A Commentary in Simple English on the letter to Jewish Christians

CHAPTER 13: LOVE

At the end of the last Chapter, the writer told us that God gives us a kingdom. This kingdom will ‘remain’. Nothing can shake it. Now something else must ‘remain’. This is love. See 1 Corinthians 13:13.

So we come to the last chapter of this great letter. We said before that just as Chapter 11 was to do with faith. In the same way Chapter 12 was to do with hope and Chapter 13 was to do with love. We can quickly look down the chapter and we can then see some of the parts of our lives where love should be at work.

In verse 1 there is the call to love each other as brothers. [13.1]. (See 1 Thessalonians 4: 9; Romans 12: 10; 1 Peter 1: 22.)

In verse 2 the writer calls on us to show love to strangers and to open our homes to them. (See also Romans 12: 13; 1 Timothy 3: 2 and 5:10; Titus 1: 8; 1 Peter 4: 9.)

In verse 3 he calls us to love those who are in prison or who are subject to cruelty for their faith. (See 10: 32-34; Matthew 25:26.)

In verse 4 he speaks about love within marriage.

In verse 5 he warns us not to love money or things. (See Luke 12: 15; 1 Timothy 6: 10,17 and 19.)

In verse 9, perhaps we may think about love to the truth.

In verse 13 amongst others, the writer teaches us to love our Lord Jesus Christ.

In verse 17 the writer calls on us to love the leaders of the church.

You may be able to add more to this list. But we have found enough already. We cannot say: 'I do not know quite what Christian love should mean in my life'.

But there is something else which may help us to read this chapter. You will remember that we said that we do not know who wrote this letter. We do not know where the writer sent it. We do not know where he sent it from or even when he wrote it. But it is no secret that I think it was written a little before AD 70. to Ephesus. I think it is likely that it was written from Corinth, and that if we know the name of the writer it was Apollos. (See Acts 18: 24 - 19:1 and also 1 Corinthians 16:12; Titus 3: 13.)

It was about 15 years since the church at Ephesus was formed. (That was in 52 AD.) Some of the first members of the church were a dozen Jews. 25 years before that John the Baptist had baptised them (Acts 19: 1-7). Others were Jews who had heard Paul preach in the synagogue at Ephesus and they believed the Good News. (Acts 19:8-10). Such Jewish men would know the Old Testament writings and many of them would become leaders in the Ephesus church. The church grew bigger but the new members who came in were mostly Greeks. The Jewish group in the church seemed so much less important as the years went by.

We can look down the chapter again now. We can see how what the writer says meets the feelings of the Jewish group in the church [13.2].

In verse 1, the Jewish group in the church is to show brotherly love to the Greeks.

In verse 2, the strangers may be Greeks. Love is still to be shown to them and the Jews are to take Greeks into their homes.

So in verse 3, the prisoners and sufferers may be either Jews or Greeks. The Jews are not to help only the Jews.

In verse 4, the younger Jews may want to marry Greek partners. The Jewish parents may not like this. What matters is that they should marry Christian partners.

In many places and at many times, people have married for the sake of money. So this thought joins verse 4 to verse 5. We would wish people to marry because they love each other.

In verse 5, the warning about love of money seems just right for a Jewish group. But love of money amongst the Jewish group would not help them to get on well with the Greeks.

In verse 7, I think 'your leaders' may be those first Jewish leaders in the church. The way the writer speaks of them leads me to think that they were no longer alive. (See verse 17).

In verse 13, the call to go to Jesus is a call to be separate from those Jews in the city who did not believe in Jesus. The Jews who did not believe thought that they had a 'lasting city', Jerusalem. But soon the Roman army would destroy the city. The Jewish Christians sometimes felt: - 'We have more in common with other Jews than we have with those Greeks who are Christians'. The Jewish Christians needed to be told: 'Love your Christian brothers'.

Lastly, in verse 17, there is the call to obey the church leaders. This had been easier when the leaders were mostly Jews. Perhaps they were now mostly Greeks who did not understand the way that Jews thought about things. Both sides needed to have love so that they could work together.

About 25 years later, the Lord Jesus had a message to give to the church at Ephesus. (See Revelation 2:4.) 'You have left your first love'. So the church really needed the call of verse 1 to 'let brotherly love continue'.

Verses 1-17: Ways to show love

Whether the Christians were Jews or Gentiles, they were all sons of God. God their Father had made them His sons. So they should love each other like brothers.

