum and substance of all the promises. I will never, no, never leave thee, nor ever forsake thee. Here are no fewer than five negatives heaped together, to confirm the promise; the true believer shall have the gracious presence of God with him in life, at death, and for ever. (2.) From this comprehensive promise they may assure themselves of help from God: So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper; I will not fear what man shall do unto me, Heb 13:6. Men can do nothing against God, and God can make all that men do against his people to turn to their good.
VI. To the duty Christians owe to their ministers, and that both to those that are dead and to those that are yet alive.
1. To those that are dead: Remember those that have had the rule over you, Heb 13:7. Here observe,
(1.) The description given of them. They were such as had the rule over them, and had spoken to them the word of God; their guides and governors, who had spoken to them the word of God. Here is the dignity to which they were advanced - to be rulers and leaders of the people, not according to their own will, but the will and word of God; and this character they filled up with suitable duty: they did not rule at a distance, and rule by others, but they ruled by personal presence and instruction, according to the word of God.
(2.) The duties owing to them, even when they were dead.
[1.] "Remember them - their preaching, their praying, their private counsel, their example."
[2.] "Follow their faith; be stedfast in the profession of the faith they preached to you, and labour after the grace of faith by which they lived and died so well. Consider the end of their conversation, how quickly, how comfortably, how joyfully, they finished their course!" Now this duty of following the same true faith in which they had been instructed the apostle enlarges much upon, and presses them earnestly to it, not only from the remembrance of their faithful deceased guides, but from several other motives.
First, From the immutability and eternity of the Lord Jesus Christ. Though their ministers were some dead, others dying, yet the great head and high priest of the church, the bishop of their souls, ever lives, and is ever the same; and they should be stedfast and immovable, in imitation of Christ, and should remember that Christ ever lives to observe and reward their faithful adherence to his truths, and to observe and punish their sinful departure from him. Christ is the same in the Old Testament day, in the gospel day, and will be so to his people for ever.
Secondly, From the nature and tendency of those erroneous doctrines that they were in danger of falling in with.
a. They were divers and various (Heb 13:9), different from what they had received from their former faithful teachers, and inconsistent with themselves.
b. They were strange doctrines: such as the gospel church was unacquainted with foreign to the gospel.
c. They were of an unsettling, distracting nature, like the wind by which the ship is tossed, and in danger of being driven from its anchor, carried away, and split upon the rocks. They were quite contrary to that grace of God which fixes and establishes the heart, which is an excellent thing. These strange doctrines keep the heart always fluctuating and unsettled.
d. They were mean and low as to their subject. They were about external, little, perishing things, such as meats and drinks, etc.
e. They were unprofitable. Those who were most taken with them, and employed about them, got no real good by them to their own souls. They did not make them more holy, nor more humble, nor more thankful, nor more heavenly.
f. They would exclude those who embraced them from the privileges of the Christian altar (Heb 13:10): We have an altar. This is an argument of the great weight, and therefore the apostle insists the longer upon it. Observe,
(a.) The Christian church has its altar. It was objected against the primitive Christians that their assemblies were destitute of an altar; but this was not true. We have an alter, not a material altar, but a personal one, and that is Christ; he is both our altar, and our sacrifice; he sanctifies the gift. The altars under the law were types of Christ; the brazen altar of the sacrifice, the golden altar of his intercession.
(b.) This altar furnishes out a feast for true believers, a feast upon the sacrifice, a feast of fat things, spiritual strength and growth, and holy delight and pleasure. The Lord's table is not our altar, but it is furnished with provision from the altar. Christ our passover is sacrificed for us (Co1 5:7), and it follows, therefore let us keep the feast. The Lord's supper is the feast of the gospel passover.
(c.) Those who adhere to the tabernacle or the Levitical dispensation, or return to it again, exclude themselves from the privileges of this altar, from the benefits purchased by Christ. If they serve the tabernacle, they are resolved to subject themselves to antiquated rites and ceremonies, to renounce their right to the Christian altar; and this part of the argument he first proves and then improves.
[a.] He proves that this servile adherence to the Jewish state is a bar to the privileges of the gospel altar; and he argues thus: - Under the Jewish law, no part of the sin-offering was to be eaten, but all must be burnt without the camp while they dwelt in tabernacles, and without the gates when they dwelt in cities: now, if they will still be subject to that law, they cannot eat at the gospel-altar; for that which is eaten there is furnished from Christ, who is the great sin-offering. Not that it is the very sin-offering itself, as the papists affirm; for then it was not to be eaten, but burnt; but the gospel feast is the fruit and procurement of the sacrifice, which those have no right to who do not acknowledge the sacrifice itself. And that it might appear that Christ was really the antitype of the sin-offering, and, as such, might sanctify or cleanse his people with his own blood, he conformed himself to the type, in suffering without the gate. This was a striking specimen of his humiliation, as if he had not been fit either for sacred or civil society! And this shows how sin, which was the meritorious cause of the sufferings of Christ, is a forfeiture of all sacred and civil rights, and the sinner a common plague and nuisance to all society, if God should be strict to mark iniquity. Having thus shown that adherence to the Levitical law would, even according to its own rules, debar men from the Christian altar, he proceeds,
[b.] To improve this argument (Heb 13:13-15) in suitable advices. First, Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp; go forth from the ceremonial law, from sin, from the world, from ourselves, our very bodies, when he calls us. Secondly, Let us be willing to bear his reproach, be willing to be accounted the offscouring of all things, not worthy to live, not worthy to die a common death. This was his reproach, and we must submit to it; and we have the more reason because, whether we go forth from this world to Christ or no, we must necessarily go forth in a little time by death; for here we have no continuing city. Sin, sinners, death, will not suffer us to continue long here; and therefore we should go forth now by faith, and seek in Christ the rest and settlement which this world cannot afford us, Heb 13:14. Thirdly, Let us make a right use of this altar; not only partake of the privileges of it, but discharge the duties of the altar, as those whom Christ has made priests to attend on this altar. Let us bring our sacrifices to this altar, and to this our high priest, and offer them up by him, Heb 13:15, Heb 13:16. Now what are the sacrifices which we must bring and offer on this altar, even Christ? Not any expiatory sacrifices; there is no need of them. Christ has offered the great sacrifice of atonement, ours are only the sacrifices of acknowledgment; and they are, 1. The sacrifice of praise to God, which we should offer up to God continually. In this are included all adoration and prayer, as well as thanksgiving; this is the fruit of our lips; we must speak forth the praises of God from unfeigned lips; and this must be offered only to God, not to angels, nor saints, nor any creature, but to the name of God alone; and it must be by Christ, in a dependence upon his meritorious satisfaction and intercession. 2. The sacrifice of alms-deeds, and Christian charity: To do good, and to communicate, forget now; for with such sacrifices God is well pleased, Heb 13:16. We must, according to our power, communicate to the necessities of the souls and bodies of men; not contenting ourselves to offer the sacrifice of our lips, mere words, but the sacrifice of good deeds; and these we must lay down upon this altar, not depending upon the merit of our good deeds, but of our great high priest; and with such sacrifices as these, adoration and alms thus offered up, God is well pleased; he will accept the offering with pleasure, and will accept and bless the offers through Christ.
2. Having thus told us the duty Christians owe to their deceased ministers, which principally consists in following their faith and not departing from it, the apostle tells us what is the duty that people owe to their living ministers (Heb 13:17) and the reasons of that duty: (1.) The duty - to obey them, and submit themselves to them. It is not an implicit obedience, or absolute submission, that is here required, but only so far as is agreeable to the mind and will of God revealed in his word; and yet it is truly obedience and submission, and that not only to God, but to the authority of the ministerial office, which is of God as certainly, in all things belonging to that office, as the authority of parents or of civil magistrates in the things within their sphere. Christians must submit to be instructed by their ministers, and not think themselves too wise, too good, or too great, to learn from them; and, when they find that ministerial instructions are agreeable to the written word, they must obey them. (2.) The motives to this duty. [1.] They have the rule over the people; their office, though not magisterial, yet is truly authoritative. They have no authority to lord it over the people, but to lead them in the ways of God, by informing and instructing them, explaining the word of God to them, and applying it to their several cases. They are not to make laws of their own, but to interpret the laws of God; nor is their interpretation to be immediately received without examination, but the people must search the scriptures, and so far as the instructions of their minister are according to that rule they ought to receive them, not as the word of men, but, as they are indeed, the word of God, that works effectually in those that believe. [2.] They watch for the souls of the people, not to ensnare them, but to save them; to gain them, not to themselves, but to Christ; to build them up in knowledge, faith, and holiness. They are to watch against every thing that may be hurtful to the souls of men, and to give them warning of dangerous errors, of the devices of Satan, of approaching judgments; they are to watch for all opportunities of helping the souls of men forward in the way to heaven. [3.] They must give an account how they have discharged their duty, and what has become of the souls committed to their trust, whether any have been lost through their neglect, and whether any of them have been brought in and built up under their ministry. [4.] They would be glad to give a good account of themselves and their hearers. If they can then give in an account of their own fidelity and success, it will be a joyful day to them; those souls that have been converted and confirmed under their ministry will be their joy, and their crown, in the day of the Lord Jesus. [5.] If they give up their account with grief, it will be the people's loss as well as theirs. It is the interest of hearers that the account their ministers give of them may be with joy, and not with grief. If faithful ministers be not successful, the grief will be theirs, but the loss will be the people's. Faithful ministers have delivered their own souls, but a fruitless and faithless people's blood and ruin will be upon their own heads.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–3 Let brotherly love continue. The Vulgate Latin and Syriac…
Let brotherly love continue. The Vulgate Latin and Syriac versions add, "in you"; or among you, as a church and society of Christians; for this is not to be understood of love to all mankind, or to those of the same nation, or who are in a strict natural relation brethren, though they are all in a sense brethren, and to be loved; but of love to those who are in the same spiritual relation to God, as their Father, to Christ, as the firstborn among many brethren; and are in the same church state, at least partakers of the same grace: and which love ought to be universal, and reach to all the saints, and be fervent and unfeigned, and as Christ hath loved us; and when it is genuine, it is active and laborious; and shows itself in praying with and for one another; in bearing one another's burdens; in forbearing and forgiving one another; in admonishing one another in love; in building up each other in the most holy faith; and in stirring up one another to the several duties of religion: and without this excellent and useful grace, a profession of religion is in vain; this is an evidence of regeneration; it is the bond of perfectness, and what renders the saints' communion delightful and edifying: many are the arguments moving to the exercise of it; as the love of God, and Christ; the new commandment of Christ; the relation saints stand in to one another; the comfort and joy of Gospel ministers, and our own peace and edification: and this should continue; for the love of God and Christ continues; the relation between the saints continues; and without this, churches cannot continue long: the apostle means, not the grace itself, the internal principle, for that, where it once is, always continues, and can never be lost; but the exercise and increase of it, an abounding in it yet more and more. One of the Jewish prayers is to this purpose (q);
"he that dwells in this house, let him plant among you , "brotherhood and love", (or brotherly love,) peace and friendship.''
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(q) T. Hieros. Beracot, fol. 3. 3.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1–3 Brotherly love is explained in the following verses.
Brotherly love is explained in the following verses.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1–3 Exhortations to hospitality to Strangers, 1, 2.
CHAPTER XIII.
Exhortations to hospitality to Strangers, 1, 2.
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Kindness to those in bonds, 3.
Concerning marriage, 4.
Against covetousness, 5, 6.
How they should imitate their teachers, 7, 8.
To avoid strange doctrines, 9.
Of the Jewish sin-offerings, 10, 11.
Jesus suffered without the gate, and we should openly confess
him and bear his reproach, 12, 13.
Here we have no permanent residence; and while we live should
devote ourselves to God, and live to do good, 14-16.
We should obey them that have the rule over us, 17.
The apostle exhorts them to pray for him, that he might be
restored to them the sooner, 18, 19.
Commends them to God in a very solemn prayer, 20, 21.
Entreats them to bear the word of exhortation, mentions Timothy,
and concludes with the apostolical benediction, 22-25.
NOTES ON CHAP. XIII.
Verse 1. Let brotherly love continue.] Be all of one heart and one soul. Feel for, comfort, and support each other; and remember that he who professes to love God should love his brother also. They had this brotherly love among them; they should take care to retain it. As God is remarkable for his φιλανθρωπια, philanthropy, or love to man, so should they be for φιλαδελφια, or love to each other. See the note on "Tit 3:4".
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 3 Heb 13:1-2. In this concluding chapter we find fresh…
Heb 13:1-2. In this concluding chapter we find fresh instances of that divine wisdom wherewith the apostle was influenced in writing this epistle; improving still more the doctrines he had advanced to practical purposes; in which he gives all ministers of Christ an instructive example of the order and method proper to be pursued in teaching Christianity; first to declare the great doctrines of it, and then to improve them to promote holiness. And they will be mistaken who propose to themselves any other method, and those most of all who think one part of it is sufficient without the other.
Let brotherly love continue — Or abide constant. Love is the fountain and foundation of all moral and religious duties which Christians owe to each other and to all men, and therefore it is here placed at the head of them all. Several of the fruits of this love are touched on in the following verses. It is justly observed by Diodati, that this exhortation was peculiarly suitable to the converted Jews, as the prejudices of many of them against their Gentile brethren were so strong that they were ready to disown them with abhorrence. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers — The apostle chiefly means those of their Christian brethren who were travelling from place to place at their own cost to preach the gospel. Thus St. John speaks of some who went forth for the sake of Christ, taking nothing of the Gentiles, to whom they preached, 3Jn 1:7. Add to this, the church being then under great persecution in sundry places, many Christians were obliged to leave their own habitations and countries, and to flee for safety to other parts where they were strangers. Such as these the apostle recommends to the love and charity of those to whom he wrote. For thereby some — For instance, Abraham and Lot; have entertained angels unawares — So may an unknown guest, even now, be of more worth than he appears, and may have angels attending him, though unseen.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1–3 Let brotherly love continue - Implying that it now…
Let brotherly love continue - Implying that it now existed among them. The apostle had no occasion to reprove them for the want of it, as he had in regard to some to whom he wrote, but he aims merely to impress on them the importance of this virtue, and to caution them against the danger of allowing it ever to be interrupted; see the notes on Joh 13:34.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv2–3 And hospitality do not forget,...some being not aware [1]…
And hospitality do not forget,...some being not aware [1] of it, have entertained Angels. They imagined they received men, when they were Angels. The Latin interpreter followed exactly the Greek, though the expression be unusual in both languages. It is meant of Abraham, (Genesis xviii. 2.) and of Lot, Genesis xix. 1. (Witham)
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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]
Per hanc enim latuerunt quidam Angelis hospitio receptis, Greek: dia tautes gar elathon tines xenisantes Aggelous, i.e. hospitio recepiendo Angelos. The Latin has exactly followed the Greek.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
John Nelson Darby 1862 · Public Domain On v1 Hebrews Chapter 13
Hebrews Chapter 13
In this next chapter there is more than one truth important to notice. The exhortations are as simple as they are weighty, and require but few remarks. They rest in the sphere in which the whole of the epistle does: what relates to the Christian’s path as walking here, not what flows from union with Christ in heavenly places. Brotherly love, hospitality, care for those in bonds, the strict maintenance of the marriage tie and persona! purity, the avoiding of covetousness: such are the subjects of exhortation, all important and connected with the gracious walk of a Christian, but not drawn from the higher and more heavenly sources and principles of the Christian life as we see in Ephesians and Colossians. Nor, even though there be more analogy-for the Epistle to the Romans rests in general in life in Christ in this world, presenting Christ’s resurrection, without going on to His ascension [40] -are the exhortations such as in this latter epistle. Those which follow connect themselves with the circumstances in which the Hebrews found themselves, and rest on the approaching abolition and judgment of Judaism, from which they had now definitely to separate themselves.
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In exhorting them (Heb 13:7) to remember those who have guided the flock, he speaks of those already departed in contrast with those still living. (Heb 13:17.) The issue of their faith might well encourage others to follow their steps, to walk by those principles of faith which had led them to so noble a result.
Moreover Christ never changed; He was the same yesterday, today, and for ever. Let them abide in the simplicity and integrity of faith. Nothing is a plainer proof that the heart is not practically in possession of that which gives rest in Christ, that it does not realise what Christ is, than the restless search after something new- “divers and strange doctrines.” To grow in the knowledge of Christ is our life and our privilege. The search after novelties which are foreign to Him, is a proof of not being satisfied with Him. But he who is not satisfied with Jesus does not know Him, or, at least, has forgotten Him. It is impossible to enjoy Him, and not to feel that He is everything, that is to say, that He satisfies us, and that by the nature of what He is, He shuts out everything else.
Now with regard to Judaism, in which the Hebrews were naturally inclined to seek satisfaction for the flesh, the apostle goes farther. They were no longer Jews in the possession of the true worship of God, a privileged worship in which others had no right to participate. The altar of God belonged now to the Christians. Christians only had a right to it. An earthly worship, in which there was no entering within the veil, into God’s own presence in the sanctuary, could no longer subsist-a worship that had its worldly glory, that belonged to the elements of this world and had its place there. Now, it is either heaven or the cross and shame. The great sacrifice for sin has been offered; but by its efficacy, it brings us into the sanctuary, into heaven itself, where the blood has been carried in; and on the other hand it takes us outside the camp, a religious people connected with the world down here, into shame and rejection on earth. This is the portion of Christ. In heaven He is accepted, He has gone in with His own blood- on earth cast out and despised.
A worldly religion, which forms a system in which the world can walk, and in which the religious element is adapted to man on the earth, is the denial of Christianity.
Here we have no continuing city, we seek the one which is to come. By Christ we offer our sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving. By sharing also our goods with others, by doing good in every way we offer sacrifices with which God is well pleased. (Ver 16)
He then exhorts them to obey those who, as responsible to God, watch over souls, and who go before the saints in order to lead them on. It is a proof of that humble spirit of grace which seeks only to please the Lord.
The sense of this responsibility makes Paul ask the saints to pray for him, but with the declaration that he had assuredly a good conscience. We serve God, we act for Him, when He is not obliged to be acting on us. That is to say, the Spirit of God acts by our means when He has not to occupy us with ourselves. When the latter is the case, one could not ask for the prayers of saints as a labourer. While the Spirit is exercising us in our conscience, we cannot call our selves lahourers of God. When the conscience is good we can ask unreservedly for the prayers of the saints. The apostle so much the more asked for them because he hoped thus the sooner to see them again.
Finally, he invokes blessing upon them, giving God the title he so often ascribes to Him-” the God of peace.” In the midst of exercise of heart with regard to the Hebrews, of arguments to preserve their love from growing cold, in the midst of the moral unsteadiness that enfeebled the walk of these Christians, and their trials in the breaking down of what they considered stable and holy, this title has a peculiarly precious character.
