Chapter 13
This chapter starts off with instructions for Christian living. Be hospitable to strangers, remember those in prison and in persecution.
2022 - This familiar verse:
2 Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. [Heb 13:2 ESV]
Angels walking around among men, unrecognized as to what they are, in the time after the resurrection, with the church age/Gentile age in full swing. This is not like the healings going away, nor the prophecy going away and tongues going away. There's no cause to believe that this isn't still happening today.
Keep marriage holy.
2022 - Here's the whole verse:
4 Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. [Heb 13:4 ESV]
I wonder if this is specifically listed because the writer expected Satanic attack against this institution. It goes way back, it was instituted by God Himself, and is foundational to His planned organization of mankind. Of course it is going to be attacked!
Don't love money, but be content. Remember those who lead, who teach you the way, and observe and imitate the example of their lives. These verses:
8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. 9 Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them. [Heb 13:8-9 ESV]
Jesus is unchanging. Only God does not change. As He is unchanging, so His doctrine is unchanging.
2022 - The writer is apparently referring to a specific "strange teaching" that certain foods make you more holy. The writer says that since this is not in scripture, it ought be considered a mere distraction, unworthy of diverting attention from more orthodox teachings. More broadly, perhaps it means not to be obsessive about your own health and diet and exercise and all those kinds of things. God strengthens hearts, not Lipitor!
Maybe a FB post...
2025 - Reminds me of Bonhoeffer. You do not need to consider what all else a Bible teaching may have meant. You don't need to decipher it's applicability or non-applicability in our current society. "Thou shalt not kill" does not require analysis and interpretation. Don't make it complicated because it is not! Yesterday, the whole "Honor thy father and they mother..." We tried to unravel what that really might mean. What we were doing in fact was trying to make exceptions to it because some of us don't feel our parents (or a parent) deserve to be honored. So we dig into what "honor" really means. We should not be doing that. It means what it says it means. Jesus does not change. He said what he meant, and it is the same always and for all time in what it meant. The way the 1st century audience understood his words is the way we should understand them. The meaning has not changed.
2022 - In so many words...
12 So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. 13 Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. 14 For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. [Heb 13:12-14 ESV]
We live in the world, but not of the world. Our hope our treasure our ambition is in the next world, not in this one. Such a difficult way to live life. I think this is truly a hard saying. Our physical bodies demand that we participate in this world - very few will starve themselves when they don't have to do so - and yet these necessities, in the proper sense of things, are not necessary but mere unimportant distractions from our reality.
2024 - Remember that for a time Moses conducted his business with God outside the camp also. Those inside the camp had rebelled, and God would not go among them at that time. So God met Moses outside. Jesus died outside. If we are more comfortable inside, we ought to worry.
2026 - Look particularly at this verse:
13 Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. [Heb 13:13 ESV]. Consider this as metaphorical. We are to leave the safety, predictability, and routine of our daily lives, go outside where danger, hostility and death await us, and deal with the negative that comes along with that. Peterson didn't say it quite this way...but he did say we have to explore the black, though that requires leaving the white.
Might be a good one for FB.
These last two verses, giving us the tiniest fraction of information about the writer of this book. Whoever he was, he was one of those receiving the letter. They knew him, he'd come from among them, and he wanted to return but was somehow prevented:
18 Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a clear conscience, desiring to act honorably in all things. 19 I urge you the more earnestly to do this in order that I may be restored to you the sooner. [Heb 13:18-19 ESV]
Another verse about who the author might be:
23 You should know that our brother Timothy has been released, with whom I shall see you if he comes soon. [Heb 13:23 ESV]
I don't think we have information anywhere that Timothy was imprisoned. Anywhere else I mean. Timothy was in Ephesus, right? So Hebrews seems likely to have been written by someone spending time in Ephesus, but actually from somewhere else. It makes sense to me that the writer of Hebrews was a Jew, from Jerusalem, and writing back to those in the synagogue there? Or in the church there? Doesn't seem like he'd need to write a letter like this to the Jerusalem church...unless he is one of the apostles in that church. Maybe Peter? He doesn't seem likely to me.
Where did Timothy go from Ephesus after his release? Would Timothy go to Jerusalem? He had no ties there. Where did he have ties?
2022 - This almost seems to say that the writer of Hebrews was free while Timothy was imprisoned. Maybe, back in 19, the writer feels some obligation to stay where he is in order to testify on Timothy's behalf, or aid in Timothy's rehabilitation after the rigors, and possible severe torture of his imprisonment. Maybe that is why Paul speaks of his own suffering and persecution in 1,2 Timothy, because Timothy almost died at the hands of the torturers and does not believe he could survive it a second time. So the writer of Hebrews - ok, I admit I'm leaning away from Apollos and back towards Paul - is staying to help Timothy, and the prayers of those to whom he writes can speed that help along, so that Paul can come and see them sooner. This seems to do a good job of tying vss 18,19 to vs 23.
But I still don't know to whom Paul is writing. Not a synagogue though, a church. Perhaps the Jerusalem church, as that would be "home" to Paul. In 19, Paul wants to be "restored" to them sooner. Cannot be restored if you weren't previously separated. From whom was Paul separated? Possibly from any church he had ever visited...so not that much help.
Ah well...MSB says he can't figure it out, I'm not going to figure it out on a Tuesday morning.