In verse 2, the writer tells the Christians that they are to receive strangers into their homes. 'We receive not angels, but Christ Himself, when we receive the poor in His name'. There is always danger when we take in strangers, but God will honour us if we do it. (See 3 John: 5-8.) In those days 'inns' or hotels cost far too much; they were very dirty; and they had a bad name because of the wrong things that went on in them. Christian teachers went from place to place and needed some home to stay in. And when the church was suffering in one place, some Christians would escape to another city, and would need help there. Abraham set us a good example when he received angels (Genesis 18:1-8). What we do sometimes has far more meaning than we know at the time.

In verse 3, the readers are told not just to think about those who are in prison. They are not only to pray for them. 'Remember' means visit them and take them food. There was danger when they did this. They were in prison because they were Christians; and the enemies of the Good News would see that the visitors were Christians. [13.3]. Other Christians were not in prison, but people were cruel to them. We should feel for people like that and help them too. [13.4].

Marriage (verse 4) has two enemies. On the one side there are those who do not keep sex pure; they do not make love only to their own husband or wife. They are the 'adulterers and immoral'. God will judge them: we do not need to! On the other hand, there are those people who think that they are so very religious, and they think that marriage itself is wrong. The teaching of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 7 is very helpful on this subject. But that chapter needs to be read with care. God has given us marriage. It is pure, so long as one man and one woman join together in marriage for the whole of their lives. Christians must set a good example to other people in this. We can keep ourselves free from some grave illnesses if we keep ourselves pure in the matter of sex and marriage. But remember, it is love between husband and wife that makes marriage pure and honourable. It is not just being faithful to each other.

Verse 5 tells us that not money itself but the love of money destroys souls. (See I John 2: 15-17; I Timothy 6: 6-10.) To be content is one of the great joys of the Christian life (Phil 4: 11-13). The Christian is contented to have God as His Father. God says to us: - 'I will, never, never, never fail you or go away from you'. (See Joshua 1: 5; Deuteronomy 31:6.) If we listen to what God says to us, we shall know what to say to Him. (Verse 6) We shall be brave when we say: - 'God helps me. I will not be afraid. What can men do to me?' (Psalm 118: 6,7). God is on our side. It is true that men can do cruel and horrible things to us. But they cannot come in between us and God's love to us (Romans 8: 35-39).

In verse 7, we see what a true Christian leader is. He is not someone who gives orders to other Christians. He is not just someone who holds an office in the church. He is not someone who knows he is clever and who is full of new ideas. Real Christian leaders are men who speak out God's Word. They do not love money (verse 5)! The Hebrew Christians are to 'consider the outcome of the way that they lived'. I think this means that these first leaders had died. The Jewish Christians knew that they had died at peace with God, and they are to think about their example. That is something else about a Christian leader. He sets a good example. But a good example will do us no good unless we copy it in our own lives.

Those first leaders had died. Jesus lives! (Verse 8). He does not change. This is why if we have seen the love of Christ in older Christians, we should copy it. This also is why we should not listen to 'all kinds of strange teaching'. The truth about Jesus does not change. And it is so great and so good that we should not look for anything more. We want Him, not some new teaching.

(Verse 9) The truth is one. False teaching takes many forms.It is divided. False teachers will never come to us and tell us that their teaching is wrong. (See 2 Corinthians 11: 13-15.) Evil could never tempt us if we saw it simply as it is. It appeals to us through ideas and hopes, which we can only regard as good. This is often a reason for sorrow to those who bring the Good News to people. False teachers soon follow them. False teachers are not often the first to bring the Good News to people. And false teachers will find fault with God's faithful servants who have done the hard work before they arrived.

God gave us Jesus to be our wisdom (1 Corinthians 1:30). God's people will always have a fight against false teaching and the pure knowledge about Christ is the best means to keep it out. It is a Christian's heart that needs to be strong. This is more important than his mind. The heart is made strong when we give thanks to God for His grace to us. This means His love, which receives us, although we are sinners. It means His mercy, which forgives all our sins for Christ's sake, and much more besides.

Then the writer says that rules about what food we eat and do not eat will not make our hearts strong. Many religions do have rules about such things. He says that the people who follow such rules are no better for it. (See Romans 14: 2-6; Colossians 2: 20-23.) A Christian may say: 'I will not eat any meat from now on.' He becomes a 'vegetarian'. Other Christians are free to eat meat. He has no right to say to other Christians: - 'It is wrong for you to eat meat'. But Paul says that the man who does not eat meat is weak. He probably thinks that he is strong. We must take care not to speak about it in such a way that we cause him pain.