The Spirit sets them also in the presence of a risen Christ, of a God who had founded and secured peace by the death of Christ, and had given a proof of it in His resurrection. He had brought Christ again from the dead according to the power of the blood of the everlasting [41] covenant. On this blood the believing people might build a hope that nothing could shake. For it was not, as at Sinai, promises founded on the condition of the people’s obedience, but on the ransom which had been paid, and the perfect expiation of their disobedience. The blessing was therefore unchangeable, the covenant (as the inheritance and the redemption) was everlasting. He prays that the God who had wrought it, would work in them to grant them full power and energy for the accomplishment of His will, working Himself in them that which was well pleasing in His sight.
He urges them to give heed to exhortation; he had only sent them a few words.
He who wrote the letter desires they should know that Timothy had been set at liberty; he himself was so already; he was in Italy; circumstances which tend to confirm the idea that it was Paul who wrote this letter-a very interesting point, although in nowise affecting its authority.
It is the Spirit of God who everywhere gives His own authority to the word.
Footnotes for Hebrews Chapter 13
40: It is only spoken of in Heb. 8:34, and an allusion in Heb 10:6.
41: The word “everlasting” is specific, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, in contrast with a system which was passing away. It speaks of eternal redemption, eternal inheritance, the eternal Spirit even.
John Nelson Darby — Synopsis of the Books of the Bible: the New Testament (c. 1857–1862) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 Moral exhortations of a more general character
CONCLUSION OF THE EPISTLE
A
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Moral exhortations of a more general character
Heb_13:1-6
1Let brotherly love continue. 2Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. 3Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and [om. and] them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in 4the body. Marriage is honourable in all [Be marriage held in honor in all things], and the [be its] bed undefiled: but [or for]1 whoremongers and adulterers God will Judges 5 Let your conversation [disposition, or mode of life] be without covetousness; and be [being] content with such things as ye have: for he [himself] hath said, I will never 6[by no means] leave thee, nor [will I at all] forsake thee. So that we may boldly [with confidence] say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me [I will not fear; what shall a man do unto me?].
[Heb_13:2.—τῆν φιλοξενίαν, hospitality.—διὰ ταύτης, by means of this.—ἔλαθον ξενίσ., escaped notice entertaining=entertained unawares; the Aor. pointing back historically to the time of the event.
Heb_13:3.—Is more forcible with the asyndeton of the original; the and is unnecessary and enfeebling.—τῶν κακουχουμένων, those in distress.
Heb_13:4.—The Imperat. is (with Moll, Del., Alf., etc.) much better than the Ind. construction of the Eng. ver. We might hesitate to supply the Imperat. rather than the Indic., but we must do so in Heb_13:5, and there is no difficulty here, because the imperative idea which belongs to all the preceding clauses, would naturally be transferred to this, in the absence of the verb.—Ἐν πᾶσιν in all things; with persons παρὰ πᾶσιν, would be more natural (Moll, Alf.).
Heb_13:5.—ὁ τρόπος, habit, disposition; Moll: Sinnesart; Alf.: mode of life.—ἀρκούμενοι τοῖς παροῦσιν, being contented, with what ye have.—αὑτος γάρ, for he himself.—οὐ μή σε ἀνῶ, οὐδ’ οὐ μή σε, etc., much more emphatic than the construction of the Eng. ver., “I will by no means leave thee, nor will I by any means abandon thee.”
Heb_13:6.—θαρροῦντας, with confidence.—καὶ οὐ φοβηθήσομαι: Sin. follows Vulg., etc., in omitting καί; Alf., Del., Moll etc., retain it. But all agree in reading the following clause, as an independent question, τί ποιήσ., etc., what will a man do unto me?
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Heb_13:1. Continue.—The form of the injunction shows that the brotherly love, once so prevalent in the church, i.e., the mutual love of Christians, must, at the time of the composition of our Epistle, have still been active in it, as indicated also at Heb_6:10; Heb_10:32 ff.; while Heb_10:26 shows the necessity of their being exhorted to the practice of this virtue. This brotherly love φιλαδελφία) which, according to 2Pe_1:7, constitutes a specific form of the broader virtue of ἀγάπη was designated by the Lord Himself as a special characteristic of His disciples (Joh_13:35. Also Tertullian paints in the liveliest colors its prevalence in the church of his time; and even the scoffer Lucian is obliged to pay an unwilling tribute to its power when he says (de morte Peregrini): “Their principal Law-giver has inspired in them the sentiment that they are all mutually brethren so soon as they had passed over, i.e., had denied the Grecian Gods, and devoted themselves to the worship of that crucified sophist, and were living in accordance with his precepts.” Moreover, Julian (epistle 49) says that “kindness toward strangers (ἡ περὶ τοὺς ξένους φιλανθρωπία) had been a principal means of propagating the ἀθεότης of the Christians.
Heb_13:2. Forget not.—Λανθάνω, with the participle, is a familiar Greek construction. The reference is to the experiences of Abraham and Lot (Gen_18:19). Perhaps also to Mat_25:44-45. Substantially parallel are Rom_12:13; 1Ti_3:2; Tit_1:8; 1Pe_4:9. Whether λἔαθον forms a paronomasia with ἔπιλανθάνεσθε (Lun.) is doubtful.
Heb_13:3. As bound with them—as being yourselves also in the body.—It is neither necessary nor admissible, in order to give to ὡς the same signification in both clauses, to understand, with Böhme, and others, the bound with them, of life and sufferings in the ecclesia pressa, [“travelling too far from the context.”—Alf.], or, with Calvin, and others, to understand the “body” of the church as the body of Christ. We may, with Œc., give ὡς in the first clause, also the causal significance, which it unquestionably has in the second; but his translation, “inasmuch as we are closely connected with them,” merely involves the idea that, by virtue of our membership and communion with our imprisoned brethren, we should feel ourselves under obligation to remember them in loving sympathy. It is more advisable, therefore, to take the first ὡς as a particle of comparison. [“As being your selves also in the body,” i.e., as being yourselves in a body which exposes you to like suffering with them, and might therefore be expected to secure your sympathy for the sufferer.—K.].
Heb_13:4. Marriage in all.—In the New Testament γάμος means, elsewhere, the wedding and its celebration; here, as in classical Greek, wedlock. [Alf. takes it here as “wedding,” and renders it “your marriage”]. Ἐν πᾶσιν means not with all nations (Pesh., Beza, Grot., and others, who, with τίμιος, erroneously supply ὅτι); but, “in every respect, in all respects.” Were the injunction intended to be that marriage should be held honorable with all persons. (Luth., etc.), or that no unmarried person should regard it with contempt (Böhme, Schultz, etc.), or that it should be forbidden to no man, the form would probably be παρὰ πᾶσιν.
Heb_13:5. He himself has said.—Not Christ (Bez., Böhm., Klee), but God, in the Scripture. These words are found in full, Deu_31:6; Deu_31:8, and repeated, 1Ch_28:20. But God is there spoken of in the third person. Individual elements of this consolatory address, representing God as speaking in the first person, are found, Gen_28:15; Jos_1:5; Isa_41:17. It is found, in precisely the same terms as here, in Philo, Ed. Mang., I. 430. That the author has drawn immediately from Philo, (Bl., De W.), is scarcely to be supposed. We may rather conjecture that the saying had in this form already become a proverb (Beng.), or that it originated in the liturgical and homiletical usage of the Hellenistic Synagogue from the confounding of kindred expressions with the original passage, Deu_31:6 (Del.). The double negation in the first, and the triple negation in the second member, serve for emphasis. The mention of the persecutions of the church, suggests the trustful declaration cited from Psa_118:6.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. Brotherly love stands preëminent among the distinguishing marks of the children of God (1Jn_3:1), and if genuine, never ceases (1Co_13:8). Its purity, power, and permanence, however, depend upon the nature of our relation to Christ, and with this, upon that of our faith. It can therefore, on the one hand, never dispense with nourishment, culture and discipline; and on the other cannot do without exercise.
2. The practice of hospitality may very easily prove disagreeable; one may exercise it unwillingly, sullenly, and enviously; may limit it by caprice and selfishness; may regard and treat it as a burden and a plague. We must therefore be kindly reminded of this duty, as a duty of love, and learn to give heed to the blessing it brings with it, in order that the offerings which we are required to bring, and the privations which we impose upon ourselves, may not fall too heavily or incite us to self-glorification. And this blessing transcends our knowledge and conception. We may receive into our house messengers of God; nay, may receive Christ Himself, in His humblest servants (Mat_25:35 ff.).
3. The connection, which, in a two-fold way, we have with sufferers, viz., by spiritual and by natural ties of friendship, must make itself be recognized by compassionate and effective sympathy, in every individual case; and inasmuch as this is deficient, and often inconvenient, we are reminded, on the one hand, of the law in accordance with which, if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it (1Co_12:26); and on the other, of our own liability to suffer, a liability inseparable from our bodily life.
4. The character belonging to marriage, as an ordinance instituted and blessed of God, and the purity which, according to the will of God, befits the marriage bed, and the rites of matrimony, need special attention and care. “The terrible sentence pronounced on fornicators and adulterers is one which pays no heed to the false reasonings and cavilling interpretations, which will plead in excuse for such impurities the fierce lusts of man, the course of the world, and the difficulties of ordinary wedlock. At the judgment of God it will also be made manifest how much power and light the knowledge of God and of our Lord, Jesus Christ, have imparted to each one, by which to escape from this corruption of the world; nay, it will also become manifest that the majority have fallen, not from an irresistible power of their nature, but from lusts wilfully indulged, and nurtured and heightened by the reading of mischievous books, and by profligate intercourse; nay, that frequently they have themselves inflamed, and urged on anew the nature which had been wearied out in the service of sin, and had withdrawn from it with loathing. Then, too, it will become evident what evasions men have resorted to, in order to escape the judgments of men, and why many have so aided others, and how many a one has chosen rather to carry his lusts with him to the bar of God, than to free himself from them upon the dying-bed” (Rieger).
5. Pleasure and licentiousness lead not only to extravagance, but also to discontentment, thence to covetousness, and finally, not unfrequently to miserly niggardliness. Yet even apart from this, an insatiable and covetous habit of feeling and action stands in direct antagonism to the Christian temper and conduct (Mat_6:19-34; Col_3:5; Php_4:11-12; 1Ti_6:6), and plunges one into severe temptations and great dangers (1Ti_6:9 ff). An effective weapon against this, as against the fear of human wickedness and violence, is the use of the word of God, by which confidence in the living God, who has promised that He will withdraw from us neither His presence, nor His help, is awakened and nourished.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
What most hinders, and what most promotes the exercise of Christian love.—We have in suffering and assaults, not merely the sympathy of the brethren, but also the comfort of the word of God, and the help of the Lord.—Faith, the mother of all virtues.—The characteristics of true Christianity.—How, while living in the world and in the flesh, we conquer world and flesh.—We are either judged or saved of God; there is no alternative.
Starke:—Love is a cardinal virtue, which embraces in itself all others (Rom_13:10), and is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, in which faith becomes active (Gal_5:6).—Brotherly love must not be love in words, but must evince itself in act, especially toward those who are, for the sake of the Gospel, imprisoned, or otherwise suffering persecution, so that we may extend to them counsel, aid and refreshment (1Jn_3:18).—It is a gracious provision of God that although the ungodly would gladly see all the righteous destroyed at once, or at least oppressed, still sufferings pass but gradually from one to another, in order that those who as yet have been spared, may be able to receive and succor the oppressed (Rev_12:12).—He who is prudent will let the consideration of the righteous judgment of God hold him back from sin (Ecc_12:13-14).—Sin, the sin of fornication and adultery, cannot be too sharply rebuked before the world. Hence God has pledged Himself to punish them.—The little which a righteous man hath, is better than the great possessions of the ungodly.—A Christian must faithfully apply to himself what he reads in the Holy Scriptures, according to the, exigencies of the case.—Human weakness fears before men, as if they could disturb its pleasant repose and satisfaction. But comfort! who shall be able to harm those whom God has taken into His protection? (Rom_8:31; 1Pe_3:14).
Rieger:—It belongs to the nature and power of faith to receive promptly and interpret for itself every word of God, but along with this to set to its seal, that God is true. He who makes God alone his goal, has in God a rich consolation.—This is the holiest feature of the book of the Psalms that in it the Divine promises are placed before us, transformed already into pure nourishment for faith, and into living power.
Hahn:—A guest has frequently an invisible companion, and thus the cost of his entertainment is richly repaid.—Worldlings leave one another in the lurch; but believers all stand firm for a man.—Brotherly love has two hinderances, the unchaste flesh, and avarice.—God makes a marvellous distribution of suffering; one suffers early, another late. Thus what has no yet arrived, may still come. Hence, both in prayer and in benefactions remember the miserable.—Man is always anxious lest his supplies may fail; but God is good for all our deficiencies.
Schleiermacher:—On Christian hospitality. (Sermons on the Christian household).
Heubner:—The dearer to us is our faith, the dearer to us are our kinsmen in the faith.—In Christianity purity has a religious ground.—Confidence in God is the best preservative against anxious care for food, and makes us free from the fear of men.
Hedinger:—Love has extraordinary impulses; the best love gladly entertains guests. Whom? Those who are unable to render any temporal recompense.
Footnotes:
[1]Heb_13:4.—The particle δέ is found in C. D***. J. K.; on the contrary, γάρ in Sin. A. D*. M. The Pesh. follows the former reading; the It. and Vulg. the latter. [Tisch., Del., Moll retain δέ. Alf. substitutes γάρ.—K.].
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On v3 Remember--in prayers and acts of kindness.
Remember--in prayers and acts of kindness.
bound with them--by virtue of the unity of the members in the body under one Head, Christ (Co1 12:26).
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suffer adversity--Greek, "are in evil state."
being yourselves also in the body--and so liable to the adversities incident to the natural body, which ought to dispose you the more to sympathize with them, not knowing how soon your own turn of suffering may come. "One experiences adversity almost his whole life, as Jacob; another in youth, as Joseph; another in manhood, as Job; another in old age" [BENGEL].
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 3 5. PERSONAL.—Admonitions and salutations to the Jerusalem Church, Heb_13:1-21.
5. PERSONAL.—Admonitions and salutations to the Jerusalem Church, Heb_13:1-21.
Though this epistle begins as a treatise and continues as an oration, it ends as a personal letter.
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1. Brotherly love—A single word, used in the classics of love between brothers and sisters. The Jews applied the word brother to any Jew; the Christians appropriated it from a racial use to a religious one.
Remain—It had existed in past times; it was liable to be broken by tendencies to apostasy; let it be firm and permanent.
Entertain strangers—A branch of brotherly love. The absence of hotels in the East made hospitality a cardinal virtue. The itinerant servants of Christ ever needed an itinerant home.
Entertained angels unawares—A beautiful allusion to Abraham (Genesis 18) and to Lot, Gen_19:1-3. Our author does not suppose that his readers will ever entertain an angel in like manner, but the entertainers of Christian ministers have often in past times found that they entertained something better than angels, namely, messengers of salvation to the family. The successive phrases, remain, be not forgetful, remember, are forms of reminder of virtues which had existed but were liable to perish from negligence. Many a Christian at the present day is lost to the Church because, in going to a new locality, he is received by the Church there with inhospitality and neglect. Christian sociality is a virtue of great churchly value, and ministers should emphasize it in their teachings.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–3 1. Let brotherly love continue] Not only was “brotherly…
1. Let brotherly love continue] Not only was “brotherly love” (Philadelphia) a new and hitherto almost undreamed of virtue but it was peculiarly necessary among the members of a bitterly-persecuted sect. Hence all the Apostles lay constant stress upon it (Rom_12:10; 1Th_4:9; 1Pe_1:22; 1Jn_3:14-18, &c.). It was a special form of the more universal “Love” (Ἀγάπη), and our Lord had said that by it the world should recognise that Christians were His disciples (Joh_13:35). How entirely this prophecy was fulfilled we see alike from the fervid descriptions of tertullian, from the mocking admissions of Lucian in his curious and interesting tract “on the death of Peregrinus,” and from the remark of the Emperor Julian (Ep. 49), that their “kindness towards strangers” had been a chief means of propagating their “atheism.” But brotherly-love in the limits of a narrow community is often imperilled by the self-satisfaction of an egotistic and dogmatic orthodoxy, shewing itself in party rivalries. This may have been the case among these Hebrews as among the Corinthians; and the neglect by some of the gatherings for Christian worship (Heb_10:25) may have tended to deepen the sense of disunion. The disunion however was only incipient, for the writer has already borne testimony to the kindness which prevailed among them (Heb_6:10, Heb_10:32-33).
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–3 (1) Brotherly love.—Better, The love of the brethren. (See…
(1) Brotherly love.—Better, The love of the brethren. (See Rom_12:10, and Note; 1Th_4:9; 1Pe_1:22.) The love which they had shown to the Christian brotherhood is commended in Heb_6:10 (Heb_10:33); and yet there was some ground for fear that such affection might not “continue” (Heb_10:25).
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–3 As in St. Paul"s Epistles, practical directions as to…
As in St. Paul"s Epistles, practical directions as to conduct conclude the treatise, such as the readers may be supposed to have especially needed. They are urged to evince and confirm the faith which was the subject of Heb 11, and to maintain their communion with the world invisible spoken of in Heb 12, by attending especially to those daily duties which they might be in danger of forgetting. By perseverance in a life consistent with profession faith is not only evidenced, but also kept from faltering. In the course of these hortations (vers. 10-13), being suggested by one of them, there is introduced a yet additional view of the meaning of the Levitical symbolism.
Let brotherly love continue. Filadelfia does not mean general philanthropy, but the peculiar love of Christians to each other as brethren; "a narrower sphere within the wider sphere of agaph" (Delitzsch); cf. 1Pe_2:17, "Honor all men, love the brotherhood;" and 2Pe_1:7, where Christians are exhorted to add agaph to their filadelpia . This grace of filadelfia they had already, and had evinced it by their conduct; (cf. Heb_6:10, etc.) they are only to take care that it court, me; and let them, among other ways, evince it in hospitality (ver. 2), and in sympathy with the afflicted brethren (ver. 3).
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Vers. 1-6. Personal exhortations.
This book "to the Hebrews" begins like a doctrinal treatise; but it ends like a letter. Heb 13 is written quite in the epistolary form; and concludes with some personal notices the only such that are to be found in the book. The verses before us contain counsels suited to the individual Christian life. Here the apostle says in effect to his readers Be not selfish (vers. 1-3); be not sensual (ver. 4); be not sordid (vers. 5, 6).
