Concluding Exhortations
Keep on loving each other as brothers. Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.
Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,
“Never will I leave you;
never will I forsake you.”
So we say with confidence,
“The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.
What can man do to me?”
Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings. It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace, not by ceremonial foods, which are of no value to those who eat them. We have an altar from which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right to eat.
The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.
Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that confess his name. And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.
Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.
Pray for us. We are sure that we have a clear conscience and desire to live honorably in every way. I particularly urge you to pray so that I may be restored to you soon.
May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
Brothers, I urge you to bear with my word of exhortation, for I have written you only a short letter.
I want you to know that our brother Timothy has been released. If he arrives soon, I will come with him to see you.
Greet all your leaders and all God’s people. Those from Italy send you their greetings.
Grace be with you all.
My Understanding: This is the concluding chapter of the book of Hebrews. In a nutshell, Hebrews is a book that explains the way of the cross, Jesus as the fulfillment of prophecy of scripture with regard to the awaited Messiah of the Jews, and the New Covenant of God with his people versus the Old Covenant, and how the New Covenant has replaced the Old Covenant. As well, it offers many words of hope and encouragement to follow Jesus in absolute faith and obedience, and to run the race marked out for us with perseverance, throwing off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles (see Heb. 12:1).
The book of Hebrews reminds us that Jesus became human flesh and that he dwelled among us, that he suffered as we suffer and was tempted as we are tempted, yet without sin, so that he could be the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and so he could become our faithful, compassionate and merciful high priest (mediator between us and God the Father), because he sympathizes with us in our weaknesses. Therefore, we can approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need (see Heb. 4:16).
Love and Compassion
The writer of Hebrews began his concluding remarks with an exhortation to keep on loving each other as brothers (and sisters). To love one another as though we are members of the same birth family suggests a very close kinship kind of love that has an inseparable bond. In a loving family, brothers and sisters play, laugh, cry and work together. They sometimes fight, too. They share common experiences. They help each other. They have each other’s backs. They enjoy being together. They share many of the same likes and dislikes. And, they have many similarities in physical appearance and personality, too, because they all come from the same parents. The spiritual parallel is obvious. When we, as the family of God, share the same spiritual heritage, we should have this kind of family kinship, too.
The encouragements continue by reminding us to not forget to entertain strangers, because we might actually be entertaining angels without knowing it. This is a concept that is difficult for us to get a handle on, because we tend to be such logical and practical individuals here in America, but I believe this to be true. We certainly need to exercise wisdom and discernment, yet we must remain open to the Holy Spirit’s leading in this, and we should never show disdain or disregard for a stranger who might ask for our assistance. We should pray for wisdom to understand what the true needs are, and to meet legitimate needs, for in our desire to help, we could also lead or assist someone down a path of sin.
When the writer asked that we remember those in prison as if we were their fellow prisoners, he added to that, “and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.” “Those in prison” could be merely a reference to those believers in Jesus Christ who were imprisoned falsely for their faith and testimony for Jesus Christ, or it could be a general reference to all prisoners. The phrase, “There but for the grace of God go I,” comes to mind here, as we are all sinners and are all capable of any sin, so any one of us could be in prison for the sins we have committed, or that we are certainly capable of committing.
So, we should have mercy and compassion on those who are imprisoned for crimes they have committed, as well as we should have mercy and compassion for those who are mistreated and/or who are imprisoned falsely. This kind of mercy and compassion goes much deeper than just feeling sorry for them, but goes to the very core of our emotional being in that it translates into us actually feeling what the prisoners and mistreated feel. I pray the Lord would give me that kind of mercy and compassion for the hurting and lonely.
Faithful in Service
Marriage should be honored, i.e. we should exercise integrity, decency, morality and uprightness in our marriage vows, and in our commitments, one to the other. The marriage bed should be kept pure (clean; unpolluted; untainted), i.e. we should not commit acts of adultery against our spouses. Adultery includes entertaining sexual thoughts about others in our minds, sexual fantasies, masturbation (self-gratification), viewing pornography, and lusting after people we see alive and in person, and perhaps even looking for such opportunities. I believe adultery also includes romantic affairs of the heart, as well as it includes the actual act of physical sexual behavior of any nature with another individual (opposite sex or same sex).
A lot of people like to define adultery as merely having sex with someone besides his or her own spouse, but God sees it much differently. When he talks about us committing adultery against him, he often illustrates this adultery against God with adultery in a marriage relationship, yet what he means by adultery is us replacing his rightful place in our hearts with other gods. So, when we replace our spouses in our hearts and minds with others, and we choose to have others, or our own selves, meet our own emotional (love and companionship) and/or sexual needs, in place of turning to our spouses to meet those needs, this is adultery in God’s eyes, I believe.
We are to keep our lives free from the love of money and be content with what we have, because God has said that he would never leave us or forsake us. Because the Lord is our helper, we should never be afraid of what man might do to us. Jesus set the prime example for us in how to be content with what we have, and how to respond to unjust suffering at the hands of men. He willingly gave his life up for us so that we could be free from sin. And, he said that being his disciples would mean that we will be treated like he was treated. He was treated with hatred, jealousy, rage and anger, and he was murdered, because he dared to step outside the box of institutionalized religion, in order to show love and compassion to the hurting and needy, and to speak the truth in love in addressing man’s sin and hypocrisy, and his need to turn from his sin, and to turn to faith and obedience to Jesus Christ (God). And, we are to follow his example in coming out from the world and out from the religion of men, and to follow Jesus Christ wherever he leads us, even if it means we will be treated unjustly, too.
In all that we do, and through all of our trials and tribulations we will face on this earth, we are to continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise – the fruit of lips that confess his name. I believe this sacrifice is not to be in lip service only, but should come from our hearts and should be evident in all that we do in service to our Lord. Romans 12:1-2 always comes to mind when I think of our offering to God. We are to offer our very lives as living sacrifices to God, holy and pleasing to him, and this is our reasonable service of worship to him. We are not to be conformed any longer to the pattern of this world (or worldly/fleshly church), but we are to be transformed by the working of the Holy Spirit in renewing our minds, so that we can prove by our lives the good, pleasing and perfect will of God for us all.
If our lives are truly on this altar, and we are fully given over to the Lord Jesus in all things, out of this life of sacrifice should naturally flow the kinds of attitudes and actions spoken about in these concluding exhortations from the writer of Hebrews (God’s God-breathed words to us). We are to make this kind of sacrifice of praise to our God continually, i.e. constantly abiding in Him, trusting in his promises, relying upon his peace and joy, and looking forward with great expectation to the day when we can be with him forever.
Constantly Abiding / Anne S. Murphy, 1908
There’s a peace in my heart that the world never gave,
A peace it cannot take away;
Though the trials of life may surround like a cloud,
I’ve a peace that has come here to stay!
All the world seemed to sing of a Savior and King,
When peace sweetly came to my heart;
Troubles all fled away and my night turned to day,
Blessèd Jesus, how glorious Thou art!
This treasure I have in a temple of clay,
While here on His footstool I roam;
But He’s coming to take me some glorious day,
Over there to my heavenly home!
Constantly abiding, Jesus is mine;
Constantly abiding, rapture divine;
He never leaves me lonely, whispers, O so kind:
“I will never leave thee,” Jesus is mine.
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