Hebrews 13:1

5. PERSONAL. Admonitions and salutations to the Jerusalem Church, Hebrews 13:1-21.

Though this epistle begins as a treatise and continues as an oration, it ends as a personal letter.

1. Brotherly love A single word, used in the classics of love between brothers and sisters. The Jews applied the word brother to any Jew; the Christians appropriated it from a racial use to a religious one.

Remain It had existed in past times; it was liable to be broken by tendencies to apostasy; let it be firm and permanent.

Entertain strangers A branch of brotherly love. The absence of hotels in the East made hospitality a cardinal virtue. The itinerant servants of Christ ever needed an itinerant home.

Entertained angels unawares A beautiful allusion to Abraham (Genesis 18:0) and to Lot, Genesis 19:1-3. Our author does not suppose that his readers will ever entertain an angel in like manner, but the entertainers of Christian ministers have often in past times found that they entertained something better than angels, namely, messengers of salvation to the family. The successive phrases, remain, be not forgetful, remember, are forms of reminder of virtues which had existed but were liable to perish from negligence. Many a Christian at the present day is lost to the Church because, in going to a new locality, he is received by the Church there with inhospitality and neglect. Christian sociality is a virtue of great churchly value, and ministers should emphasize it in their teachings.