I AN EXHORTATION TO BROTHERLY LOVE. (Vers. 1-3.) In the New Testament, love of the brethren means love of the spiritual brotherhood of believers. The natural affection which subsists between brothers and sisters, although very sacred and beautiful, is not in itself Christian brotherly love. No more is patriotism, or love of country, a distinctively Christian sentiment. The brotherly love which the gospel inspires forgets all differences merely of kindred and nation. It is a spiritual bond, and unites the saint to all his fellow-believers everywhere. This love is not one of the things "that can be shaken"; (Heb_12:27) it never faileth". (1Co_13:8, 1Co_13:13) So, the apostle exhorts the Hebrews to make sure that it shall "remain" among themselves, and be as actively exercised in the future as in the past. (Heb_6:10) For, the spirit which rejoices to recognize fellow-believers taking pleasure in their society, laboring to promote their welfare, and throwing the veil of charity over their failings is one of the richest and ripest fruits of the Christian life. Love of the brethren is the cement of a congregation. And only the man who cherishes it is, in the proper meaning of the word, a gentleman. In vers. 2, 3, the apostle specifies two modes by which it is essential that brotherly love should be manifested; those, viz. of hospitality and sympathy. It is to be shown towards:
1. Brethren who are strangers. (Ver. 2) The Christian Hebrews were to account it a sacred duty hospitably to entertain fellow-believers from other lands or districts, who might be traveling either on business, or in the service of the Church, or because driven from home by persecution. And not only a sacred duty, but a blessed privilege. For as Abraham and Lot (Ge 18 Ge 19) entertained angels unawares," so the stranger whom the Christian receives may turn out to be a messenger from God to his soul one whose presence may fill his house with the atmosphere of heaven. Should the stranger be a man whose mind is stored with the treasures of spiritual truth, and whose affections are devout and pure, his visit may prove a means of direct quickening to the religious life of the household. Samuel Rutherford experienced this privilege, when one Saturday evening he received a stranger into his pleasant manse at Anworth; for after being impressed at the family catechizing with the guest"s answer that the number of the commandments was eleven, the "new commandment" (Joh_13:34) being cited as proof, he discovered by-and-by that his visitor was Archbishop Usher, the learned and devout primate of the Church of Ireland. But another and a still sweeter thought is not remote from the motive to hospitality contained in this verse, viz. that in entertaining Christ"s servants we are receiving the Master himself: "I was a Stranger, and ye took me in". (Mat_25:35)
2. Brethren who are sufferers. (Ver. 3) The Hebrews were to "remember" the saints who might be in prison. They were to do so "as bound with them; a beautiful expression, breathing the aroma of true Christian sympathy. They were to pray earnestly for them, if possible visit them, minister to their wants, and strive to secure their liberation. Brotherly kindness would lead them to conceive of themselves as occupying the position of the sufferers. It would cause them to realize the "bonds" of their brethren as an affliction personal to themselves, just as the elder Brother"s love does. (Act_9:4) But, since imprisonment is not the only calamity to which believers are exposed, the apostle proceeds to bespeak sympathy for all who in any way "are evil entreated" for Jesus" sake. We ourselves are liable to the same adversities which our brethren endure. Let us, therefore, identify ourselves with them. It is not enough that we contribute to public charities. Neither do we discharge all our duty when we employ some person as our proxy to care for the sufferers. True Christian sympathy requires that we bring ourselves into personal contact with them. Strength is often received from the glance of a sympathizing eye, or the grasp of a loving hand, or the utterance of a tender word of holy comfort.
II A WARNING AGAINST IMPURITY. (Ver. 4.) The first part of this verse should certainly be translated as an exhortation. Marriage is to be" had in honor;" not so much here, however, as against celibacy, but in opposition to unchastity. The apostle in this precept elevates marriage to its rightful place as a Divine ordinance. The ethics of the New Testament magnify family life. The Christian religion, in honoring the family, guarding its rights, and proclaiming its duties, has invested home with a halo of loveliness. Wherever the sacred character of marriage is recognized and felt, the result will be purity. And, adds the apostle, there is judgment in reserve for those who dishonor God"s ordinance in this matter. For the adulterer is guilty of the greatest of all social crimes, murder alone excepted. Whether, therefore, the breaker of the seventh commandment be a single or a married person, he shall not escape. The doom of impenitent sensualists will be none the less dreadful that the apostle does not here enlarge upon it. He feels it enough to say solemnly regarding such persons, "God will judge.
III A DISSUASIVE AGAINST THE LOVE OF MONEY. (Vers. 5, 6) Constantly in the New Testament sensuality and avarice are mentioned together as being sins of the same class. (Mar_7:21, 22 1Co_5:10 1Co_6:9, 10 Eph_5:3 Col_3:5 2Pe_2:14) If sensuality hardens the human heart, sordidness does so also. The love of filthy lucre will drag a man down to perdition quite as readily and insidiously as the love of filthy lust. Avarice is often regarded as the national sin of the Hebrew race. The natural man Jacob is very prone to develop unless Divine grace prevent into the sordid, grasping Shylock. But the Anglo-Saxon nations are all powerfully predisposed to this sin too. In our own time how largely are riches over-estimated, both as a means of happiness and as an evidence of success in life! Even the Church of Christ is tempted to pay court to wealth. Yet it cannot be denied that the Savior forbids his people to make it one of their chief aims to accumulate gold. We are to be diligent in business, and neither despise money nor set our hearts upon it. To be "content with present things" (ver. 5) is a high Christian attainment. And a man"s habits of thought and life in connection with money are a touchstone of his character. "A right measure and manner in getting, saving, spending, giving, taking, lending, borrowing, and bequeathing, would almost argue a perfect man" (Henry Taylor). The apostle sustains his precept by an appeal to Scripture (ver. 5). The words quoted, "I will in no wise fail thee," etc. , contain in the original no fewer than five negatives, and are thus, as it were, a fivefold assurance of the Divine support. God gave this same promise to so many of the ancient saints to Jacob, Joshua, Solomon, etc. that it possesses the force of a spiritual adage, and thus may be personally appropriated by every believer. In all ages thousands of the people of God have rested on it, and have accordingly exemplified the rare and difficult grace of contentment. This is matter of history and of observation. O earth, so full of dreary noises! O men, with wailing in your voices O delved gold, the wailers heap! O strife, O curse, that o"er it fall! God strikes a silence through you all, And giveth his beloved sleep. (Mrs. Browning.)
Seeing, then, that we who believe are assured of the Divine presence and help, why should we not have the "good courage" (ver. 6) to say with the psalmist, "I will not fear: what shall man do unto me"? (Psa_118:6) Avarice has its root in want of faith in God; but no one who is persuaded that the Lord is with him need dread any kind of poverty. Having Jehovah for his Champion, he will not "make gold his hope, or say to the fine gold, Thou art nay confidence." Divine grace will root up out of his heart the noxious weed of covetousness, and plant in its room the fair arid fragrant flower of contentment.
HOMILIES BY W. JONES. Vers. 1-3. Brotherly love. "Let brotherly love continue. Be not forgetful to, etc. The writer now proceeds to exhort his readers to the practice of sundry Christian virtues. He begins by enjoining the maintenance and manifestation of brotherly love.
I THE MAINTENANCE OF BROTHERLY LOVE. "Let brotherly love continue.
1. That this affection existed is implied. That it had been exercised in former times is clear from Heb_10:32-34. That it was existent and active at the time when this Epistle was written appears from Heb_6:10.
2. That this affection was imperiled is also implied. There are several things which may check the growth and extinguish the life of brotherly love.
(1) Diversity of opinion. We are each gifted with individuality; we sometimes look at things from different standpoints; we arrive at different conclusions. This is the case in the interpretation of the sacred Scriptures, and in other matters. Differences of opinion sometimes lead to differences of feeling, to coldness and estrangement.
(2) Diversity of gifts. The great Master gives to one man five talents, to another two, and to another one. There is danger that pride in those of superior gifts, or envy in those who are less gifted, may crush this holy affection.
(3) Misunderstandings may arise amongst Christian brethren and blight their love of each other.
3. That this affection should be maintained. "Let brotherly love continue." Let it remain. Guard against those things which endanger its existence. Cherish it. This love of the brethren is not to be limited to those who belong to the same ecclesiastical community, or to those who hold the same views of Christian doctrine; it should embrace all the disciples of the Lord Jesus. "Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in uncorruptness ." The importance of maintaining this affection is manifest from many Divine utterances. (Joh_13:34, 35 15:12, 17 1Jn_3:11, 14-18 4:7, 8, 11, 20, 21)
II THE MANIFESTATION OF BROTHERLY LOVE. TWO forms in which this affection should be expressed are adduced in our text.
1. Hospitality towards strangers. "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." Consider:
(1) The duty. Hospitality is frequently enjoined and commended in the. (Mat_10:40-42 Mat_25:34-46 Luk_10:4-7 1Ti 3:2Ti 1Ti_1:8 1Pe_4:9) "The primitive Christians," says Calmet, "considered one principal part of their duty to consist in showing hospitality to strangers. They were, in fact, so ready in discharging this duty, that the very heathen admired them for it. They were hospitable to all strangers, but especially to those who were of the household of faith. Believers scarcely ever traveled without letters of communion, which testified the purity of their faith, and procured for them a favorable reception wherever the Name of Jesus Christ was known." In the parable of the good Samaritan the great Teacher presented to his disciples a perfect example of Christian hospitality.
(2) The motive by which we are encouraged to perform this duty. For thereby some have entertained angels unawares." There is a reference to Abraham (Ge 18) and to Lot. (Ge 19) Many a guest has proved as an angel to his entertainers, brightening the home by his presence, and leaving behind him precious memories and saving influences. The kindness we have shown to strangers has often come back to us with compound interest, and in higher and holier forms. Therefore, "forget not to show love unto strangers.
2. Sympathy towards sufferers. "Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body." Notice two points:
(1) The obligation. "Remember them," etc. All who are distressed should be remembered tenderly, sympathized with heartily, and succored as far as opportunity will allow. "Weep with them that weep." "Bear ye one another"s burdens," etc.
(2) The consideration presented as an incitement to the fulfillment of this obligation. "As being yourselves also in the body." We are not beyond the reach of persecution or distress. We may be called to suffer as some of our Christian brethren are now suffering, and then we should need the sympathy which they now require. Here is a beautiful example of this sympathy. "Thomas Samson was a working miner, and working hard for his bread. The captain of the mine said to him on one occasion, "Thomas, I"ve got an easier berth for you, where there is comparatively little to do, and where you can earn more money. Will you accept it?" What do you think he said? "Captain, there"s our poor brother Tregoney. He has a sick body, and he is not able to work as hard as I am. I fear his toil will shorten his useful life. Will you let him have the berth?" The captain, pleased with his generosity, sent for Tregoney, and gave him the berth. Thomas was gratified, and added, "I can work a little longer yet. W.J.
HOMILIES BY D. YOUNG Ver. 1. Brotherly love.
I ESPECIALLY NECESSARY AT THE PRESENT SEASON. It was a time of trial from outside. Brothers needed to be brotherly, helping one another. We cannot expect anything from strangers, and must be ready even for their hostility. But we must do everything to guard against alienation amongst friends at a time when the closest union will be serviceable.
II THE COUNSEL NECESSARY BECAUSE SELF-REGARD IS SUCH A SUBTLE SIN. Carnal views of the kingdom of heaven, such as seem to have been prevalent among these Hebrew Christians, inevitably led to each one of them thinking what in the expected glorious state of things he would get for himself. So it was among the disciples of Jesus. They disputed who should be greatest. There was even intrigue to get promise of the principal places. Christians need to be ever on their guard lest any feeling get dominion in their hearts hostile to the good of the whole body.
III WE ARE REMINDED OF ABIDING THINGS THAT DEPEND ON OUR OWN DISPOSITION. The writer has just been referring to things that can be shaken and removed, and things that cannot be shaken. These are things that God deals with by his power. But the continuance of some things depends on whether we will have them continue. Whether brotherliness shall be a deep and abiding thing depends on the state of our hearts.
IV CONTINUAL REMEMBRANCE OF THE REAL RELATION OF EVERY CHRISTIAN TO EVERY OTHER CHRISTIAN. By the same Spirit we are all born again, and therefore members of the same Divine family. Each of us, therefore, is under certain obligations; each of us may prefer certain claims. But there can be no proper treatment either of the obligations or the claims unless there be real affection underneath. It is in the spiritual sphere as in the natural; the mere relation may only irritate unless there be the feelings that properly belong to the relation. Y.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1–3 Let brotherly love continue
Heb_13:1
Let brotherly love continue
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Brotherly love
I.
WHAT IS BROTHERLY LOVE? It is that feeling of mutual regard, subsisting among the members of the faithful, which is felt to be due from one brother to another, and without which, in the intercourse of domestic life, there could be neither peace in families nor comfort in society. If, though hatred should not exist among them, there were yet no cordial affection, nothing like a desire to promote each others welfare, the members of that family would deprive themselves of the most fruitful source of enjoyment still permitted to fallen human nature. But brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus form but one family in the eyes of our common Parent; and He has commanded them to love as brethren.
II. How IS BROTHERLY LOVE TO BE CULTIVATED AND ATTAINED? There may be differences of sentiment and practice in many particulars, which human infirmity will always occasion, even among those who are endeavouring to find the way to the same heavenly city. But there must be a reception of the Lord Jesus; in all His offices of Prophet, Priest, and King, and a desire to submit to the guidance of His Word, and to be led by the gracious direction of His Spirit, as a foundation for that brotherly love in which we are commanded to live. Common feelings imply common principles; and the peculiar love of Christians must have the peculiar faith of Christians for its basis and origin.
III. How MAY BROTHERLY LOVE MOST SECURELY CONTINUE?
1. Of course the first object, with this view, should he to retain the feelings in which that pure affection for the Christian brotherhood originated; to recollect, from day to day, that one is our Master, even Christ, and that all we are brethren; and still more especially to look upon every trait of Christian character as a link of attachment, a feature in that family likeness which belongs to all the faithful, and gives them an instinctive interest in each others well-being. But, after all, the chief preservative of this characteristic grace of Christianity is, the love of Christ Himself, which will always necessarily expand in love for the brethren.
2. But, further; if we desire this mutual regard for all the brethren to continue among us, and to grow, we must attend to two things.
(1) We must be on the watch to do those actions which have a tendency to promote and to strengthen brotherly love. We must inquire into each others wants, with a view to relieve them, and thus exercise the affections which we wish to cultivate.
(2) We must be careful to remove those impediments which thwart and retard its growth. Now, there are a number of little causes, which, by being suffered to grow up in the bosoms of Christians, tend to narrow their affections, and restrain that brotherly love which ought to be their delight. Differences of taste will sometimes, if not controlled, engender personal dislikes, against which a wise man can never be too much on his guard. It is surprising how often some slight, but frequently recurring, peculiarities of manner will produce a distaste for the society of a person who is yet a Christian.
3. Again; every man has his infirmities, his failings, his besetting sins. There is no habit more injurious to the exercise of brotherly love than that of dwelling unnecessarily on the defects of those whom we are bound to love as brethren. Whatever be your neighbours faults, he is still your brother, for whom Christ died. I have not now spoken of the duty of forgiveness, because, among those who are Christians indeed, the occasions for the exercise of this virtue ought to be rare. But yet a forgiving disposition is so essential an attribute of Christianity that brotherly love cannot be cultivated without it.
4. But the grand instrument for the removal of all impediments to our charity, from within or from without, is intercessory prayer. (E. G. Marsh, M. A.)
Brotherly love
A brother is a hallowed name. Born of the same parents, nursed with the same untiring, tender care, dependent on the same protection, and sharing in the same blessings of the same common hearthstone, expectant heirs of a common inheritance, the tie that binds me to my brother is one most sacred in its nature, and nothing ought to be allowed to injure, much lest to destroy, this hallowed relationship.
I. BROTHERLY LOVE MAY BE DISTURBED AND SOMETIMES SEVERED. Christianity does not deprive us of our individuality. With the same inspired truth before us we differ, honestly, in our opinions as to the meaning or extent of that truth. We still have our pride of opinion. Again, we are liable to have our preferences and prejudices as well as our opinions. Here is need for the exercise of that charity that thinketh no evil; that, in honour, prefers another to itself. Love is magnetic. It attracts pure hearts together and all to God. It throws its wondrous power over sinful opposition, and with more than the skill of Orpheus is a true tamer of wild beasts. Love is the great law of gravity in Gods spiritual universe; it binds each orb and keeps it coherent, while it rolls all in harmony around the grand central sun. Love is the vitalising principle of truth and experience and duty. Love concentrates individual piety in intense beauty in the character of the Church, while it unifies and employs all the strength of the Church in its sacred mission on the earth.
II. Again, THERE IS THE PURPOSE FORMED BY EACH LOVER OF THE SAVIOUR THAT BROTHERLY LOVE SHALL CONTINUE. The first approaches of the small foxes that injure the vines are carefully guarded against. Special care is taken to put out the least spark of envy, or malice, or uncharitableness, that the enemy may throw into the soul. The little courtesies of Christian as well as polite society are tendered with suitable delicacy, and little deeds of kindness are kept busily at work receiving and reciprocating true brotherly love.
III. BROTHERLY LOVE ACCORDS TO OTHERS WHAT WE CLAIM FOR OURSELVES, AND MORE--for, in true humility, in honour it esteems others better than itself. It is deferential, forbearing, and forgiving. To rejoice in the success of a brother, more than in our own, is strong evidence that we have been with Jesus, and breathed largely of His Spirit. Let brotherly love continue.
1. This should be the theory and practice of the ministers and officers of the Church.
2. Among different denominations of Christians this should be observed.
3. Among members of the same Church this apostolic injunction is a vital necessity. It is utterly opposed to detraction of the gifts, ability, and usefulness either of ministers or of any member of the Church.
4. We should cultivate this principle of brotherly love, for through it we must show, by contrast with unsanctified human nature, that Christs religion makes us gentle, kind, patient, and forgiving; and as Christs history is the loveliest exhibition of Divine love, so we must reflect the highest honour on our once crucified but now risen Lord, by loving the brethren.
5. Nowhere is there a more attractive picture of genuine piety than in the fellowship of the saints. (W. H. Anderson, D. D.)