People looked at the first Christians at the time when this letter was written. They said: 'These people have no rules about what food to eat. They have no priests. They have no altar and no offerings. They have no 'gods' that we can see, and no temples. They have no religion!' The writer seems to give an answer to such talk in verse 10 and the next few verses. These verses sound very much like his teaching earlier on in the letter.

So in verse 10 he says: - 'Yes! We do have an altar'. He means that we have the offering of our Lord Jesus Christ to His Father. But the Jews who still followed the Old Testament worship have no right to share in it.

Perhaps the Jews said that those Jews who were Christians could not eat any part of the offerings which were made in the Temple in Jerusalem. And we know that when there were offerings in the temples of the false 'gods' this was followed by a feast. Christians could not join in these feasts.

There is enough in verses 11-14 to fill at least an extra chapter of this letter!

What the writer says is like this: -

1. Yes, there are offerings made by Jewish priests (verse 10). They are of several kinds. Parts of most of them can be eaten: but you Christians cannot eat them.

2. Any priest can offer those offerings.

3. But there is one offering which can only be made by the High Priest, not by the other priests.

4. The High Priest was the most important priest. So it follows that this offering, on the Day of Atonement, was more important than all the others in the Old Testament worship were.

5. So in verse 11 we are told again what happened to this special offering. First, the blood of the two animals was taken by the High Priest into the Most Holy Place and splashed on the golden Covering. The bodies were not burnt on the altar in front of the Tent or Temple. Afterwards the bodies were taken away, 'outside the camp', and burnt to ashes. No one shared or ate the meat from them.

6. In verse 12, the writer speaks of Jesus, our great High Priest. First, Jesus suffered and died on the Cross outside the city of Jerusalem. We are His people if we believe in Him, and He died to make us holy. He gave His blood to rescue us when He died. Then afterwards He went to the real Most Holy Place, where God Himself is, the King of Glory. You can see that the two parts of what Jesus did are the opposite way round from what the High Priest did on the Day of Atonement. It does not really matter that we do not have an altar. The great offering for sin on the Day of Atonement was made without the use of an altar.

7. Jesus died on the cross, and His death was one that was full of shame or 'stigma'. (Verse 13) If we want to receive honour from God after the end of this life, we must share in the shame, which Jesus went through.

So verse 14 tells us why we must follow Jesus 'outside the city' or 'outside the camp'. People thought that cities like the earthly Jerusalem or Rome would last for ever. They will not. This is why Christians wait for the New Jerusalem, which will come down out of heaven from God. No city in this world will ever be our real home.

The writer has been talking about the Jewish High Priest, and we know that now it is Jesus who is our High Priest. But we can see from these verses that every Christian is a priest.

Verse 15 tells us about our duty to God. We are to lay on the 'altar' our offering, but it is to be a 'sacrifice' of praise (Psalm 50:14). The word 'sacrifice' really means an offering that costs a great deal. When we feel pride in something, it is costly to us to give God all the glory for it. We do not take any praise for it. We are to do this all the time. We are to do it 'through Jesus'. This is the harvest, the 'fruit' that God looks for in our lives. Christians are like trees. Fruit is to grow on those trees (Psalm 1: 3; John 15: 16). 'Our lips', in other words the lips of all God's people, all say the same things about Jesus. They 'confess His Name'. Those same lips are to be used to praise God.

Verse 16 tells us to remember to do good to other people. ‘Do not forget’ means ‘remember’ of course.We are to share what we have with others, whether they are Christians or not. The little that we have, whether it is food or clothing, may not be enough for our own needs. It is costly then to share it: it is a 'sacrifice'.

Verse 17 tells us what our duty in the church is. I think the first Jewish leaders of the church had died (verse 7) or for other reasons were no longer at work in the church. New Greek leaders were at work in the church. The readers are told: -

(a) To obey them. This is said twice. Sometimes the leaders will have to tell people in the church what to do. Sometimes the other members of the church will not think that they are quite right! They will not want to obey. The leaders had to care for the whole church. Sometimes they may have to tell some people in the church to be careful what they do. They may bring trouble on all the members of the church. (Think about 2 Timothy 1: 7.)

(b) They are to submit. They are not to obey and then talk against the leaders and make things difficult for them. If we do not agree with the leaders of our church, we should tell them what we think, but we should do it kindly and with prayer. And we should tell them as soon as we can.

