The Bible Study Podcast, episode 101.

Today, the Bible Study podcast concludes the study of the book of Hebrews.

Welcome to the Bible Study podcast. I'm your host, Chris Christensen.

As I said, we'll be concluding the book of Hebrews with Hebrews 13 today. And at the end of the show, if you stay tuned, I'll give you a brief preview of where we're going next.

Hebrews 13 starts like this.

Keep on loving each other as brothers.

Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by doing so, some people have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those in

prison, as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated, as if you yourselves were

suffering. This section is labeled in my Bible as concluding exhortations, and it's fairly

typical of letters of the period, especially of

the epistles, to end with a series of practical advice, end as in this section with words of

exhortation or words of encouragement for how we should behave. And so once again in this book,

the theme of love is underlined, keep on loving each other as brothers. And then also two

particular groups

are mentioned, and one would be the stranger, and the other would be the prisoners. In terms of

the stranger, there's the reference here, the vague reference probably to the story of Abraham,

who in chapter 18 of Genesis looks up and sees three strangers who we believe turn out to be angels of

God. To someone like me who's in prison ministry, the exhortation to remember the prisoners is fairly

poignant. Now this, of course, might have special meaning to this particular church because some of the

members of the church themselves may be in prison for their faith,

but I don't want to take this out of context and assume that it only applies to prisoners of

faith. And then remember those who are mistreated as if you or yourself were suffering.

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