Love one another:
Love is one of the most important and distinctive of all Christian graces, and some of the churches seem to have been distinguished by a great abundance of it. Writing to the Thessalonians, the apostle says: Concerning brotherly love, ye have no need that I write unto you. I thank God for all the grace that has abounded in you; still let it continue. Let us now glance at the objects of brotherly love. In the first place, it must mean Christian brotherhood. Only as we love them for Christs sake have we any true brotherly love. But what is to be the rule of our brotherly love? It is to be after the measure and the pattern of our Lords love to us. This is the revealed standard, and it has been set before us most plainly again and again. When the Saviour announced it to His disciples He said: A new commandment give I unto you, that ye love one another as I have loved you, and very soon after He refers to it again and says: This is My commandment, that ye love one another. Then He refers to the strongest proof of love: Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friend. The Apostle Paul said: Walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and the Apostle John said: Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. Why, this laying down of His life is the mystery of redemption, the strongest revelation of the Divine compassion, the innermost sanctuary of the absolute goodness. How can we attain to this standard of love? It is a good rule--aim high, or you will never excel. Ay, and this, too, is needed--for brotherly love has a good deal to do, to endure, and to give--a heart divinely tender, a hand divinely strong, a soul divinely generous. And now consider some reasons why we should join the apostle in his desire: Let brotherly love continue. First, it has a power of living and growing. Brotherly love is a living power. We may well and consistently say, Let it continue. In the trials that will come of the furthering of the cause of Christ, let brotherly love ever continue. The want of it hinders more than almost anything else. Besides, the presence and power of it is mightily helpful. The Saviour prayed that His disciples might be all one--not in oneness of ceremonial and creed, but in character and life with the Father and with the Son. But that was only to secure another object--that the world might know, that the world might believe that the Father had sent the Son. This was the direct effect produced by the descent of the new Christian life on the Day of Pentecost. The primitive disciples were few and poor, unlearned and despised. Yet by moral force alone they emptied the temples and demolished the altars, vanquished Caesar, the philosophers and priests, and changed the aspect of the world. By what? Supremely by the vision of the Crucified--that manifestation of matchless love, which at once showed what love for sinners was and could do. And next to that was the image of brotherly love, a Divine creation, sent amongst men. In a world where the few were tyrants and knew no mercy, and the many crushed and toiling slaves that found no pity--lo! they looked up, saw this new creation--men loving one another--and they said: See how these Christians love one another! and their hearts were eased, and a new life began in them, and a new life was conferred upon them. Was it so? There is no question. Then let brotherly love continue. Further, brotherly love is for the edification and establishment of the cause of Christ. Paul says: Knowledge puffeth up; charity edifieth. The great appointed force for all Christians, where by each believing man may attain to a full salvation, is faith; but faith works by love. Christian fidelity consists not merely in speaking the truth--you only want a hot temper to do that sometimes--but in speaking the truth in love--a very rare and a very difficult thing. In the midst of all infirmities andsufferings to have a patience that never frets and an energy that never tires, forbearing one another in love--oh, there is the calm and glow of the divinest life that can possess the soul of a man I God grant that this grace of love may abide with you, because it edifies every way and everywhere. Let it continue in the midst of the infirmities and sufferings of life. One brother is rash, another sluggish; one vain, another proud; one rude, another sensitive; one shy, another forward. Amidst all imperfections there is nothing so good and nothing so helpful as brotherly love--meek, generous, thinking no evil, seeking not its own, believing all things, hoping all things, enduring all things. And in one way or another all have their sufferings. These sufferings are to us a great mystery; yet one feels that they furnish a grand field for the exercise of brotherly love in which to speak its kind words, do its best deeds, win its triumphs, and shine forth in all its glory. Brotherly love is also a sign of grace, and a good one. A sign of grace, I say, and a blessed sign of grace, a mark of the true Church if you try to get it and keep it. Finally, let brotherly love continue until it return unto glory; for by Divine appointment it shall live in heaven and be perfect there. (John Aldis.)
The duty of brotherly love
1. There is the express command of God and of Christ in regard to it. It is a permanent obligation.
2. The relationship continues, and so should the affection; the bond of brotherhood abides, and the love of the brotherhood should abide also.
3. The fountain from which it flows continues, and so also should the stream that flows from it.
4. The necessity for its cultivation continues,
(1) You have need of it.
(2) Your brethren have need of it; for oh, you know not how you grieve and wound them.
(3) The glory of Christ and the triumphs of the gospel need it. (Thos. Main, D. D.)
The preservation of brotherly love:
Brotherly love is very apt to be impaired if we do not endeavour continually to preserve it. It is a part of the wisdom of faith to consider aright the occasions of the decay of mutual love, and the means of its preservation. Without this we cannot comply with this caution and injunction in a due manner.
I. The CAUSES OF THE DECAY OF THIS LOVE, whence it doth not continue as it ought, are
1. Self-love.
2. Love of this present world.
3. Abounding of lusts in the hearts of men.
4. Ignorance of the true nature, both of the grace and the exercise of it, in its proper duties.
5. Principally, the loss of a concernment in the foundation of it, which is an interest in gratuitous adoption, and the participation of the same spirit, the same new nature and life. Where this is not, though conviction of truth and the profession of it may for a season make an appearance of this brotherly love, it will not long continue.
II. THE OCCASIONS OF ITS DECAY AND LOSS ARE
1. Differences in opinion and practice about things in religion.
2. Unsuitableness of natural tempers and inclinations.
3. Readiness to receive a sense of appearing provocations.
4. Different, and sometimes inconsistent secular interests.
5. An abuse of spiritual gifts, by pride on the one hand, or envy on the other.
6. Attempts for domination, inconsistent in a fraternity; which are all to be watched against.
III. THE MEANS OF ITS CONTINUANCE OR PRESERVATION ARE
1. An endeavour to grow and thrive in the principle of it, or the power of adopting grace.
2. A due sense of the weight or moment of this duty, from the especial institution and command of Christ.
3. Of the trial which is committed thereunto, of the sincerity of our grace, and the truth of our sanctification. For by this we know that we are passed from death unto life.
4. A due consideration of the use, yea, necessity of this duty to the glory of God, and edification of the Church; and
5. Of that breach of union, loss of peace, disorder and confusion, which must and will ensue on the neglect of it.
6. Constant watchfulness against all those vicious habits of mind, in self-love, or love of the world, which are apt to impair it.
7. Diligent heed that it be not insensibly impaired in its vital acts; such as are patience, forbearance, readiness to forgive, unaptness to believe evil, without which no other duties of it will be long continued.
8. Fervent prayer for supplies of grace enabling us thereunto, with sundry others of a like nature. And if we judge not this duty of such importance as to be constant in the use of these means for the maintenance of it, it will not continue. (John Owen, D. D.)
Christian union
I. ITS NATURE.
1. Unity in sentiment.
2. Union of feeling.
3. Union of effort.
II. THE DESIRABLENESS OR IMPORTANCE OF CHRISTIAN UNION.
1. The teachings of Scripture.
2. The example of the early Christians.
3. The evils of division.
4. Christians are engaged in the same cause.
5. Union is strength.
6. Union is promotive of happiness.
7. It is only by the exercise of that love, which is the substratum of union, that one can resemble God, and become imbued with the spirit of heaven. (W. C. Whitcomb.)
Motives to brotherly love
1. Brotherly love is a grace absolutely necessary. It is the foundation whereon all duties that have relation to the brethren are erected.
2. Brotherly love is one of the fairest and most glorious flowers in the Christian garden. It makes men amiable before God and man. It sends forth a sweet fragrant savour wheresoever it is.
3. Such is the life and vigour of brotherly love, as it puts on them in whom it is unto all duties. A stronger incitation and enforcement thereunto cannot be given.
4. So violent and irresistible is the power of love, as it will pass through all difficulties, and overthrow all obstacles. It will not be hindered from doing the good it should do.
5. Love is as salt, which infuseth a savoury and wholesome taste into such things as would otherwise be fresh and flashy. It is therefore joined with sundry other duties for this very purpose, even to season them. The apostle so far commends love in this kind, as he maketh all things unsavoury and unprofitable without it (1Co_13:1-3). He therefore giveth this general advice, Let-all your things be done in love (1Co_16:14).
6. Love hath a strong operation on others. It is a fire which heateth the things that are near it. As apprehension of Gods love to us works love in us to God (1Jn_4:19), so others apprehension of our love to them will make them love us. And as love puts us on to all kindness unto them, so their love of us will put them on to do all kindness unto us. David and Jonathan.
7. Love is one of the most comfortable graces that a man can have. It gives evidence to others, and brings assurance to a mans own soul of the love of God to him, of his right to Jesus Christ, of the Spirits abode in him, and of his right to the heavenly inheritance.
8. Love is an especial means of strengthening and establishing the kingdom of Christ. It unites the subjects and members of that kingdom in one, which is a means of great stability.
9. The nearest union that is betwixt any in this world is betwixt professors of the faith, and that in their mutual relation one to another, and in the joint relation that they all have to Christ. Resemblances of the nearest relation that be, are used to set this forth, as of a foundation and edifice Eph_2:20-21) of a vine and branches (Joh_15:5), of a husband and wife (Eph_5:32; 2Co_11:2), of a head and body (Eph_1:22-23). This near union should stir us up to brotherly love; for therein we love that body which is styled Christ (1Co_12:12).
10. This world s hatred of saints should the more stir us up to love them. Christ enforceth this duty upon this ground (Joh_15:17-19). The world most hateth saints, and that, in this very respect, because they are saints.
But brotherly love is a sovereign antidote against the poison of the worlds hatred, and a precious cordial to revive and support the saints spirits. (W. Gouge.)
Brotherly love:
A truly pious man, of rank in society, was in the habit of entertaining persons of very humble circumstances of life, if they only gave evidence of true religion. A friend of his, who was accustomed to measure everything according to the standard of this world, pleasantly rallied him on the subject of his associates; intimating his surprise that he should admit to his hospitality and friendship persons of so obscure origin, and of so little estimation among men. He replied, in a tone of unaffected humility, that as he could scarcely hope to enjoy so elevated a rank as they, in a future world, he knew not why he should despise them in the present. The reproof came home to the feelings of the proud man, and he was silent; conscience whispering, meanwhile, how dim were his prospects of rising in the future world to an equality with the pious poor, if his Christian friend was in danger of falling below them.
Brotherly love among the early Christians
A striking instance of the brotherly love of the early Christians transpired in the great plague that raged round Alexandria, during the reign of Gallienus. At the first appearance of the symptoms, the heathen drove the infected man from their sight; they tore themselves from their dearest connections; they threw their friends half-dead into the streets, and left their dead unburied. But, in contrast with this cruel selfishness, the Christians, in the abundance of their brotherly love, as their Bishop Dionysius says, did not spare themselves, but mutually attending each other, they would visit the sick without fear, and ministering to each other for the sake of Christ, cheerfully gave up their lives with them. Many died after their care had restored others to health. Many, who took the bodies of their Christian brethren into their hands and bosoms, and closed their eyes, and buried them with every mark of attention, soon followed them in death.
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1
CHAPTER XVI.
SUNDRY EXHORTATIONS.
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HEBREWS 13
Let love of the brethren continue. Forget not to shew love unto strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; them that are evil entreated, as being yourselves also in the body. Let marriage be had in honour among all, and let the bed be undefiled: for fornicators and adulterers God will judge. Be ye free from the love of money; content with such things as ye have: for Himself hath said, I will in no wise fail thee, neither will I in any wise forsake thee. So that with good courage we say.
The Lord is my helper; I will not fear: What shall man do unto me?
Remember them that had the rule over you, which spake unto you the word of God; and considering the issue of their life, imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today, yea and for ever. Be not carried away by divers and strange teachings: for it is good that the heart be established by grace; not by meats, wherein they that occupied themselves were not profited. We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle. For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest as an offering for sin, are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered without the gate. Let us therefore go forth unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach. For we have not here an abiding city, but we seek after the city which is to come. Through Him then let us offer up a sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of lips which make confession to His name. But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased. Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit to them: for they watch in behalf of your souls, as they that shall give account: that they may do this with joy, and not with grief: for this were unprofitable for you.
Pray for us: for we are persuaded that we have a good conscience, desiring to live honestly in all things. And I exhort you the more exceedingly to do this, that I may be restored to you the sooner.
Now the God of peace, who brought again from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep with the blood of the eternal covenant, even our Lord Jesus, make you perfect in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is well-pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.
But I exhort you, brethren, bear with the word of exhortation: for I have written unto you in few words. Know ye that our brother Timothy hath been set at liberty; with whom if he come shortly, I will see you.
Salute all them that have the rule over you, and all the saints. They of Italy salute you.
Grace be with you all. Amen.
The condition of the Hebrew Christians was most serious. But one excellence is acknowledged to have belonged to them. It was almost the only ground of hope. They ministered to the saints.[385] Yet even this grace was in peril. In a previous chapter the writer has exhorted them to call to remembrance the former days, in which they had compassion on them that were in bonds.[386] But he considers it sufficient, in reference to brotherly love, to urge them to see that it continues.[387] They were in more danger of forgetting to show kindness to their brethren of other Churches, who, in pursuance of the liberty of prophesying accorded in Apostolic times, journeyed from place to place for the purpose of founding new Churches or of imparting spiritual gifts to Churches already established. Besides, it was a time of local persecutions. One Church might be suffering, and its members might take refuge in a sister-Church. Missionaries and persecuted brethren would be the strangers to whom the enrolled widows used hospitality, and whose feet they washed.[388] We can well understand why in that age a bishop would be especially expected to be given to hospitality.[389] Uhlhorn excellently observes that "the greatness of the age consisted in this very feature: that Christians of all places knew themselves to be fraternally one, and that in this oneness all differences disappeared."[390] In the case of a Church consisting of Hebrews the duty of entertaining strangers, many of them necessarily Greeks, would be peculiarly apt to be forgotten. When a Church wavered in its allegiance to Christianity, the alienation would become still more pronounced.
The constant going and coming of missionary brethren reminds the author of the ministry of angels, who are like the swift breezes, and carry Christ's messages over the face of the earth.[391] Sometimes they are as a flame of fire. When they were on their way to destroy the Cities of the Plain, Abraham and Lot entertained them, not knowing that they were heaven-sent ministers of wrath.[392] It would be presumptuous in any man to deny the possibility of angelic visitations in the Christian Church; but the Apostle's meaning is not that hospitality ought to be shown to strangers in the hope that angels may be among them. They are to be received unawares; otherwise the fragrance of the deed is gone. But the fact remains, and has been proved in the experience of many, that kindness to strangers, be they preaching friars, or itinerant exhorters, or persecuted outcasts, brings a rich blessing to children's children. A Syrian builds for himself a hut on the riverside, and offers to carry the wayfarers across on his shoulders. One day a child asks to be taken over. But the light burden becomes every moment heavier. The exhausted bearer asks in astonishment, "Who art thou, child?" It was Christ, and the Syrian was named the Christ-bearer in remembrance of the event.[393]
The next exhortation is to purity. It is better not to attempt to connect these exhortations. Their special importance in the case of the Hebrew Christians is reason enough for them. Abstinence from marriage is not commended. Our author is not an Essene. On the contrary, he would discourage it. "Let marriage be held in honour among all classes of men." It is the Divinely appointed remedy against incontinence. But in the married state itself let there be purity. For the incontinent, whether in the bonds of wedlock or not, God's direct, providential judgments will overtake.
Then follows a warning against love of money, and the Lord's promise not to fail or forsake Joshua[394] is appropriated by our author on behalf of his readers. Their covetousness arose from anxiety, which may have been occasioned by their distressing poverty in the days of Claudius.[395] That the advice was needed shows the precise character of their threatening apostasy. Worldliness was at the root of their Judaism. It is still the same. The self-righteous do not hate money.
Let them imitate the trustfulness of their great leaders in the past, who had not given their time and thoughts to heaping up riches, but had devoted themselves to the work of witnessing and of speaking the word of God. Let them review with critical eye their manner of life, and observe how it ended. They all died in faith. Some of them suffered martyrdom, so complete and entirely unworldly was their self-surrender to Jesus Christ! But Jesus Christ is still the same One. If He was worthy that Stephen and James should die for His sake, He is worthy of our allegiance too. Yea, He will be the same for ever. When the world has passed away, with its fashion and its lust, when the earth and the works that are therein are burned up and dissolved, Jesus Christ abides. What He was yesterday to His martyr Stephen, that He is to all that follow Him in earth's today, and that He will for ever be when He shall have appeared unto them who expect Him unto salvation. The antithesis, it will be seen, is not between the departed saints and the abiding Christ, but between the world, which the Hebrew Christians loved too well, and the Christ Whom the saints of their Church had loved better than the world and served by faith unto death.
If Jesus Christ abides, He is our anchorage, and the exhortation first given near the beginning of the Epistle once more suggests itself to the Apostle. "Permit not yourselves to drift and be carried past[396] the moorings by divers strange doctrines." The word "doctrines" is itself emphatic, "Be not borne aside from the personal, abiding Jesus Christ by propositions, whether in reference to practice or to belief." What these "doctrines" were in this particular case we learn from the next verse. They were the doubtful disputations about meats. The epithets "divers and strange" restrict the allusion still more nearly. He speaks not of the general and familiar injunctions of Jewish teachers respecting meats, the subject rather contemptuously dismissed by St. Paul in the Epistle to the Romans: "One man hath faith to eat all things; but he that is weak eateth herbs."[397] Our author could not have regarded these doctrines as "strange," and he could scarcely have spoken of "strengthening the heart with meats" if he had meant abstinence from meats. A recent English expositor[398] has pointed out the direction in which we must seek the interpretation of this difficult passage. The Apostle brushes aside the novel teaching of the Essenes, who, without becoming Christians, "had broken away from the sacrificial system" of the Mosaic law and "substituted for it new ordinances of their own, according to which the daily meal became a sacrifice, and the president of the community took the place of the Levitical priest." Such teaching was quite as inconsistent with Judaism as with Christianity. But the writer of this Epistle rejects it for precisely the same reason for which he repudiates Judaism. Both are inconsistent with the perfect separateness of Christ's atonement.
It is well, as St. Paul said, for every man to be fully assured in his own mind.[399] A doubting conscience enfeebles a man's spiritual vigour for work. The Essenes found a remedy for morbidness in strictness as to meats and minute directions for the employment of time. St. Paul taught that an unhealthy casuistry would be best counteracted by doing all things unto the Lord. "He that eateth eateth unto the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not, unto the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks. For none of us liveth to himself, and none dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; or whether we die, we die unto the Lord."[400] The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews considers that it betokens a littleness of soul to strengthen conscience by regulations as to various kinds of food. The noble thing[401] is that the heart--that is, the conscience--be stablished by thankfulness,[402] which will produce a strong, placid, courageous, and healthy moral perception. The moral code of the New Testament is direct and simple. It is entirely free from all casuistical crotchets and distinctions without a difference. Those who busy themselves[403] about such matters have never gained anything by it.
