Christian Service
CHRISTIAN SERVICE
HEBREWS 13:1-6
The final chapter ends with instructions to work out in practice the teaching that has gone before.
The writer of the letter now appeals to his readers to fulfill some practical Christian duties. We should never be so taken up with intricate questions of the effects of Christian truth on philosophical difficulties or on the social problems of the day that we neglect the duties that lie ready to our hands. So Christians are to love one another as brothers and sisters. This incidentally was apparently a new virtue; the expression “brotherly love” appears in pre-Christian times always to have been used in the literal sense of love within a family. To have such love for fellow believers is striking. And it is something which formed a powerful weapon of evangelism in the early church, for the pagans were immensely impressed when they had to confess, “See how these Christians love one another!” Hospitality is another virtue to be stressed. It was important to the early Christians, for as they traveled in the service of the gospel they experienced difficulties in securing lodging places. Inns were expensive and often of doubtful reputation. Hospitality in Christian homes was important.
Prisoners were usually badly treated, so that compassion toward them was not out of place. The attitude looked for here is an advance on hospitality. Strangers seek one out and bring the opportunity for hospitality, but prisoners must be sought out. Probably Christians in prison for the faith are primarily in mind. The readers are to remember them “as though in prison with them,” as in fact in due course they well might be. For the attitude which these readers in fact practiced, see also 10:34.
In a day of sexual laxity the Christian attitude to marriage stood out. Sex is a good gift of God, and it is to be used in the way God intends, not as a mere gratification of sinful desires. For the Christian there must always be the thoughts that marriage is indeed an honorable estate, and sex something that can be exercised “undefiled,” but also that the severe judgment of God is against the immoral (13:4).
The last vice our author mentions is the love of money, which can be a fruitful cause of all kinds of evil. But when people resist the temptation and are content with God’s provision, they will rejoice in a well-founded confidence (13:6). Where God is Lord and security, we need not fear what people can do.