Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.
Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.
Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” So we say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?”
Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings. It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace, not by eating ceremonial foods, which is of no benefit to those who do so. We have an altar from which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right to eat. The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.
Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name. And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.
Have confidence in your leaders and submit to their authority, because they keep watch over you as those who must give an account. Do this so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no benefit to you.
Pray for us. We are sure that we have a clear conscience and desire to live honorably in every way. I particularly urge you to pray so that I may be restored to you soon.
Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. - Hebrews 13:1-21
We are always tempted to conspiracy theories. Since the time of the Gnostics and the apocryphal gospel of Thomas, these theories promise us a special blessing for those who are in possession of special knowledge. Life can be hard and frankly, mundane. So there is always the lure that says, "If only we knew X" or "did X" or in the case of these verses, "ate X" we would be partakers in a special blessing from God, bypass the lines of ordinary believers and achieve status before the throne of God. In both of his letters to Timothy, Paul has to warn to "avoid the worldly and empty chatter which some have professed and thus gone astray from the faith." That chatter is the delicious but ultimately hollow knowledge that makes up conspiracy theories of the faith.
But the author of Hebrews says that Christ is the mystery. There is no more special place than where God transformed the place of Christ's execution into an altar. There is no special food or drink, just the remembrance of his body and blood shed. (see John 6:54-55). There is no special act of obedience, just doing the ordinary acts of hospitality and love of brother and sisters well. There is no special act of purification, just the keeping of marriage as holy. There is no special act of humility, just giving honor to those who God is using as your leader. I want to do the ordinary things as if they were holy; as if each one is on the altar.
I will take the author's prayer, that I would be able to live with a clear conscience and a desire to live honorably in every way. Even as Paul said, My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. (1 Cor 4:4) I want to do the ordinary things as if they
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