Do the Essenes repudiate the altar the sacrifice of which may not be eaten? Do they teach that the only sacrifice for sin is the daily meal? This is a fatal error. "We have" says the Apostle, "an altar of which the worshippers are not permitted to eat."[404] All these expressions are metaphorical. By the altar we must understand the atoning sacrifice of Christ; by "those who serve the tabernacle" are meant believers in that sacrifice, prefigured, however, by the priests and worshippers under the old covenant; and by "eating of the altar" is meant participation in the sacredness that pertains to the death and atonement of Christ. The purpose of the writer is to teach the entire separateness of Christ's atonement. It is true that Christians eat the body and drink the blood of Christ.[405] But the words of our Lord and of St. Paul[406] refer to the passover, whereas our author speaks of the sin-offering. In the former the lamb was eaten;[407] in the latter the carcases of the beasts whose blood was brought by the worshipper through his representative,[408] the high-priest, into the holiest place on the day of atonement, were carried forth without the camp and burned in the fire.[409] Both sacrifices, the passover and the sin-offering, were typical. The former typified our participation in Christ's death, the latter the separateness of Christ's death.
Many expositors see a reference in the Apostle's words to the Lord's Table, and some of them infer from the word "altar" that the Eucharist is a continual offering of a propitiatory sacrifice to God. It is not too much to say that this latter doctrine is the precise error which the Apostle is here combating.
Two other interpretations of these verses have been suggested. Both are, we think, untenable. The one is that we Christians have an altar of which we have a right to eat, but of which the Jewish priests and all who cling to Judaism have no right to eat; and, to prove that they have not, the Apostle mentions the fact that they were not permitted to eat the bodies of the beasts slain as a sin-offering under the old covenant. There are several weighty objections to this view, but the following one will be sufficient. The reference to the sin-offering in the eleventh verse is made in order to show that it was a type of Christ's atoning death. As the bodies of the slain beasts were carried outside the camp and burned, so Christ suffered without the gate. But there is no real resemblance between the two things unless the Apostle intends to teach that the atonement of Christ stands apart and cannot be shared in by any other person, which implies that the tenth verse does not convey the notion that Christians have a right to eat of the altar.
The other interpretation is that we, Christians, have an altar of which we who serve the ideal tabernacle have no right to eat, inasmuch as the sacrifice is spiritual. "Our Christian altar supplies no flesh for carnal food."[410] But if the reference is to carnal food, the expression "We have no right to eat" is not the appropriate one. The writer would surely have said, "of which we cannot eat." Besides, this view misses the connection between the ninth and tenth verses. To say that Christ's death procured spiritual blessings and that we do not eat His body after a carnal manner does not affect the question concerning meats, unless the doctrine concerning meats includes the notion that they are themselves an atoning sacrifice. Such was the doctrine of the Essenes. The argument of the Apostle is good and forcible if it means that Christ's atonement is Christ's alone. We share not in its sacredness, though we partake of its blessings. It resembles the sin-offering on the day of atonement, as well as the paschal lamb.
But it was not enough that the slain beasts should be burned without the camp. Their blood also must be brought into the holiest place. The former rite signified that the slain beast bore the sin of the people, the latter that the people themselves were sanctified. Similarly Jesus suffered without the gate of Jerusalem, in reproach and ignominy, as the Sin-bearer, and also entered into the true holiest place, in order to sanctify His people through His own blood.
We must not press the analogy. The author sees a quaint but touching resemblance between the burning of the slain beasts outside the camp and the crucifying of Jesus on Golgotha outside the city. The point of resemblance is in the ignominy symbolized in the one and in the other. Here too the writer finds the practical use of what he has said. Though the atonement of the Cross is Christ's, and cannot be shared in by others, the reproach of that atoning death can. The thought leads the Apostle away from the divers strange doctrines of the Essenes, and brings him back to the main idea of the Epistle, which is to induce his readers to hold no more dalliance with Judaism, but to break away from it finally and for ever. "Let us come out," he says. The word recalls St. Paul's exhortation to the Christians of Corinth "to come out from among them, to be separate, and not to touch the unclean thing. For what concord can there be between Christ and Belial, between a believer and an unbeliever, between the sanctuary of God and idols?"[411] Our author tells the Hebrew Christians that on earth they have nothing better than reproach to expect. Quit, therefore, the camp of Judaism. Live, so to speak, in the desert. (He speaks metaphorically throughout.) You have no abiding city on earth. The fatal mistake of the Jews has been that they have turned what ought to be simply a camp into an abiding city. They have lost the feeling of the pilgrim; they seek not a better country and a city built by God. Shun ye this worldliness. Not only regard not your earthly life as a permanent dwelling in a city, but leave even the camp; be not only sojourners, but outcasts. Share in the reproach of Jesus, and look for your citizenship in heaven.
Reverting to the teaching of the Essenes, the writer proceeds: "Through Jesus let us offer a sacrifice of praise."[412] The emphasis must rest on the words "through Jesus." The daily meal is not a sacrifice, except in the sense of being a thanksgiving; and our thanksgiving is acceptable to God when it is offered through Him Whose death is a propitiation. Even then lip-worship only is not accepted. Share the meal with the poor. God is pleased with the sacrifices of doing good to all and contributing[413] to the necessities of the saints.
The Apostle next exhorts them to obey their leaders, and that with yielding submission. The atmosphere is certainly different from the democratic spirit of the Corinthian Church. Yet it is not improbable that the safety of the Hebrew Christians everywhere from a violent reaction towards Judaism was due to the wisdom and profounder insight of the leaders. Our author evidently considers that he has them on his side. "They, whatever we may think of the common herd, are wide awake. They understand that they will have to give an account of their stewardship over you to Christ at His coming. Submit to them, that they may watch over your souls with joy, and not with a grief that finds utterance in frequent sighs.[414] When they give their account, you will not find that your fretful rebelliousness has profited you aught. The Essenian society gain nothing by absorption of the individual in the community, and you will gain nothing, but quite the reverse, by asserting your individual crotchets to the destruction of the Church."[415]
He asks his readers to pray for him and Timothy, who has been released from prison. Their prayers are his due. For he believes he has an upright conscience in breaking with Judaism. For the same reason he is confident that their prayers on his behalf will be answered. He and his friends wish in all things to live noble lives. He is the more desirous of having their prayers because of his eagerness to be "restored"[416] to them. He means much more than to return to them. He wishes to be "restored," or "refitted." Their prayers will put an end to the perturbation of his mind, and bring back the happiness of their first love.
He, too, prays for them. His prayer is that God may furnish them with every gift of grace to do His will, and His will is their consecration,[417] through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once. God will answer his prayer and provide in them that which is pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ. For He has not left His Church without a Shepherd, though it is in the wilderness. He has brought up from the dead, and restored out of the ignominious death without the gate, our Lord Jesus Christ, the great Shepherd, Who is ever with them, whatever may become of the undershepherds. That He has been raised from the dead is certain. For, when He was crucified in ignominy without the gate, His blood was at the same time offered in the true holiest place. That blood has ratified the new and final covenant between God and His people. It was through His own blood of this eternal covenant that He was raised from the dead, and it is in virtue of the same blood and of the same covenant that He is now the Shepherd of His Church.
Here, again, we must not draw too broad a distinction between the resurrection of Christ and His ascension to heaven. On the one hand, we must not say that by the words "bringing up from the dead" the Apostle means the ascension; on the other hand, the words do not exclude the ascension. The resurrection and the ascension coalesce in the notion of Christ being living. The only distinction present, we think, to the writer's mind was that between the shame of Christ's death without the camp and the offering of His blood by the living Christ in the holiest place. He Who died on the Cross through that death liveth evermore. He lives to be the Shepherd of His people. Therefore to Him must be ascribed the glory for ever and ever.
The Apostle once more begs his readers to bear with the word of exhortation. Let them remember that he has written briefly in order to spare them. He might have said more, but he has refrained.
He hopes to bring Timothy with him, unless his friend tarries long. In that case he will come alone, so great is his anxiety to see them.
He sends his greetings to all the saints, but mentions the leaders. Brethren who have come from Italy are with him. They may have been exiles or fugitives who had sought safety during the first great persecution of the Church in the days of Nero. They too send greetings.
He closes with the Apostolic benediction. For, whoever he was, he was truly an Apostolic man.
FOOTNOTES:
[385] Heb_6:10.
[386] Heb_10:34.
[387] Heb_13:1.
[388] 1Ti_5:10.
[389] 1Ti_3:2.
[390] Christian Charity in the Ancient Church, English Trans., p. 92.
[391] Heb_1:7.
[392] Gen_18:2; Gen_19:1.
[393] The legend of Christopher is beautifully told by Oosterzee at the beginning of his book on The Person and Work of the Redeemer, English Trans. (Ed. 1886).
[394] Jos_1:5.
[395] Act_11:28.
[396] mê parapheresthe (Heb_13:9).
[397] Rom_9:13.
[398] Rendall: The Epistle to the Hebrews, pp. 25: and 139.
[399] Rom_14:15.
[400] Rom_14:6-8.
[401] kalon (Heb_13:9).
[402] chariti. The author has chosen a more classical word than that which St. Paul uses.
[403] peripatountes.
[404] Heb_13:10.
[405] Joh_6:51-55.
[406] 1Co_10:16.
[407] Exod. 12
[408] dia.
[409] Lev_16:27.
[410] So Rendall, loc. cit.
[411] 2Co_6:15 sqq.
[412] Heb_13:15.
[413] koinônias.
[414] stenazontes (Heb_13:17).
[415] alysiteles. Comp. Heb_13:9.
[416] apokatastathô (Heb_13:19).
[417] Heb_10:10.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv1–3 1–3. Let brotherly love continue. The love which binds…
1–3. Let brotherly love continue. The love which binds brethren in the church together.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 Heb_13:1. Brotherly love.—φιλαδελφία, the mutual love of Christians as…
VIRTUES AND GRACES BEFITTING THE CHRISTIAN PROFESSION
CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
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Heb_13:1. Brotherly love.—φιλαδελφία, the mutual love of Christians as such.
Heb_13:2. Angels unawares.—As Abraham (Gen_18:2-22); Lot (Gen_19:1-2); Manoah (Jdg_13:2-14); Gideon (Jdg_4:11-20).
Heb_13:3. Also in the body.—And therefore liable to similar treatment. “Remember those who are injuriously treated, as it becomes those who are themselves still in the body.” “Lucian’s tract dwells on the effusive kindness of Christians to their brethren who were imprisoned as confessors.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Heb_13:1-6
The Spiritual Man’s Earthly Sphere.—Christianity is a spiritual life that can live and thrive in earthly scenes and relations. Two things concerning it need to be constantly presented. It is a spiritual religion. It is a religion of everyday, commonplace, human life. And on each of these sides Christianity is placed in some peril when frail human nature has to deal with it. Overpress that Christianity is the religion of common life, and men will exaggerate the place and importance of good works. Overpress that Christianity is a spiritual religion, and men will soon take up with the idea that evil lies in matter itself, and then will try to separate themselves from every-day interests, responsibilities, and duties, and think that spiritual religion is best represented by hermits, monks, and nuns. This mistake is in no sense supported by the Scriptures. Our Divine Lord is precisely the example of a spiritual man who brought His spiritual life into relation with every-day, earthly scenes. And the first Christian teachers insist, most emphatically, that faith must be shown in the life, and they who believe must be careful to maintain good works. With great variety of treatment, with much persistency, this writer has argued that Christianity is a spiritual religion. He will not close his letter without making it quite clear that the spiritual is the practical. It is the sanctifying of the earth. It puts the tone into the commonplace. The best man of the world is the man of God. Of our Divine Lord it can be said, “The highest, holiest, manhood Thou.” And after Him, and in the human measures, that should be true of all who bear His name. The plea of the writer in the closing verses of the previous chapter is this—Because we are spiritual members of a spiritual kingdom, therefore let us seek grace whereby, in meeting our human obligations, and fitting to our earthly places, we may serve God acceptably. And in this chapter he indicates some of the earthly spheres in which our spiritual life ought to find constant, free, and beautiful expression.
I. The spiritual man’s brotherly love.—The new life which we have in Christ Jesus is essentially a sonship. The quickened soul, “born again,” finds itself born into a family life, with relations and duties to Father, and to brothers. And even the anxiety with which we try to meet our obligations to our Father must not lift us away from our holy concern for our brothers. “If we do not love our brother whom we have seen, how can we love God whom we have not seen?” But the duty of brotherly love may be approached from a lower standpoint than this. It may, however, be more persuasive on us if we have not ourselves reached the higher spiritual levels. In times of persecution and temptation, such as the Jewish Christian Churches were passing through, there were constant calls to brotherly helpfulness. Some were deprived of their means of living, on account of their profession of faith in Christ. Brotherly love could help them over times of strain and stress. Some were weak in faith, and in grave peril of yielding to enticement and persuasion. Brotherly love could steady the feet that were sliding, and restore the fallen in the spirit of meekness. In family life the brothers are considerate and helpful one toward another. There is no jealousy. Each rejoices in the other’s success; each shadows the other when he is imperilled; and each lifts the other when he falls. And within the brotherhood of the spiritual there should be the mutual bearing of burdens, which is the sure sign of brotherly love. The chief peril of brotherly love in a Christian community is the sectarian spirit, the dogmatism, and masterfulness, of exclusive and sectarian opinion. Brotherly love needs an atmosphere of mutual trustfulness, freedom to think, and freedom to let one another think.
II. The spiritual man’s hospitality.—This is a virtue which takes various forms in adaptation to the social conditions of different ages and countries. Essentially it is cheerful willingness to give of our food and our shelter to those who may be journeying. Hospitality is temporary help, and help given in the form of a supply of passing bodily needs. It is seen in its simplest form in tribal life. The stranger is cheerfully entertained, and pays for all he receives by the news he brings or the pleasure of his conversation. So long as life is in its simpler forms hospitality to passers-by can be freely and safely given, as indeed it is in many parts of the world to-day. Civilisation changes the forms in which hospitality can be offered. Welcome of anybody and everybody to our homes becomes impossible; and there is danger of losing the spirit of hospitality, or of keeping it within such limitations as allow it to bear no impress of charity. The hospitality which had come to be only entertaining in order to be entertained our Lord severely condemned. The generous giving of our food and shelter to those who are temporarily brought within our range—as in times of convention, congress, etc.—is a distinctly Christian duty, an expression of the life of the “spiritual man.” The importance of the duty to the Jewish Christian Churches, in their times of persecution, will readily be understood. Men were often driven away from their town, and in wandering to find work would be placed in grave difficulties. They could not expect to receive hospitality from the bigoted Jews; among them these wandering Christians would only be scorned. Their hope of food and shelter lay only in the hospitality of those who, with them, named the Christ-name, those who shared with them the spiritual life. And some of these wanderers proved to be “angels unawares;” in their brief visits ministering such spiritual blessings that they who offered the hospitalities were more richly blessed than those who received them.
III. The spiritual man’s sympathy with the persecuted.—Whenever disabilities, afflictions, or persecutions come upon the Church, they directly affect certain individuals. They vicariously bear the burden for the whole Church, and therefore have special claim upon the sympathy of their fellow-members. What is said of the suffering “servant of the Lord” in Isaiah is continuously true—sublimely true of the Son of God, but in measures true of all the sons. We are too ready to say of the suffering ones, They are “stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.” We do not see or feel as we should that they are bearing our burdens, and that therefore we should keep ourselves close knit with them in brotherly sympathy. There were some in bonds for Christ: the others should feel bound with them. There were some evil entreated for Christ’s sake: the others should have a fellow-feeling, and realise how hard to bear bodily suffering may be. Persecution may be a thing of the past; the vicarious suffering of some for the many is not. And the few sufferers still claim the sympathy of the many.
IV. The spiritual man’s sanctifying of human relationships.—The most prominent of these, and the typical ones, are connected with the sexes, and consequently the Scriptures illustrate the general relationships of human life by them. But it must also be added that Christianity, as a spiritual religion, distinctly raises the tone of the marriage relation, dignifies womanhood, and makes the natural relations spiritual friendships. The wrong is best conquered by the inspiration of the right. Find the full spiritual satisfaction in marriage friendships, and moral temptations altogether lose their power upon us. There is nothing active in us to which they can appeal.
V. The spiritual man’s culture of the spirit of contentment.—The most enslaving thing to man is the love of money. It wakens a restlessness and a dissatisfaction with everything; it excites a pushing to get which is too often not only a pushing before others, but also a pushing aside of others. That love of money is altogether out of place in the spiritual man. This does not say a spiritual man may not find fitting spheres for his energy, his activity, his enterprise, his ambitions. It does say that the restlessness and undue worry should be kept down by a cherished spirit of contentment; a restful satisfaction in the assurance that God provides, and never leaves His people desolate; and when He does not permit worldly success to be attained, even by earnest and persistent endeavours, works some higher benediction through the discipline of disappointment. Take what sphere of the earthly life and relation we may, there is room for illustrating the tone and character which the spiritual man can put upon it all. “Let us seek grace, whereby we may offer service well pleasing to God with reverence and awe: for our God”—the God of the spiritual Christian—“is a consuming fire.”
SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES
Heb_13:1. Brotherly Love.—As the spokes of a carriage-wheel approach their centre they approach each other; so, also, when men are brought to Jesus Christ, the centre of life and hope, they are drawn towards each other in brotherly relationship, and stand side by side journeying to their heavenly home.—J. F. Serjeant.
Sonship involves Brotherhood.—The counsel of the writer was especially necessary, because times of peril and persecution tend to nourish self-interest, and to separate men from each other in order to secure themselves and their own. Brotherly love is the first result of Christian faith The sense of Sonship to God carries with it the sense of brotherhood with those who are also sons of God. Brotherly love is—
I. Based on a common birth.—This is true of the human brotherhood. Nothing can create the sentiment but the idea of a common parentage. A gentleman of Marseilles, named Remonsat, shortly before his death, desired that his numerous family might be assembled about his bed. He acknowledged the delight which his children had afforded him by their affection and attachment, and especially for the tender love which they bore to one another. “But,” continued he, “I have a secret to disclose, which will remove one of you from this circle. So long as I had any hopes of living I kept it from you, but I dare not violate your rights in the division of the property which I leave you. One of you is only an adopted child—the child of the nurse at whose breast my own child died. Shall I name that child?” “No, no,” said they with one accord, “let us all continue to be brothers and sisters.” They who are born of God, born from above, born of the Spirit, are brothers by virtue of their very birth—spiritual birth.
II. Sustained by a common fellowship.—If brotherly love is to continue, the family must keep together. If members are separated by distance, they must be kept in touch by letters and by gifts. Brotherly love in Christ’s Church is only maintained on the same condition. Those members always fail in this who are careless about keeping up constant relations.
III. Expressed in a common service.—It will always be found that the most loving members of a family are those who are most watchful of opportunities, and most ready to do kindnesses to the other members. And this is at least equally true of the brethren in the spiritual family of God.
Heb_13:2. On Behaviour towards Strangers.—A dislike of strangers is one of the earliest developed, most permanent, and most widely diffused passions of mankind. Thus arises the feeling of dislike between nations. The antipathies that are summed up in the one word race constitute the chief part of the history of mankind. The secret dislike of strangers clings to humanity even after civilisation has conquered its grosser antipathies. It appears even under its religious transformations. Let us set down a few of the arguments which might impel Christians of differing name to cultivate, and earnestly seek for, the company of “strangers.”
