13. Pleasing to God Hebrews 13
HEBREWS CHAPTER 13 VERSES 1-25
13. Pleasing to God
13. Pleasing to God Hebrews 13
It is time to get down to brass tacks. What does all the theology we have covered in the previous chapters actually look like in day-to-day life? In his final section the writer to the Hebrews covers some core aspects of how to live a holy life.
In Hebrews 13:1-6 we see that there are two ways to think of this. First, a Christian should be outwardly focused, looking to care for those around them. Second, a Christian should look inwardly at his or her own life, faith, and morality. Both the external and the internal are important.
Brotherly Love
The chapter begins with a broad statement in verse 1: “Let brotherly love continue.” This is the umbrella thought, the big-picture idea for how and why we look out for those around us and not just for ourselves: the concept of brotherly love.
The Greek word is philadelphia, which combines two words: philo, meaning “love,” and adelphos, meaning “brother.” The NIV translates this verse as “Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters.” That translation captures the essence of why we love. We do it because we are like brothers and sisters to one another.
Lurking behind this exhortation is this reality: that in Christ we are brothers and sisters. Believers are linked together because of Christ. We have a bond that is even stronger and tighter than biological bonds.
In Matthew 12:46-50, Jesus is teaching in a crowded room and someone comes in with the news that his brothers and mother are outside wanting to talk to him. Jesus replies, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” Then he goes on, “Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” He makes it clear that being spiritually related is more important than being biologically related.
This is our author’s starting point. The word philadelphia, “brotherly love,” highlights the reality that the first step to being loving is to love those in your spiritual family. Jesus said in John 13:35, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” He did not say, if you love everybody in the world. The mark of a disciple is loving your spiritual siblings. Clearly, we do need to love unbelievers too! But that is not where love begins.
Brotherly love is the umbrella concept; how does it work out concretely? In Hebrews 13:2-3 our author gives two simple examples.
Showing Hospitality
Here is the first example of brotherly love: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers” (v 2).
Hospitality has always been one of the hallmarks of Christian communities. It was especially important in the early church, which was very mission-oriented. Even though travel could be dangerous and difficult in the ancient world, early Christians traveled a great deal. Such travel was motivated by the desire for “networking” among Christians, as well as by a desire to spread the gospel to new people groups. These travelers are likely the “strangers” whom our author mainly has in view—Christian missionaries from other cities and communities who needed somewhere to stay.
At that time, hospitality met this specific need and advanced the kingdom of God. But that is not all it involves. Hospitality is a central virtue for Christians (Romans 12:13; 1 Peter 4:9)—which is why it is given as a requirement for elders in the church (1 Timothy 3:2). It means looking out for the needs of others by welcoming them into your home.
In our day we easily confuse biblical hospitality with entertaining. Hospitality is not just about hosting dinner parties. It is more other-centered. It focuses on meeting a need rather than on having an enjoyable time. The motive is different.
This may mean inviting a different set of people to your home. Entertaining carries an expectation of reciprocity: if I invite someone to dinner, I will get invited back. It is just the way our social lives work. There is nothing wrong with that, but it is not what is being talked about here in Hebrews 13. This is welcoming strangers—inviting people for meals or to stay with us with no expectation that they will or even can reciprocate. This kind of hospitality can be inconvenient and hard; it requires a whole different level of focus and effort to welcome into your home those who are not already part of your social circle.
This concept of hospitality recalibrates the way we open up our homes; it is no longer just for our own pleasure but in order to advance the kingdom of God.
To drive home his point, our author offers the remarkable observation that some “have entertained angels unawares” (v 2). No doubt this is a reference to Genesis 18, where Abraham welcomes three strangers and gives them food and drink, and two of them turn out to be angels (the third being a theophany of the Lord himself); and to Genesis 19, where Lot welcomes the same two angels into his home to protect them from the dangerous citizens of Sodom.
The point here is not so much that we should expect angels in our homes today (though that is certainly possible) as that we just never know the significance our hospitality might have for the kingdom of God. A small act of kindness can have an immense impact.
Loving Those in Prison
Next our author lays out a second example: “Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated” (v 3).
Here again we have to understand the historical context. In this period, it was very common for Christians to be thrown into prison, not because they had committed a crime but merely for being Christians.
We read about this in a letter written to the Emperor Trajan by Pliny the Younger, who was a governor in a Roman province early in the second century (Letters, 10.96-97). Many Christians had stopped going to the pagan temples and worshiping the Roman gods. In an attempt to reverse this, Pliny tells the emperor that he has been arresting Christians and throwing them in jail. He tortured some and had some executed.
This kind of persecution was not unusual (for more information, see Bryan Litfin, Early Christian Martyr Stories). Christians would be thrown in jail, mistreated, mocked, arrested, and beaten; their money and livelihoods would be stolen. Caring for people in prison was therefore the need of the hour. The writer to the Hebrews is encouraging his readers to visit such Christians and care for their physical needs.
How do we translate that for the modern day? Certainly, some Christians are in prison now because they’ve committed a crime, and it would still be a good thing to go and visit them. We should show compassion to them also. But the principle that is mainly in view here is that we should help those Christians who are suffering innocently—those who have suffered persecution as a result of their faith.
