Heb 13:7-25 Sound Lives Church Leadership
INTRO:
As you read this last chapter in Hebrews, you get the impression that the writer had a great deal of miscellaneous matter to discuss and saved it till the end. In Hebrews 12, we were rejoicing on Mt. Zion; and now we are discussing such everyday topics as hospitality, marriage, church officers, and who was the last one to be released from jail.
But in the Bible, there is no division between doctrine and duty, revelation and responsibility. The two always go together. The emphasis in this last section of the book is on living by faith. The writer presented the great examples of faith in Hebrews 11, and the encouragements to faith in Hebrews 12. In Hebrews 13, he presented the evidences of faith that should appear in our lives if we are really walking by faith and not by sight. There are four such evidences.
The Epilogue can be distinguished from the body of the epistle in that the latter contains only broad, general admonitions, while the Epilogue contains specific ones. In some ways these specific instructions suggest ways “to worship God acceptably” (cf. 12:28). The Epilogue also contains the writer’s personal comments to his readers and his farewell to them.
13:1 The last chapter of the epistle focuses on some of the essential practical ethics of Christian living. These ethics help portray the true gospel to the world, encourage others to believe in Christ, and bring glory to God. The first of these is love for fellow believers (cf. John 13:35). Although the primary reference would be to Christians, the writer must have had emotions similar to those of the Apostle Paul when it came to considering his fellow Hebrews (see Rom. 9:3, 4).
The readers are to remember their former leaders, who preached the gospel to them and have since died, and to follow their example of faith in life and death. These leaders, similar to the examples of faith in chapter 11, displayed a faith that looked to the future. They remind us of Abel, who “through his faith, though he died … still speaks” (11:4). What message did the deceased leaders bear? In a word, the gospel! “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (13:8). Leaders come and go, but the message about Christ, our Lord and Savior, remains the same. “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17). And this is the word the church is to heed. We are not to “be led away by diverse and strange teachings,” whatever they may be (Heb. 13:9). Verse 8, which extols Christ, is the bridge between verses 7 and 9. The leaders who have passed on to their reward preached Christ, our faithful High Priest. Any teaching which rejects him must itself be rejected.
13:4 honorable. God highly honors marriage, which He instituted at creation (Gen. 2:24); but some people in the early church considered celibacy to be holier than marriage, an idea Paul strongly denounces in 1 Tim. 4:3 (see notes on 1 Cor. 7). Sexual activity in a marriage is pure, but any sexual activity outside marriage brings one under divine judgment. God will judge. God prescribes serious consequences for sexual immorality (see notes on Eph. 5:3–6).