1. Communion with devout minds of ideas and habits foreign to our own is favourable to the vigorous development of all alike. The human race thrives on intermixture and intermarriage. Religious bodies which act on the non-intercourse principle soon lose their vigour, and sink from arrogant dogmatism into indifference.
2. Every Christian is a member of Christ, to whom all good men are assuredly dear, and we should strive to bring our sympathies into accord with those which burn in the bosom of the good Shepherd. To him unity—a real, social unity of heart and life—is the grand object of aspiration and prayer.
3. Every Christian has the prospect of being introduced sooner or later to every other Christian in existence, on the ground of the most intimate and eternal friendship—a friendship based on a common relation to redeeming Love. How vain, then, the shyness which shrinks in this world from intercourse with those who must be our companions for ever! It is the work of the Holy Spirit not only to reveal Christ to each of His members, but all the members of His body to each other.—Edward White.
Heb_13:3. Interest in Those under Disability.—The writer bases an argument, by which to urge the duty of Christian consideration and sympathy, on the fact that we are all sharers in a common experience. That experience, however, comes with special heaviness on certain individuals, who should therefore be treated as burden-bearers for the rest.
Heb_13:4. Marriage.—Society is generally in a sound and peaceful state, and its individual members virtuous and happy, in proportion as the nature of marriage is understood, and its obligations respected. The first efforts of wisdom in ancient lawgivers and poets were to render sacred the rights and duties of wedlock. But in almost every age, and especially in more matured states of society, there have not been wanting persons to maintain, in one form or another, that passion ought rather to be destroyed than controlled; and that instead of aiming to ingraft refined and spiritual feelings on the animal instincts of our nature, these should be wholly eradicated. Marriage, to many of this class, has seemed but an unworthy compromise between the flesh and the Spirit. An equal contempt for marriage appears to exist in some who disgrace our age. Marriage is not below, but above, them; it is too pure, not too gross, for their taste. Proud of what they call liberty, they laugh at the restraints of marriage, while it can be avoided, and submit to it at length as to a catastrophe. With the discretion of a wise man, and the authority of an inspired man, the writer draws a firm line between the extremes of sensuality and spiritual asceticism; he denounces lust, but extols holy and wedded love. The sentiment of the text appears to be at variance with 1 Corinthians 7, but the sentiments, though different, are not contradictory. The advice given in Corinthians applied to circumstances of present distress, in which a man might wisely limit his obligations.
I. What things belonging to the marriage state render it honourable, and enable it, as we may say, to put honour on those who enter it.—
1. Its institution. The time when, the place where, the manner in which, the Being by whom, marriage was instituted, all increase the honour with which its institution invests it.
2. Its nature. It is a union of two, and only two, human beings; a union not only of hands but of hearts, of soul as well as body. There is in marriage, when its true nature is realised, a union of souls, whose affections intermingle until two spirits become one, and, by a mutual consciousness, understand each other’s thoughts and share each other’s feelings. It is this which meets the wants of our intellectual and moral natures. Marriage is a permanent union. We need not think that, although marriage terminates in death, the union which it involves must then also necessarily close for ever. We may cheerfully expect its renewal.
3. Its purposes.
(1) The development of mind, formation of character, promotion of happiness, in all who are married.
(2) The preservation and increase of the human species.
(3) The education of the young in successive generations.
(4) Its typical import also renders it honourable.
II. What must be the course of those who would enter on and pass through it, so as to do honour to the state.—
1. Every step towards it must be taken in the fear of God.
2. If we would do honour to marriage, it must be solemnised with decency, according to the form prescribed by the laws of our country.
3. When marriage has been thus entered on, its duties must be steadily and cheerfully discharged. “Love is the fulfilling of the law.” Love, displaying itself in cheerful submission on the part of the wife, in gentleness of authority on the part of the husband, in soft words, kind actions, and delicate attentions on the part of both; love which takes the love of Christ to the Church, and the Church to Christ for its pattern; and becomes respectively, in turn, the image of each.—Jonathan Glyde.
The Honourableness of Marriage.—Probably this is an exhortation. “Let marriage be held honourable in all respects.” Scripture never gives even the most incidental sanction to the exaltation of celibacy as a superior virtue, or to the disparagement of marriage as an inferior state. Celibacy and marriage stand on an exactly equal level of honour according as God has called us to the one or to the other state. The mediæval glorification of monachism sprang partly from a religion of exaggerated gloom and terror, and partly from a complete misunderstanding of the sense applied by Jewish writers to the word “virgins.”—Farrar.
Heb_13:5. The Lawful and Unlawful Love of Money.—A strict adherence to the original gives us a very simple and beautiful form of this precept. “Let the turn τρόπος be unsilver-loving, and be contented with what comes to hand, for He Himself has said, I will never leave thee; no, never, no never forsake thee.” There are some of the commands of the New Testament which, taken without the salt of wisdom, seem to be poisonous, and to strike not merely at the welfare but at the existence of society. Such are the precepts against the love of money. Everybody loves money. Without it no man can live. It is a natural and necessary instinct which makes us love possession. The love of getting is the basis of the love of giving. But the “love of money” in Scripture means love in a bad sense, in the sense of covetousness. It may become greed and avarice.
1. Do not seek after money in this world as if it were God, the chief good.
2. Do not fix upon any amount of property which you must obtain, or else set yourself down as in a state of destitution.
3. Steadily adhere to God’s laws in the gaining, and in the expenditure, of property. In nothing is character more shown than in money matters. A man who is right here is usually right everywhere; a man who fails in money matters is probably corrupt to the core. We have just as much of the love of God as we have of the desire to submit to His rule in our personal affairs; and this is a test which will exclude multitudes from heaven. They banish God from their expenditure.—Edward White.
God with Us all the Days.—We can be sure of this, that God will be with us in all the days that lie before us. What may be round the next headland we know not; but this we know, that the same sunshine will make a broadening path across the waters right to where we rock on the unknown sea, and the same unmoving nightly star will burn for our guidance. So we may let the waves and currents roll as they list; or rather, as He lists, and be little concerned about the incidents or the companions of our voyage, since He is with us.—A. Maclaren, D.D.
No Leaving, No Forsaking.—This is God’s own word of promise to his people. In giving it He has, as it were, sworn by Himself, because He could swear by no greater, pledging Himself to His faithfulness.
This promise is—
I. Emphatic.—“He hath said.”
II. Ancient—“He hath said.”
III. Divine—“He hath said.”
IV. Personal—Not “us,” nor “them,” but “thee.”
V. Unconditional.
VI. Unalterable—“Never.”
VII. Comprehensive—“Never leave, never forsake.”
VIII. Unique.
IX. Has been tested.
We have then—
1. The promise of Divine presence. He will ever be with us as the Witness of our lives—the Comforter of our hearts—our sovereign Lord.
2. Divine assistance for every time of need.—A. Griffin.
Heb_13:5-6. What is Characteristically Christian.—It was usual for the Christian teachers to close their epistles with direct practical applications. Here doing so is especially appropriate, because it was necessary to show that morals and piety were substantially the same in both dispensations. We may, however, properly expect these things to be more refined in the new. Absolute trust in Jehovah was the attitude of the older Jews; and this was met by the bestowment of material and temporal rewards. In trying to lift them into the spiritual region, it might seem to the Jewish Christians that their teacher was unduly negligent of the material and temporal. Practical Christian obligations and duties had to be dealt with by our Divine Lord—as in the “Sermon on the Mount”; and by His apostles—as in the close of their epistles. In this chapter the following practical things are dealt with. The duty of each Christian to his brother-Christian. The practice of hospitality. The expression of personal sympathy. The gaining of personal purity. Then there is summed up in the text the characteristic Christian tone. Three things are characteristically Christian.
I. A manner of life that is characteristically Christian.—Recall the New Testament use of the word “conversation.” Our Christian “turning about” in all the thousand-fold relations of life is to be “without covetousness”—that is, without a trace of grasping or getting for self. Covetousness was the great Jewish sin. This Christ corrects, by becoming the supreme aim of the soul. When the end of conversation is Jesus Christ, it cannot be getting for self. For us covetousness is self-centredness; and the remedy is Christ-centredness. To be “without covetousness” is quite consistent with enterprise and ambition in life. We may win the noblest things if we mean to win in a Christly way, and hold for Christ’s honour.
II. A cherished spirit that is characteristically Christian.—“Be content.” Advice easily misunderstood. Contentment is very difficult to a master or a father, but not at all difficult for a servant or a son; and these represent the Christian relations. Contentment is not indifference, or listlessness, though the confusion between these very differing things is often made.
1. Contentment means cheerfully accepting our place and duty, whatever it may involve.
2. Contentment involves fully doing the duty, when it is placed before us.
3. Contentment is consistent with prayer for change. True prayer is contentment.
III. A restful assurance that is characteristically Christian.—“The Lord is my Helper.”
1. We need covet nothing, since He gives all good.
2. We need be anxious about nothing, since He provides.
3. We need never be discontented, since what He gives must be best.
We know then three things that are characteristically Christian:
1. Making Christ our life-aim.
2. Accepting what He provides.
3. Resting our hearts in the sense of His presence with us.
Never Forsaken.—No need to name the Speaker—that majestic “He.” Two speakers and their two sayings.
I. God’s speech from heaven to earth.—“I will never leave thee.” These words nowhere occur literally. In Old Testament.
1. Jacob at Bethel (Gen_28:15). The lonely pilgrim, with dim, dark future before him; we all face it sometimes. God speaks; the ladder descends, and bright in the blue star-depths the angels; “surely God is in this place.” One man, with that Companion, always in the majority.
2. Moses’ dying words to Joshua (Deu_31:7-8). God ratifies it to Joshua afterwards (Jos_1:5). The promise to a warrior on the eve of sore battle. “Count the cost, reckon the enemy’s strength, but count not your resources and forget Me.” Brennus’ sword in the Capitol; Christ’s sword flung in for us.
3. David’s dying words to Solomon (1Ch_28:20). Blessed are the parents who can so pass the covenant promise to their children. Pilgrim, warrior, builder—these sum up all our needs and all the promises. Its highest beauty in Christ’s word (Mat_28:20).
II. Man’s answer from earth to heaven.—“The Lord is my Helper; I will not fear” (Psalms 118). The Revised Version says, “So that we do.” (not may) “boldly say.” We say we believe the promises: do we answer with perfect confidence—That promise I take for mine (Gal_2:20), “He is my Helper, so I shall not fear?” No use to say to a man, “Do not be afraid.” World too strong for any man in it; life and death have tremendous powers to make cowards of the bravest. We would not be wise, if we were not, except on one condition: “Believe, and fear not.” You can resolve, “I will trust”; then surely comes the triumph and the shelter of the Divine companionship.—A. Maclaren, D.D.
The Joy of Memory.—The past struggles are joyful in memory, as the mountain-ranges—which were all black rock and white snow while we toiled up their inhospitable steeps—lie purple in the mellowing distance, and burn like fire as the sunset strikes their peaks.—Ibid.
Contentment based on Security.—The Revised Version makes important changes in these verses. “Be ye free from the love of money; content with such things as ye have: for Himself hath said, I will in no wise fail thee, neither will I any wise forsake thee. So that with good courage we may say, The Lord is my Helper; I will not fear: what shall man do unto me?” The one thing that makes restlessness and anxiety in life is uncertainty. When we are quite sure about anything, we either quietly submit, or we brace ourselves up to deal with it, for its mitigation or its removal. If everything is uncertain, contentment is impossible. If there is anything absolutely certain and wholly reliable—whether it be so to our faith, or whether it be so in what we call “actual fact”—upon it contentment can be based. The writer of this epistle reminds his readers that, for them, there is something absolutely certain: there is the unqualified Divine assurance—the word of the ever-living God—“I will in no wise fail thee, neither will I in any wise forsake thee.” In that unquestionable fact there was full ground on which to build a life of sweet content. What we have is secure to us, for He has given it. What we have not we are better without, for He has not thought fit to give it. What we wish for we may fully submit to His consideration who is always with us, and is our Helper to everything that is really good. The writer is evidently dealing with that kind of restlessness men feel when they want some more money, It is so easy to be caught and carried away by the love of money; so easy to think that every difficulty and anxiety of life would be mastered if only we had more money; and then it is so easy to fret and worry, and lose all contentment of heart, because of the limitations under which we are placed. The passage therefore has very pointed application to many of us in these days. We shall find our own applications of the counsels of this writer, if we consider—I. The spirit of Christian contentment; II. Something which makes Christian contentment impossible; and III. Something which provides a secure foundation for it.
I. The spirit of Christian contentment.—The apostle Paul tells us, that “godliness with contentment is great gain”; and it must be borne in mind that we are dealing, not with a common-place virtue, which can be urged on purely moral grounds, and grounds of expediency, but with that virtue as it is purified, ennobled, and inspired by Christian principle and the Christian spirit. We deal with that contentment which has “godliness” at the heart of it. The counsel of the text is precisely addressed to Christian disciples, and to them as, by their Christian faith, put into limitations, and even brought under persecutions and sufferings. It is assumed that their anxious conditions are out of their own control; and it is altogether unbecoming for the Christian to fret at what cannot be helped. He ought to have power—through his life in Christ—to bring his mind to his circumstances; to cheerfully accept his lot; to make the best of it, and to do the best with it; to “endure, as seeing Him who is invisible.” It is not an easy thing to speak wisely about “contentment,” because it seems to oppose the restlessness of ambition, which is the inspiration of endeavour, and the secret of all progress. Man is a restless, discontented being, by virtue of his very endowment as a moral being. He is always wanting what he has not, always reaching out his hand for something, always pushing into some dark place. And if he had not been thus, he could never have “replenished the earth and subdued it,” never have developed his civilisation, and never have looked on this life as the training-school of the eternal life. It may even be said, that man’s discontent is essential to his highest good, and that the individual and the nation are ruined when they become contented. A simple illustration will suffice to show this. The first inhabitants of the world massed themselves in the plains of Asia; and if they had been content there, the whole earth would never have been peopled and won. God filled them with restlessness and discontent, and they pushed out this way and that, streamed forth over hills and plains and rivers, and so the whole earth was won. Contentment is not the highest virtue for man, and it is not even for the Christian man. It may be the right thing at a particular time, and under particular circumstances, but we must be careful not to talk about it in an exaggerated way. Discontent may quite as truly honour God as content; but, given the condition of these Jewish Christians, and it may properly be urged that, for them, contentment was the duty of the hour. In pressing upon attention the claims of any one virtue, we are apt to forget that it must be developed in harmony with the development of other virtues. Christian enterprise, Christian hope, Christian ambition, must grow harmoniously with Christian contentment. A man who wants nothing is a poor, weak specimen of humanity, one who brings no honour to Christ. It is the man who wants desperately, and yet brings his want into obedience to Christ, and cheerfully accepts His will, who has the true contentment, and who honours Christ. In the “perfect man” in Christ there is this virtue of contentment; but it is proportionate with other virtues, and it is harmonious with a noble restlessness of discontent, which keeps the man “pressing toward the mark for the prize.” And it may further be shown, that contentment can never be the same thing in every man, because it must always be relative to disposition, and our response to different circumstances. There really is not much credit in some persons being contented. The truth is, that they have everything which heart can wish for; or else the truth is, that they have not spirit enough to be discontented. Some are naturally of a contented disposition, and there is no more credit in their being contented than in their being bodily sound. The only contentment worth having is that which is won in the sore conflict of life against natural disposition and hindering circumstance. Think of the “Mark Tapley” of fiction, who considered it was no “credit to be jolly,” unless circumstances were overwhelmingly distressing. A great many people are simply contented because they have no reason in the world to be anything else; and there is no Christian principle, no Christian triumph, in that. Contentment is put in the text in relation to “covetousness.” It is the opposite of a wrong state of mind and heart. It is not opposed to the getting of money, which may be perfectly legitimate, and indeed, for us, the duty of the hour. It is opposed to the fretfulness which always comes with the love of money, the passion for money, the craving merely to possess. That is wrong, bad, from every point of view, ethical, religious, and Christian. That love of money for its own sake is the root of all evil. “They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.” What we need to see is, that Christian contentment is a soul-mood, which properly belongs to the new life in Christ, and that necessarily attends upon that daily trust, dependence, and obedience which the Christian is ever seeking to nourish into strength. The life of faith on the Son of God is necessarily a life of soul-content that is quite consistent with active service. As a soul-mood it enables us rightly to appraise what we have; helps us to submit when we cannot have what we would; and above all permits of our recognising Divine, wise love in the provision that is made for us, which our relations with God in Christ assure us are arranged in precise and particular adaptation to us. The right spirit is seen in a striking example, taken from the life of our Divine Master. In the hour of His arrest there was the soul-mood of content with what was so evidently the will of God concerning Him just then, that He could rebuke hasty Peter, saying, “Thinkest thou that I could not even now pray to the Father, and He would immediately send Me more than twelve legions of angels?” Contentment is close kin with submission. To the open, trusting soul God’s will is revealed, and then the fitting response is a quiet acceptance of what must be, and a cheerful falling back to enjoy what we have. Lest any of you should be discouraged, because in you are high hopes and ambitions, and you feel that it is hard to be told to let all go, and rest content with your poor, limited present, let me remind you that, like unselfishness, contentment begins with a “day of small things.” It is but a germ in the character and life of the young, who very properly aim at high things, and mean to attain them. But the germ grows as life unfolds, and strain-times and cares and limitations nourish it. It comes to be the secret of peace—and of true power also—in the cultured Christian’s life.