It is significant that our author uses the word “remember.” Honestly, it is easy to forget those who are being persecuted. We live in a culture that focuses on health, beauty, and success. Few want to think about those who lack these things. But we should be motivated to care for two reasons. First, we are effectively suffering with them. Look at the language used here: remember them “as though in prison with them.” The reason we should care about them is that they are our spiritual brothers (v 1). If they hurt, we hurt. We are linked to them. “If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together” (1 Corinthians 12:26).
Second, our author calls his audience to remember those who suffer for Christ because “you also are in the body” (Hebrews 13:3). In other words, since all of us have physical bodies, we all have the potential to suffer physically. We should have compassion on those who are suffering because it could just as easily have been (and perhaps someday will be) us suffering.
Look at Your Own Life
If verses 1-3 have been about looking out for others, our author reminds us in verses 4-6 that we should also be looking out for ourselves. The pursuit of holiness involves not only external considerations (caring for others) but also internal considerations (guarding our own lives).
Not surprisingly, the author chooses to focus on what are probably the two most common idols that human beings struggle with: sex and money.
He starts with sex: “Let marriage be held in honor among all” (v 4).
In our world today marriage is under attack in many ways—through the vast numbers of divorces, through people’s unfaithfulness to their marriages, and through those who advocate many different versions of marriage.
It was a similar story when this letter was written. In the ancient world, sexual promiscuity was rampant and fairly well accepted in society. There was no expectation that men, in particular, would be faithful to their wives. So Christians were already distinctive in the way they viewed sex and marriage. The second-century Christian writer Tertullian, for example, said, “One in mind and soul, we do not hesitate to share our earthly goods with one another. All things are common among us but our wives” (Apologeticus, 39; my italics).
Many tell us that God does not or should not really care about sex and marriage. “Doesn’t God have bigger issues on his mind than what people do in their private sex lives?” they’ll say—adding that, if you think the biblical view of sex and marriage matters, you’re just a legalist—a Pharisee.
But God does care about these things. Faithful marriage between a man and a woman was designed by him. In Matthew 19:5-6 Jesus affirms marriage by quoting from Genesis: “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? … What therefore God has joined together, let man not separate.”
Honoring marriage is important partly because it is a picture of something bigger and greater. Ephesians 5 says that the relationship between a husband and wife is a picture of the way Christ loves the church. So if you dishonor marriage, you are dishonoring God’s picture of redemption. That’s a big issue.
There are other things at stake too. Disobeying God and doing whatever you want sexually has ramifications: broken homes, broken families, and many practical and psychological problems. I can speak to this on a pastoral level: at my church, the vast majority of big pastoral issues we deal with have something to do with people dishonoring God’s plan for sex and marriage. God cares about sex and marriage because he cares about people.
Hebrews 13:4 also tells us that the reason we should hold marriage in honor is that “God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.” That might be the most unpopular thing to say in our world today! But we have to stick with what God says, even if it is unpopular. The reality is that God will judge sexual immorality.
That does not mean that there is no forgiveness for those of us who have sexual sin in our past or are struggling with sexual sin in the present. There is always forgiveness for those who repent of their sin, believe in Christ, and commit to living for him. It is the person who defies God directly and refuses to repent that God will judge for his or her sexual immorality.
Look at 1 Corinthians 6:9-11. Paul says, “Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality … will inherit the kingdom of God” (v 9-10). But in verse 11 he adds, “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” The message is that sexual sin is very serious; but if you repent and trust in Jesus, there is always forgiveness and grace.
We do not apply this verse by walking out in the world and condemning everybody who is sexually immoral. We start by applying it to our own lives. “Let the marriage bed be undefiled” (Hebrews 13:4). Start by guarding your own marriage. Keep it pure. Do not let it slip away. That is the first thing to do.
Don’t Love Money
The next command has to do with money. “Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have” (v 5).
Love of money is a big pitfall in the Christian life.
It is not sinful to have money. God sometimes blesses people with wealth. But do not think, therefore, that the love of money is not a danger that you need to be wary of. Money is like fire: it can keep you warm or it can burn your house down.
Of course, you don’t have to be rich for this to be an issue. Poor people can love money. Even those who have nothing at all can covet what they don’t have.
1 Timothy 6:9-10 describes the danger:
“Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.”
Our author tells us that we need to “be content with what [we] have” instead of worrying about money. Why? Because God provides. The way you use money is a test of whether you really believe that. Do you hoard money for your own protection because you’re afraid of what you might lose? Do you spend and spend, hoping that the next purchase will bring you a sense of security? Or are you content—not afraid of losing money or possessions but even able to give them away generously—because you know you have something far greater?
After all, God has said, “I will never leave you or forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5; this is a quotation from Joshua 1:5). And “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?” (Hebrews 13:6; this is a quotation from Psalm 118:6.) If you really do believe these things, you will not be so worried about money.
We need to be looking out for our own marriages and sexual behavior, and testing our own attitudes to money. Our author is not saying that if you get sex and money right, everything else in life will be perfect. He uses these big issues as examples. If we are to pursue holiness, we must do it proactively.