The Word Made Fresh
1Keep loving one another. 2Be gracious to strangers; some have entertained angels without realizing it. 3Remember those who are imprisoned as though you were there with them, and those who are being tortured as though you were being tortured as well.
4All of you should hold marriage in honor and keep the marriage bed uncorrupted; God will judge those who engage in sex outside of marriage, and those who commit adultery. 5Don’t fall in love with money; be happy with what you have because God has said, “I will never leave you or abandon you.” 6We can say confidently, “I am not afraid because the Lord is with me; what can anyone do to me?”
7Remember your leaders who spoke God’s word to you. Study their way of life. Imitate their faith. 8Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. 9Don’t get caught up in all kinds of quackery. It’s better for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not silly rules about food – rules which have done nothing for people who follow them. 10Those who officiate in the tabernacle have no right to eat at our altar. 11The high priest brings the blood of dead animals into the sanctuary as a sacrifice for sin, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. 12In the same way Jesus suffered outside the city gate to purify the people by his own blood. 13So, let us go outside the camp, then, and suffer the same abuse he suffered, 14because we have no eternal city here, but we look for the city that is to come. 15Then we’ll offer to God sacrifices of praise continually, confessing his name with our lips. 16Always do good. Share what you have. Those are the sacrifices that please God.
17Submit to your leaders and obey them because they are watching over you and keeping records. Let them carry out their duties with joy, not with groaning. That would not be good for you.
18And pray for us. Our consciences are clear, and we want to always act honorably. 19I earnestly beg you to do this so that I may be able to return to you soon.
20Now may the God of peace, who brought our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, back from the dead, by the blood of the eternal covenant 21fill you with everything good so that you can do his will, and work in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
22I beg you, friends, to pay attention to what I have told you, as I have written to you briefly. 23I want you to know that our brother Timothy has been set free. If he arrives in time he will be with me when I visit you. 24Give our greetings to all your leaders and to all the saints. Those from Italy send greetings as well.
25Grace be with all of you. Amen.
Commentary
1-6: The author suddenly turns from future thoughts about Mt. Zion to address the present community of faith. Continue to love one another, he says, and allow love to also guide your actions toward strangers and prisoners. Fidelity in marriage is again upheld as a primary rule for the protection of the coherence of the faith community. Likewise, frugality is named as an important virtue in the faith community because desire for wealth reveals a lack of faith in God’s power to care for them – there are several places in the Old Testament which have God declaring, “I will never leave you or abandon you” (Deuteronomy 31:6, 8; Joshua 1:5, 1 Chronicles 28:20). Verse 6 is from Psalm 118:6.
7-16: He encourages them to follow the faith of the ones who declared the gospel message to them. That message is constant; it doesn’t change. He tells them not to pay attention to those who insist on dietary restrictions. (We suspect that the letter was written near the end of the first century; it is surprising to find that there is still concern for those who were trying to convince new Christians to obey the Jewish dietary laws.) Again, he draws a comparison between the sacrifices offered under the old law and the sacrifice offered by Christ of his own body and blood; just as the old animal sacrifices called for the remains to be burned outside of camp, so Jesus was crucified and buried outside the city walls of Jerusalem. Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed in 70 A.D., so Christians are encouraged to “go outside the camp,” that is, to leave the fold of Judaism and offer “sacrifices of praise” — in other words, preach the gospel.
17: For good order in the church, he entreats his readers to obey their leaders so that they will be a source of joy to them.
18-19: He asks them to pray for him, and intimates that he is being held against his will, but plans to visit them soon. This sounds like one of Paul’s letters, but most of Hebrews does not read at all like one of Paul’s letters.
20-21: This is a particularly beautiful benediction, unique in the Bible.
22-24: The mention of Timothy and Italy remind us of Paul’s letters as well. There is much speculation that (since the previous verses constitute a closing) these verses were added later in order make it look as though Paul were the author. The bulk of the evidence, however, indicates that someone else wrote Hebrews.
Takeaway
Faith is not about being acclaimed or even appreciated. It’s about maintaining a relationship with God through prayer and faith in Jesus Christ.