II. There is something that can make Christian contentment impossible.—“Be ye free from the love of money.” Can we see the immediate application of these words? They were addressed to Jews; and grasping for money, scheming to get money, has been the Jewish characteristic through the long ages. It is the Rebekah-taint in the blood of the Abrahamic race. The Jews addressed in this epistle were trade-folk, busy getting money in the various towns where they dwelt. But becoming Christian proved a serious and often unexpected hindrance to their money-getting. It acted in two ways. Men cut off their dealings with them because of their faith in Christ. And they found that the Christ-conscience would not let them do the tricky things which they had done. So their incomes were failing, and they were tempted to apostatise, and fall back upon the old condition, which gave them free scope for their money-getting. The writer of the epistle appeals to them to master this money-loving, covetous spirit; to cheerfully accept their disabilities for Christ’s name sake; to see what gracious provisions their Divine Lord was making for all their real need; and to be content with such things as they had. It was a time of temporary limitations, such as does come in the histories of families, and towns, and Churches. Such times come and pass, and we are called to be heroic while they pass over us. Do not fret about being unable to get money; be thankful for what you have got. Remember He is yours, and with you, who could say, “The silver and the gold are Mine.” “Be content with such things as ye have: for Himself hath said, I will in no wise fail thee, neither will I in any wise forsake thee.” Think how the cherished love of money may, in a time of strain, badly influence us, spoil our Christian spirit. It may put us on schemes; and schemes so inspired are sure to be grasping, inconsiderate schemes, that mean the ensuring of our success at the cost of our yet more suffering fellows—schemes with the strong self-seeking taint in them. The poor motive, the covetous feeling, will master good motives, and close our hearts to all sweet charities and generosities. And even more spiritually serious is the way in which the love of money nourishes soul-trust in money, and that effectually puts God out of our thoughts, and makes all beautiful, satisfying, happy reliance on Him well-nigh impossible. Indeed, when our thoughts are so fully occupied with this getting of money, and we find ourselves put into limitations here, and limitations there, it is not easy to keep ourselves from complaining of God, as if, in some sort of wilfulness and forgetfulness of due consideration, He were dealing with us. Nothing He does seems to us to be right, for the love of money always spoils spiritual vision. Swell money-loving out into the spirit of the miser, and then ask, What sort of a God is the miser’s God? Can he see God aright? Can he know Him as He is? Would you care to be known as the servants of the miser’s God? Then let us beware lest any circumstances of life, or any negligences of our soul-culture, allow that love of money, that anxiety about money, to begin its fatal work in our souls” “Mammon” soon gets to be our god; and “ye cannot serve God and mammon.”
III. Something that makes contentment quite possible.—Here again it must be kept in mind that the writer addresses Christians, and endeavours to meet their particular case and condition. It is assumed that there is in them a due sense of God, and of the importance of having God in gracious relations. Those in whose hearts and lives God is enthroned alone will appreciate His promise, “I will in no wise fail thee.” Such a man has gained a right idea of his several possessions, and can put them in the right order of their value. What does he possess? God. That stands first. Then come, ranged in order, wealth, learning, family, and other self-things. The Christian possesses God, and in Him possesses all things. And our text does but help him to feel what all-satisfying possessions he has in having God. The Christian having God, God dominates him, makes his ends, as well as provides for his needs. He is no longer his own, and so no longer worries to secure the attainment of his own ends. But money-getting is a man’s own end. It is never God’s end for any man. It may be God’s means of disciplining a man, or of giving him the material for some useful service; but it is well to have it clearly stated, that getting money never was, and never will be, the end which God sets before any man. God with us becomes the all-sufficient basis of the true Christian contentment. This is plain enough if we see what it involves. “I will in no wise fail thee.” Can He fulfil so unqualified a word of promise? May we fill out that “in no wise,” to the very uttermost of our ever-changing circumstances and needs? Is God so present that He has the actual control of our life? Is it true that not even a farthing sparrow falls to the ground without our Father? Is power adapted to us there? and wisdom, precise to meet our need, there? Is love, working in all ways of gentleness, there? And may we be sure that everywhere in our life God is; always working; never failing; never failing to carry out His purpose, and secure our highest good? “I will in no wise forsake thee.” That is, I will not be absent at any time when I may be pressingly needed. The help is always efficient, and the help is always at command. On what safer basis could Christian contentment rest? But it is Divine help making its appeal to faith, not to sense or sight. It is the contentment of a living faith.
A Song of Contentment.—John Bunyan pictures his pilgrim in a time of sore strain comforted by hearing a little lad singing a song of peaceful, submissive content: “He that is down need fear no fall,” etc. It is such a song for the soul which our text provides—a song that can be crooned over day and night, sung over and over again when the stress of life is great. Peace, quietness, content—soul-content, may keep up this music, and get it echoed back from the experience of the saints of all the ages—“The Lord is my Helper; I will not fear: what can man do unto me?” Here is one echo that comes from a long-by past: “I have been young, and now am old; yet have I never seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.” Here is another echo from times somewhat nearer to our own: “I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” This is the sure ground of Christian contentment: “All things are yours, and ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.”
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 Heb 13:1-16
Heb 13:1-16
I. Having warned the Hebrews against the dangers of selfishness, fleshly lusts, and covetousness, the Apostle proceeds to warn them against the dangers threatening their faith and loyalty to Christ. He reminds them of the guides, the teachers and rulers, whom God had given to them—men who laboured in the ministry of the Lord, and sealed their testimony with their death. They had passed away, but the great Prophet, the great Apostle and High Priest, the true Shepherd, remained, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and for ever. He is the only foundation, and His the only name. The heart finds rest in thinking of Him, the Rock of ages, the eternal unchanging Son of God, our Lord, Saviour, and Mediator.
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II. We who believe possess the true altar. Of the type of this altar they who served the tabernacle were allowed to eat, but the reality was hid from them. By faith we behold it, and our hearts are stablished.
III. A joyous heart is also a generous heart. When we praise the Lord, the bountiful Giver, and thank Him for the gifts of His grace, gifts so undeserved, precious, and abundant, our hearts will be liberal. We shall not forget to do good and communicate; rather shall we be anxious to discover the good works ordained for us, that we may walk in them, to find out the poor and needy, the lowly and afflicted members of Christ, that we may help and cheer them. And as both the praise and the works are fruits of the Spirit, brought forth by the living branches, so it is by Christ’s intercession that they ascend unto the Father and are well-pleasing unto Him.
A. Saphir, Lectures on Hebrews, vol. ii., p. 423.
References: Heb 13:1-19.—R. W. Dale, The Jewish Temple and the Christian Church, p. 276. Heb 13:2.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. viii., p. 296; H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 2619; Homilist, 3rd series, vol. ix., p. 99. Heb 13:3.—Bishop Westcott, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxvi., p. 97; Case, Short Practical Sermons, p. 114. Heb 13:4.—R. D. B. Rawnsley, Village Sermons, 3rd series, p. 267.
Heb 13:5
I. This word is sufficient, because God has spoken it. We say of some men, "Their word is their bond." Shall we say less of the living One, of whose eternity our life is but a spark?
II. This word is inspiring, because it pledges the personal fellowship of God. "I will never leave thee"; not, "Angels shall be sent to thee," etc. To the Church Jesus says, "I am with you alway."
III. This word is complete, because it embraces all time. The child becomes free of the parent; the apprentice is liberated from his bonds; the hireling fulfils his day; but union with God is perpetual, and its joy is an ever-augmenting sum.
IV. This word is condescending, because it is personal in its application. It is not a pledge given to the universe as a whole; it is spoken to the individual heart, and is to be applied by each heart according to special circumstances. The whole exists for the part as well as the part for the whole. Every flower may claim the sun.
V. This word is assuring, because it is redundant in its expression. "I will never leave thee" would have been enough for a merely technical bond; more is added: we have word upon word, so that the heart cannot escape the golden walls of protection and security. Love does not study terseness; it must be emphatic: it must be copious.
Parker, City Temple, vol. ii., p. 16.
References: Heb 13:5.—W. C. Heaton, Church Sermons, vol. i., p. 73; C. Morris, Preacher’s Lantern, vol. ii., p. 620; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. viii., No. 477; vol. xxxii., No. 1880; Ibid., Morning by Morning, p. 52; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. ii., p. 269. Heb 13:7.—A. Thomas, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xviii., p. 312. Heb 13:7-9.—J. Oswald Dykes, Sermons, p. 369.
Heb 13:8
The Unchanging Christ.
Note:—
I. The unchanging Christ in His relation to our changeful lives. The one thing of which anticipation may be sure is, that nothing continues in one stay. There is only one thing that will enable us to front the else intolerable certainty of uncertainty, and that is to fall back upon the thought of my text.
II. Think of the relation between the unchanging Christ and the dying helpers. Just as on the face of some great wooded cliff, when the leaves drop, the solemn strength of the everlasting rock gleams out pure, so, when our dear ones fall away, Jesus Christ is revealed, "the same yesterday, and today, and for ever."
III. We may apply the thought to the relation between the unchanging Christ and decaying institutions and opinions. His sameness is consistent with an infinite unfolding of new preciousness and new powers as new generations with new questions arise, and the world seeks for fresh guidance.
IV. Look at the words in their application to the relation between the unchanging Christ and the eternal love of heaven. It will be the same Christ, the Mediator, the Revealer, in heaven as on earth, whom we here dimly saw and knew to be the Sun of our souls through the clouds and mists of earth.
A. Maclaren, The Unchanging Christy p. 1.
References: Heb 13:8.—A. Mackennal, Christ’s Healing Touch, p. 276; H. W. Beecher, Sermons (1870), p. 391; J. Vaughan, Sermons, 12th series, p. 45; E. Paxton Hood, Dark Sayings on a Harp, p. 157; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iv., No. 170; vol. xv., No. 848; Ibid., Morning by Morning, p. 97; A. Blomfield, Sermons in Town and Country, p. 1; T. J. Crawford, The Preaching of the Cross, p. 198; J. P. Gledstone, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvii., p. 187; J. Culross, Ibid., vol. xxxv., p. 49; A. Rowland, Ibid., vol. xxxvi., p. 291; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., p. 560. Heb 13:9.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. viii., p. 294; J. Natt, Posthumous Sermons, p. 345. Heb 13:10-14.—H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxiii., p. 67; vol. xxvii., p. 188. Heb 13:11-14.—Ibid., Plymouth Pulpit, p. 305. Heb 13:13.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. x., No. 577.
Heb 13:13-14
Without the Camp.
Consider:—
I. The exhortation in the text, "Let us go forth therefore unto Him without the camp." (1) It is a call to abiding trust in Christ as our great atoning sacrifice. (2) It is a call to separation from the world in spirit and character, and from whatever would hinder our loving fellowship with Christ.
II. The trial connected with due obedience to that call, "bearing His reproach," that is, reproach for Christ. Let us take this to ourselves. (1) It teaches that, while the Lord exercises a gracious sovereignty in His dealings with His people, He would have them reckon while here on reproach and trouble. (2) It is a call to steadfastness and perseverance in the path of duty, notwithstanding all reproach and suffering.
III. The reason or argument to enforce the exhortation: "For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come." (1) The statement describes the condition of Christ’s people here in this present world. (2) The thought is an argument and encouragement in pressing the exhortation of the text.
R. Elder, The Redeemer’s Cry, p. 61.
Heb 13:14
An Ever-changing Scene.
These words sum up what was certainly the Apostolic mind as to the position of Christians in this world. They were members of a vast, and powerful, and complex association which we call human society; but, with all its great attributes, it wanted one—it wanted permanence. The world passes away, is passing away, as we work and speak. But though here we have no continuing city, yet we do seek one to come. Born amid change, surrounded by change in every form, knowing nothing by experience but change, the subject and the sport of change, the human heart yet obstinately clings to its longing for the unchanging and the eternal. Christian souls, thought the Apostle, not only long for it, but look for it. We seek that which is to come—seek it by believing that we shall one day reach it.
I. "Here have we no continuing city." We are all of us under the unalterable necessity of change in one way or other. It is the absolute condition of existing now and here. The fact may affect or impress us in many ways; it may darken or it may brighten life; it may depress or discourage, or it may inspire with undying hope. We may find in it the highest summons to courage, or the excuse for the most enervating sentimentalism. The idea of the sovereignty of God is the counterpart throughout the Psalms set over against all that is unsatisfying, disastrous, transitory, untrustworthy, not only in man’s condition, but in the best that he can do. The Psalms are always the expression of the will to fulfil God’s purpose, though very often of that will baffled; but they always fall back when the will is baffled, not on despair, but on the conviction that men’s lives are in the hand of God.
II. The Psalmists cast themselves into the arms of God, and they were blessed. Oh that we could catch something of the contagion of that faith and hope as day by day we repeat again their wonderful words! Search as we will, we can find nothing to rest upon, nothing that will endure the real trial, but the faith of the Psalmists in the eternal kingdom of God, the faith of the Psalmists lit up by the grace and truth that came by Jesus Christ, the faith of men who are not afraid to meet their real circumstances, who are not afraid to trust in longing and self-surrender.
R. W. Church, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxviii., p. 369.
References: Heb 13:14.—H. W. Beecher, Plymouth Pulpit, 10th series, p. 337; Ibid., Christian World Pulpit, vol. iv., p. 83; S. Martin, Sermons, p. 77; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. viii., p. 88; E. Blencowe, Plain Sermons to a Country Congregation, vol. ii., p. 473; Homilist, 1st series, vol. v., p. 101. Heb 13:15.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iii., p. 89. Heb 13:16.—G. G. Bradley, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxiv., p. 337; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 189. Heb 13:17.—Ibid., vol. i., p. 11; R. D. B. Rawnsley, Village Sermons, 1st series, p. 211; E. Cooper, Practical Sermons, vol. ii., p. 256.
Heb 13:17-25
I. The Author of peace. From all eternity God purposed in Himself the counsel of peace; and when, by reason of sin, discord and misery came into the world, the Lord always comforted His people by the promise of redemption. Our peace is complete the moment we believe in Jesus; our peace is consummated when we are presented unto the Father at the coming of our Lord. In like manner we are still looking forward to our salvation and our adoption.
II. Jesus the channel of peace. Our Lord Jesus Christ was the Paschal Lamb on Calvary. From that moment our peace was purchased, and we were identified with the Substitute. God has raised and exalted Him and us with Him; God has thereby made peace and perfection.
III. God works in us. He gives good desires, true petitions, loving words and works. He prepares us for the work in time, as He prepared the work for us in eternity. Look with the eye of faith to the Lord, and you will receive not merely the commandment, but the spirit and the power to obey it; you will not merely see the Example, but be conformed to His image.
A. Saphir, Lectures on Hebrews, vol. ii., p. 439.
Heb 13:20
The Great Pleas of a Great Prayer.
I. The name of God is the warrant for our largest hope. "The God of peace" wills to give to men something not altogether unlike the tranquillity which He Himself possesses. What is it that breaks human peace? Is it emotion, change, or any of the necessary conditions of our earthly life? By no means. It is possible to carry an unflickering flame through the wildest tempests, if only there be a sheltering hand round about it; and it is possible that my agitated and tremulous nature, blown upon by all the winds of heaven, may still burn straight upwards, undeviating from its steady aspiration, if only the hand of the Lord be about me. Just because God is the God of peace, it must be His desire to impart His own tranquillity to us. The sure way by which that deep calm within the breast can be received and retained is by His imparting to us just what the writer here asks for these Hebrews—hearts ready for every good work and wills submitted to His will.
II. Note, secondly, how the raising of the Shepherd is the prophecy for the sheep. The principal thought implied here is that where the Shepherd goes the sheep follow. Christ’s resurrection and session in glory at the right hand of God point the path and the goal for all His servants. In Him there is power to make each of us as pure, as sinless, as the Lord Himself in whom we trust. He rose, and sits crowned with glory and honour. "The God that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep," has pledged Himself thereby that the sheep, who imperfectly follow Him here when He goeth before them, shall find Him gone before them into the heavens, and there will "follow Him whithersoever He goeth," in the perfect likeness and perfect purity of the perfect kingdom.
III. The everlasting covenant is the teacher and pledge of our largest desires. It is not fashionable in modern theology to talk about God’s covenant to us. Our forefathers used to have a great deal to say about it, and it became a technical word with them; and so this generation has very little to say about it, and seldom thinks of the great ideas that are contained in it. But is it not a grand thought, and a profoundly true one, that God, like some great monarch who deigns to grant a constitution to his people, has condescended to lay down conditions by which He will be bound, and on which we may reckon? Out of the illimitable possibilities of action, limited only by His own nature and all incapable of being foretold by us, He has marked a track on which He will go. If I may so say, across the great ocean of possible action He has buoyed out His course, and we may prick it down upon our charts, and be quite sure that we shall find Him there. Your desires can never be so outstretched as to go beyond the efficacy of the blood of Jesus Christ; and through the ages of time or eternity the everlasting covenant remains, to which it shall be our wisdom and blessedness to widen our hopes, to expand our desires, conform our wishes, and adapt our work.
A. Maclaren, Paul’s Prayers, p. 80.
The Work of God.
I. Look at the aspect in which God is here presented. (1) A God of peace. Sin banished the peace which God sent His Son to restore; and when the world is won over to Christ, and the crowns of earth, like those of heaven, are laid at His feet, then shall God be known as the God, and our world shall be known as the abode of peace. (2) God has made peace, not peace at any price; it is peace at such a price as satisfied the utmost demands of His law, and fully vindicated His holiness in the sight of the universe. For see, by the cross where Jesus hung, mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace are embracing each other; and there the great God appears as just, and also the Justifier of all those that believe in Jesus.
II. He brought Christ from the dead. (1) In one sense the glory of His resurrection belongs to Christ Himself. His death was in a peculiar sense His own act. In no case do we lay down our lives. Who dies a natural death has his life taken from him; who commits suicide throws his away. But He who said, "I have power to lay down My life," also said, "I have power to take it up again." (2) Here our Lord’s resurrection is attributed to God. His resurrection is the crown of His labours; the token of His acceptance; the fruit of His deed. The God of peace raises Him from the dead, not simply by His almighty power, but "through the blood of the everlasting covenant," His own blood, as if the blood that washes away our sins, sprinkled on His dead face, restored Him to life; sprinkled on the chains of death, dissolved them; sprinkled on the doors of the grave, threw them open. Most precious and potent blood! May it be sprinkled in red showers from God’s hand on us! If that blood, in a sense, gave life to a dead Christ, shall it not impart life to us? Yes. Through its power, dead with Him to sin, crucified with Him to the flesh, and buried with Him in the baptism of the Holy Spirit, we rise to newness of life.
T. Guthrie, The Way to Life, p. 117.
Heb 13:20
I. Notice the simple, human name Jesus. (1) Let us ever keep distinctly before us that suffering dying manhood as the only ground of acceptable sacrifice, and of full access and approach to God. The true humanity of our Lord is the basis of His work of atonement, of intercession, and of reconciliation. (2) Then, further, let us ever keep before our mind clear and plain that true manhood of Jesus as being the type and pattern of the devout life. He is the Author and Finisher of faith, the first example—though not first in order of time, yet in order of nature and perfect in degree—the pattern for us all, of the life which says, "The life that I live, I live by dependence upon God." (3) Then, again, let us see clearly set before us that exalted manhood as the pattern and pledge of the glory of the race. "We see Jesus, crowned with glory and honour." Pessimism shrivels at the sight, and we cannot entertain too lofty views of the possibilities of humanity and the certainties for all who put their trust in Him. If He be crowned with glory and honour, the vision is fulfilled, and the dream is a reality; and it shall be fulfilled in the rest of us who love Him.