(c) These leaders lay awake at night because they longed to help the church members.

(d) They are men who will have to give an answer to God. If the church members lose their way, then the leaders will have to answer to God for that. If they do not 'grow in grace' and make the most of the gifts God has given to them, the leaders will have to answer for that too.

A leader in the Church of Jesus Christ is not just someone who tells other people what to do. See Mark 10: 42-45 and 3 John: 9 and 10. But the Church is made up of people who follow Jesus. The New Testament teaches us to honour the leaders of the church and to obey them. There must be good order in the church.

Christian leaders ought always to find their work a joy. The writer is quite right when he says that the members are no better off if there is trouble between the leaders and the other members of the church. Everyone will lose.

It does seem that this church had had good leaders, which was a great blessing. Some of the other churches like Corinth do not seem to have had good leaders.

The Fourth Part: The writer and his friends

Verses 18 and 19: The Writer

In these verses, the writer at last says something about himself. Some people feel that his readers are not at all happy with the way he has behaved. I think that people in the city from which he wrote had said that he had done wrong. He is not in prison but he is in some danger and he asks for prayer. Perhaps he could not leave the city until some matters to do with the law had been settled. [13.5] It may be that he was no longer following all the Jewish customs: this may be why he says he has a 'clear conscience'.

The writer is not sure that the Hebrews are doing as well as they should in the Christian life. Still he asks them to pray for him. After all praying for him will do them good. Then he gives to them some great words of blessing.

Verses 20 and 21: Praise and Prayer

Verse 20 tells us what God has already done for us. Verse 21 is the prayer that he will follow this up and that he will do in us what he has promised to do.

Our God is the only one who can give real peace to us. If there was trouble in the church where the first leaders were, this is a call to them to bring it to an end.

This is the only place in the letter which says anything about Jesus rising from the dead. The power of God may raise any man from the dead. Of course God's power was at work when Jesus rose from the dead. But that is not the whole truth. (See Romans 4: 25.) Because we had sinned, Jesus died. He poured out His blood on the Cross. Because God His Father was pleased with what our Saviour had done, Jesus rose from the dead. His blood is like a 'seal', God's own special mark, fixed onto the 'eternal covenant'. The forgiveness, the peace and the hope, which Jesus has bought for us by his death, can never change. At the Exodus, God brought Moses up out of the Red Sea, followed by his people. Now God has brought our Lord Jesus Christ back from death. He is our Shepherd (Psalm 23) who leads us; we are his sheep who follow him. 'The foundation has been laid of the Kingdom that can never be removed'.

So verse 21 tells us that the power of God is at work in us too. It works in us in a gentle, kind way. God takes account of what we are when he works in us. It is the same power of God, which raised Jesus from the dead. But God's power shows itself in a different way in us. This means that God gives us special gifts so that we are able to do good which we could not do without them. Our prayer is that we may do good works in a way which pleases God, and that we may for ever give the glory to Jesus.

Verses 22-25: Closing

Verse 22 may mean that the writer feels now that some of his warnings were rather strong. If he had written an even longer letter, they might have been more gentle! For ‘a word of exhortation’ see Acts 13:15. The word behind ‘exhortation’ is the Greek word ‘Paraklesis’. The writer means that he wants to get alongside his readers to help them.

In verse 23 it is clear that Timothy is well known to the readers. This verse fits in with our suggestion. Paul asked Timothy to come from Ephesus to Rome. We do not know whether Timothy reached Rome before the death of Paul. Timothy had been put in prison. It seems that the killings of Christians had come to an end for the time being, and that Timothy is on his way back to Corinth. Then he will go on to Ephesus.

Verse 24 makes it clear enough that the letter was sent to a Jewish group which was a part of a larger church. The writer asks the Jewish group to pass on the good wishes of the writer both to the church as a whole and also to its leaders.

'Those from Italy' could mean 'the Christians who live in Italy'. But I think that there was a group of Christians who had escaped from Italy at the time when Nero killed great numbers of Christians. Such a group might well live at Corinth until they felt it was safe to go back to Rome. They would find help from the Christians in a city like Corinth, and the writer of this letter would get to know such a group.

This does not explain why he sends no message to his readers from the church in the city from which he writes. That is just one more question about this letter to which we can find no answer. But there is so much truth here for us to take to ourselves. May we all be able to share the last prayer of verse 25. 'Grace be with you all'.