II. Secondly, we have the name of office. Jesus is Christ. Is your Jesus merely the man who by the meek gentleness of his nature, the winning attractiveness of his persuasive speech, draws and conquers and stands manifested as the perfect example of the highest form of manhood, or is He the Christ in whom the hopes of a thousand generations are realised, and the promises of God fulfilled, and the smoking altars and the sacrificing priests of that ancient system and of heathenism everywhere find their answer, their meaning, their satisfaction, their abrogation? Is Jesus to you the Christ of God?
III. Lastly, we have the name of Divinity. Jesus the Christ is the Son of God. (1) The name declares timeless being; it declares that He is the very raying out of the Divine glory; it declares that He is the embodiment and type of the Divine essence; it declares that He by Himself purged our sins; it declares that He sitteth on the right hand of God. (2) Further, the name is employed in its contracted form to enhance the mystery and the mercy of His sharp sufferings and of His lowly endurance. "Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered." The fuller form is employed to enhance the depth of the guilt and the dreadfulness of the consequences of apostacy, as in the solemn words about "crucifying the Son of God afresh" and in the awful appeal to our own judgments to estimate of how sore punishment they are worthy who trample under foot the Son of God.
A. Maclaren, The God of the Amen, p. 8.
References: Heb 13:20.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. v., No. 277; S. A. Tipple, Echoes of Spoken Words, p. 19. Heb 13:20, Heb 13:21.—A. Raleigh, The Way to the City, p. 175; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xx., No. 1186; vol. xxiii., No. 1368. Heb 13:20-24.—R. W. Dale, The Jewish Temple and the Christian Church, p. 286.
Heb 13:21
The Great Prayer Based on Great Pleas.
I. Consider the prayer which the name excites: "Make you perfect in every good work." We should expect that all the discord of our nature shall be changed into a harmonious cooperation of all its parts towards one great end. We bear about within us a warring anarchy and tumultuous chaos, where solid and fluid, warm and cold, light and dark, storm and calm, contend. Is there any power that can harmonise this divided nature of ours, where lusts, and passions, and inclinations of all sorts, drag one way and duty draws another, so that a man is torn apart as it were with wild horses? There is one. "The worlds" were harmonised, adapted, and framed together, chaos turned into order and beauty, and the God of peace will come and do that for us, if we will let Him, so that the low schism which affects our natures may be changed into perfect harmony.
II. Note, secondly, the Divine work which fulfils the prayer: "Working in you that which is well-pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ." Creation, providence, and all God’s works in the world, are also through Jesus Christ. But the work which is spoken of here is yet greater and more wonderful. There is, says the text, an actual Divine operation in the inmost spirit of every believing man. God does not work by magic. The Spirit of God, who cleanses men’s hearts, cleanses them on condition (1) of their faith, (2) of their submission, and (3) of their use of His gift. If you fling yourselves into the war of worldly life, the noise of the streets and whirring of the looms, and the racket of the children in the nursery, and the buzzings of temptations round about you, and your own passions, will deafen your ears so that you will never hear the still small voice that speaks a present God.
III. Lastly, notice the visible manifestation of the inward work. God works in order that you and I may work. Our action is to follow His. Practical obedience is the issue, and it is the test, of our having this Divine operation in our hearts. There are plenty of people who will talk largely about spiritual gifts, and almost vaunt their possession of such a Divine operation. Let us bring them and ourselves to the test, Are you doing God’s will in daily life in the little things? If so, then you may believe that God is working in you. If not, it is of no use to talk about spiritual gifts. The test of being filled with the Divine operation is that our actions shall be conformed to His will. Action is the end of all. We get the truth, we get our souls saved, we have all the abundance and exuberance of Divine revelation, we have the cross of Jesus Christ, we have the gift of the Divine Spirit, miracles and marvels of all sorts have been done, for the one purpose to make us able to do what is right in God’s sight, and to do it because it is His will.
A. Maclaren, Paul’s Prayers, p. 91.
References: Heb 13:22.—Expositor, 1st series, vol. vii., p. 155; Fletcher, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 157.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 Advice, Memories, Prayers, Greetings
Advice, Memories, Prayers, Greetings
The Epistle concludes with various exhortations in regard to the social life (Heb_13:1-3), private life (Heb_13:4-6), the religious life (Heb_13:7-17), in which connexion the readers are exhorted to follow steadfastly the example and doctrine of their former teachers (Heb_13:7-16), and to respect the authority of their present rulers (Heb_13:17). The writer requests their prayers (Heb_13:18-19); he prays himself on their behalf (Heb_13:20-21); he sends greetings, and utters his benediction (Heb_13:22-25).
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1-3. Duties of social life, viz. brotherly love, hospitality, and sympathy with those who suffer for Christ's sake.
2. Strangers] Christian brethren from other places are meant: cp. Heb_6:10. Angels unawares] cp. Genesis 18, 19; Jdg_6:11-24; Jdg_13:2-23.
3. Yourselves also in the body] and liable therefore to the same sufferings: cp. Heb_10:32-34.
4-6. Duties of the private life, viz. chastity and contentment.
4. Marriage is] RV 'Let marriage,' etc: the words are an exhortation.
5. Conversation] i.e. manner of life. RV simply, 'be ye free from the love of money.'
7-16. Duty of steadfastly adhering to the doctrine of their departed teachers.
7. Which have the rule] RV 'that had the rule.. which spake.' The words end of their conversation (see Heb_13:8) indicate that they were no longer living. RV renders, 'issue of their life.'
8. AY suggests that the 'end of their conversation' was Jesus Christ, but He can hardly be called the 'issue of their life.' This V. is a distinct sentence, and is introduced as an argument for steadfast adherence to the faith of the former teachers. Christ is the same now as when their teachers first taught them, so that they have no reason to go after divers and strange teachings (Heb_13:9).
9. Carried about] RV 'carried away.' The strange doctrines seem to have been connected with the ritual of 'meats,' or sacrificial meals (Heb_13:10).
10-14. We Christians have certainly an altar, the Cross of Christ, but as on the Day of Atonement the blood of the sacrifice was carried into the Most Holy Place, while the flesh of the victim was not eaten but burned outside the camp, so those who wish to participate in the benefits of the Christian sacrifice must not remain within the camp of Judaism, but utterly renounce all its 'carnal ordinances,' even though that entail bearing reproach for Christ's sake. We may be rendered homeless here below, but we have an abiding city above (Heb_11:10; Heb_12:22).
15, 16. Christ having offered Himself once for all as the great sacrifice of atonement, the only sacrifice Christians can now offer is that of thanksgiving (cp. Psa_116:17; 1Pe_2:5, 1Pe_2:11), the fruit of lips (cp. Hos_14:2) which make confession of his name, and also that of mercy with which God is well pleased (Hos_6:6).
The sacrifice of praise or thanksgiving had been the highest form of peace-offering under the Levitical Law (Lev_7:12; Lev_22:29 the words in the LXX which our author used are exactly quoted by him here), and the Psalmists had adopted the term to describe that truly spiritual worship which the atoning sacrifice of Christ does not supersede, but deepens and assures (Psa_107:22; Psa_116:17). His sacrifice of atonement shall never be repeated; but an offering to God is, in its highest form, sacrifice or sacred service, whether it be of words or charity (cp. Hos_14:2; Hos_6:6), or of the duties of ordinary life (Rom_12:1 : cp. 1Pe_2:5, 1Pe_2:11). Such sacrifice of thanksgiving is now to be offered continually, not as of old at merely ceremonial times or after separate acts of imperfect atonement; and through the one true High Priest, who has really opened the way for such worship to be brought to God, by the one real sacrifice of atonement which is effectual for ever.
17. Duty of obedience to present rulers.
Watch for (i.e. in behalf of) your souls] like sleepless shepherds who feel their responsibility to God for the flock. Do it with joy] i.e. watch with joy, feeling their duty to be a delight not a burden, for in the latter case the flock would suffer.
18. Pray for us] The plural denotes that the writer identifies himself with the rulers of the Church, on whom some suspicion has fallen, and he therefore in their name protests their integrity.
19. The singular number indicates that the writer stood in some special relationship to his readers from whom he is for the present separated for some reason not given. It seems not to have been imprisonment (see Heb_13:23), and the separation is regarded as only temporary.
20, 21. Prayer for the readers.
20. God of peace] i.e. the God who makes peace: cp. Rom_15:33; Rom_16:20; 2Co_13:11; Php_4:9, and see on Heb_13:14. Brought.. from the dead] The words refer not so much to the Resurrection of Christ as to His entrance into the heavenly sanctuary 'with the blood of the everlasting covenant,' and His exaltation as Head over the household of God (Heb_3:1-6): cp. Isa_63:11.
21. Cp. Php_2:12, Php_2:13.
22. Word of exhortation] the whole Epistle. The apologetic tone indicates some doubt as to the manner of its reception (cp. Heb_13:18), and also a consciousness that the subject has been treated more briefly than it deserves ('in few words').
23. Our brother Timothy] The reference does not point conclusively to St. Paul as the writer, but indicates that he was intimately connected with the Pauline circle. “We have no other knowledge of Timothy's imprisonment. If he come] Timothy is elsewhere at present.
24. The salutation shows that the Epistle was not addressed to the rulers, but primarily to the whole community. They of Italy] i.e. those from Italy, those belonging to Italy. The phrase is most naturally taken to indicate that the Epistle was written outside Italy at some place where Italian Christians had settled. If the Epistle was sent to Rome, these Italian Christians would naturally wish to join in the salutation. See Intro. § 3, 'Recipients and Probable Date.'
25. Cp. Col_4:18; 1Ti_6:21; 2Ti_4:22; Tit_3:15.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v1 (See Scofield "Heb 1:4").
angels
(See Scofield "Heb 1:4").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 1. The practical walk (Heb 13:1-6)
CHAPTER 13
1. The practical walk (Heb 13:1-6)
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2. The call to separation (Heb 13:7-16)
3. Conclusions (Heb 13:17-25)
Heb 13:1-6
No comment is needed on the simple exhortations with which this concluding chapter of this Epistle begins. Brotherly love stands in the foreground. Hospitality and loving kindness to prisoners and those who suffer adversity is especially enjoined. The great high priest in glory sympathizes with such a condition of His saints and we too are to be sympathizers as well as intercessors with Him. The life is to be clean and undefiled. Walking in faith there should be not covetousness but happy contentment in view of His never failing promise.
Heb 13:7-16
The first exhortation in these verses is that they should remember their leaders who had spoken the Word of God to them, to follow their faith and to consider the issue of their walk. These leaders had passed away from the earthly service into the presence of the Lord. One abides the same. He must be exalted above everything and He alone can satisfy the hearts of His people. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” He is the unchanging Jehovah who had spoken of old “I am the Lord who changeth not.” What a One to follow and to trust. From Him and His gracious riches the enemy tries to lead away God’s people and ensnare them. Christ is the person whom Satan hates and all wicked and strange doctrines are invented by him to dishonor that worthy name and to spoil God’s children.
Then follows the call to separation, the great exhortation at which the Holy Spirit aimed from the beginning of this document and which He now presses upon the conscience. “We have an altar whereof they have no right to eat who are serving the tabernacle.” That altar is Christ for those who have left the shadow things behind and who have found in Him their all in all.
Those who still cling to the Jewish things have no right of access; they have no right to eat if they serve the tabernacle, for everything has passed away since the substance in Christ has come. They had put Christ outside. All had been done as foreshadowed by the legal sacrifices. “Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered without the gate.” And now all is done and the whole Jewish system has no more meaning. To remain in it and practice the old things, which are gone, is a denial of Christ and His work as the sin-bearer. The camp is the people who continued in the things of the law, who denied thereby that the new sacrifice had been brought; who still used an earthly priesthood and denied thereby that the new and living way into the holy place had been made by the blood of Jesus, the rent veil.
Ritualistic Christendom with its man-made priesthood, its so-called “saving ordinances,” its legal principle, so prominent, not only in the worst form of apostate Christendom (the Romish church), but in other systems and sects, is but another camp in which the truth of Christ and His all sufficient work is denied. Outside of the camp is found the cross of Christ with all its grace and glory. And therefore the exhortation, which seems to us was the all-important message for these Hebrews (and for us as well) “let us go forth therefore unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach. For here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come.” In other words, leave all behind, be separate from all, which denies the cross and the work accomplished there. And “outside the camp” must mean “inside the veil,” to enjoy the perfection in Christ, to be in God’s holy presence as a true worshipper. “For we are the circumcision who worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh” (Php 3:3).
This priesthood of which Peter speaks (1Pe 2:5) is mentioned here also. “By Him therefore (not by an earthly priest or in an earthly tabernacle) let us offer up a sacrifice of praise to God continually that is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.” And besides this, which is done inside the veil, there is another aspect to the sacrifice we bring in His name--”to do good and to communicate forget not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.”
Heb 13:17-25
They were to obey the leaders and submit themselves. These leaders watched over their souls as those that shall give account in the coming day of Christ. And by obedience and submission they honored Him who has made them the overseers of the flock of God. Well it would be if all workers would never lose sight of the fact that they are accountable to the Lord. The writer of the Epistle, no doubt the apostle Paul, requests their prayers, “pray for us.” (“The fact is that none need the prayers of God’s people more than those who are active and prominent in the Lord’s work. Practically occupied with preaching and teaching others, how great the danger is of going on with a conscience not good about themselves! And what can more decidedly defile or harden?”) In true humility, so characteristic of Paul he writes “for we persuade ourselves that we have a good conscience, in all things desiring to live honestly.” Most ask prayer because their conscience is bad. He beseeches them that they may do this, so that by their prayer of intercession he might be restored to them the sooner. (See Phm 1:22.) He valued the prayers of the saints.
Then follows that blessed prayer so well suited to this epistle and its great truths. “Now the God of peace that brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, the great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, perfect you in every good work to do His will, working in you what is pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever (unto the ages of the ages). Amen.”
In the final words the apostle beseeches them to bear with the word of exhortation as contained in the letter. The mention of Timothy is another evidence that Paul wrote Hebrews. Brief salutations and the benediction closes this wonderful portion of the Word of God. “Grace be with you all. Amen.”
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 Final Admonitions and Conclusion.
Final Admonitions and Conclusion.
Exhortations of a general nature:
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v. 1. Let brotherly love continue.
v. 2. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers; for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
v. 3. Remember them that are in bonds as bound with them, and them which suffer adversity as being yourselves also in the body.
v. 4. Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled; but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.
v. 5. Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have; for He hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee,
v. 6. so that we may boldly say, The Lord is my Helper and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.
The inspired author has presented the matter to which he wanted to call the special attention of the Hebrew Christians. But in connection with this doctrine he now takes occasion to address some special admonitions to his readers: Brotherly love should continue. Love of the brethren had existed in their midst, as he had frankly acknowledged, chap. 6:10. But if they did not heed the appeal and warning addressed to them in the preceding chapter, there was danger that the general decay of their faith would be accompanied by the inevitable corresponding loss of true brotherly love. But in order that brotherly love might remain, it required constant exercising, two forms of which are here mentioned. First of all: Entertainment of strangers do not neglect; for through this some have entertained angels without knowing it. True hospitality is here earnestly recommended, not an indiscriminate feeding of loafers. Conditions often made it necessary for the Christians to move from one place to another in those days, and many of them could ill afford to make use of the public inn. In such cases the brethren should be willing to show their love by receiving others, often fugitives, into their homes and providing for their wants. In this work of love the thought was to encourage them that some people at least who practiced hospitality in that way had entertained angels without knowing it, Gen 18:19. The hospitality of the early Christians was commented upon favorably even by heathen writers. It is a virtue which might be practiced with far greater liberality in our days, when a suspicious coldness has come to mark the intercourse of Christians with one another, Rom 12:13; 1Pe 4:9; 1Ti 3:2; Tit 1:8. But some of their fellow-Christians might be in even a worse plight, and therefore the text continues: Be mindful of those in bonds as fellow prisoners, of those that suffer evil as being yourselves also in the body. The Christians to whom these words were addressed were living in troublous times. The general persecution which came upon them after the death of Stephen had indeed subsided, but the hatred of their enemies remained, and there were probably local disturbances. The believers, then, should feel a prayerful sympathy for all those that were languishing in prison for the sake of the Gospel, just as though they had been bound with them and were suffering the same hardships. In the same way they should remember those that were being abused, maltreated, showing this cordial sympathy all the more readily since they, being in the body, were liable to similar ill-usage. It was in accordance with these and similar instructions that the early Christians composed special prayers for those suffering imprisonment and in every way provided for their relief.
A special admonition concerns the sacredness of holy wedlock: in honor let marriage be held by all, and the marriage-bed be kept unstained; but fornicators and adulterers the Lord will judge. Whether a person has already entered the state of holy wedlock or is still unwed, marriage should be held in honor, sacred as an institution of the Lord. There must be no violation of its sanctity either by the unmarried, by presuming upon the special functions of this state, or by the married, by defiling the marriage-bed through unfaithfulness or in entering this holy estate for the mere gratification of sexual lust. The conjugal relations should be chaste. With solemn emphasis the writer adds that it is God who will judge and condemn the fornicators and adulterers, those who in any manner violate the sacredness of the boundaries which He has drawn around the state of marriage.
Of the entire conduct of the Christians the author says: Your mode of life be without covetousness, being content with what you have: for Himself has said, I mill by no means leave thee, nor will I at all forsake thee. The entire life of the Christians, all their thinking and doing, their conduct under all circumstances, should be free from avarice, from the love of money, for God demands that His children on earth should be satisfied, content with what they have, with what He has given them. This contentment has a firm foundation in the promise of God that He mill under no circumstances leave His own to want, nor mill He in any manner forsake them, Deu 31:6-8; 1Ch 28:20. See Gen 28:15; Jos 1:5; Isa 41:17. This promise of God being secure, we may boldly say, The Lord is my Helper, I will not fear, Psa 118:6. The Psalmist asks the challenging question, but the author here changes the question to the bold statement of faith which fears no danger with God on its side. See 1Ch 28:20. Men can at their worst but take our lives; but our salvation in Christ Jesus is secure in the hands of the Father. The body they may kill, but the soul has been entrusted to the certainty of everlasting Mercy.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
In this closing section, the author gives specific instructions to believers on how they are supposed to live.
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Let brotherly love continue
"Continue to show your love for other believers as you would for a member of your family"
Do not forget
This can be stated in positive form. AT: "Be sure to remember" (See: Litotes)
hospitality for strangers
"to welcome and show kindness to strangers"
translationWords
brother
love
angel
know
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1–3 13:1-6 This series of practical guidelines is similar to…
13:1-6 This series of practical guidelines is similar to other ethics lists in the New Testament. It describes how to love others in the community of faith, a strong ethical foundation for all of life.
13:1 Keep on loving each other as brothers and sisters: Literally Continue in brotherly love. This instruction applies to everyone in the Christian community (see study notes on 2:11; 3:1).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.