WE HAVE AN ALTAR
Opening Prayer
Lord God, I offer my sacrifice of praise to you—not just in the things I think and say, but in the things I do. Help me to love and care for others in ways that are pleasing to you.
Read HEBREWS 13:1–16
For additional translations of the passage, use this link to Bible Gateway.
Concluding Exhortations
13 Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. 2 Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. 3 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.
4 Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. 5 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.”[a]
6 So we say with confidence,
“The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.
What can mere mortals do to me?”[b]
7 Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. 8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
9 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. 10 We have an altar from which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right to eat.
11 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. 12 And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. 13 Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. 14 For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.
15 Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name. 16 And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.
Footnotes
- Hebrews 13:5 Deut. 31:6
- Hebrews 13:6 Psalm 118:6,7
New International Version (NIV)Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Meditate
May the words of our lips be pleasing to God as we confess the name of Jesus today.
Think Further
Hebrews 13 begins with several commands about the behavior of the readers as a community of God’s people. They are to love one another, show hospitality to strangers, remember prisoners, maintain sexual purity, and avoid the love of money, remaining content with what they have. They are to remember their former leaders, imitate their faith, and consider the outcome of their way of life. Unlike these historical figures who have died, the Jesus they knew in the past remains the same now and forever. None of these things have lost their relevance for God’s people, even in the twenty-first century.
Then, in a book where the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit have spoken the Scriptures to one another and to the community, in verse 6 the community responds by speaking the Scriptures themselves. They affirm that they are not afraid, and they ask what mere mortals can do to them with the Lord as their helper. This is a statement of confidence in the God who has resolved to remain with them (v. 5).
Finally, the author reverts to ‘we’ language (vv. 6, 10, 14). We have an altar, he says, probably meaning the sacrifice of Jesus. It was a sacrifice like that offered on the Day of Atonement, where rather than being eaten by the priests, the animals’ carcasses were burned outside the camp,1 prefiguring Jesus’s execution outside Jerusalem. This has consequences for the believers. By using ‘let us’ language (vv. 13, 15), he encourages them to leave the confines of the city, no longer holy since it was where Jesus was rejected, and go to a formerly unholy place ‘outside the camp’ (v. 13), now holy because Jesus is there. There they bear his disgrace and offer words of praise. There are other sacrifices to offer – doing good and sharing with others, for this is pleasing to God.
Apply
These verses contain seven commands. Find them all and examine your life before God to see if you have been neglecting any of them.
Closing prayer
Jesus, I confess that my walk with you and with those around me is not always pleasing to you, and I ask for your forgiveness. Help me to be more faithful and loving—to be more like you.
1 Lev 16:27
Book and Author Intros
Extras
Click here to sign up to receive the EXTRAs via email each quarter.
© 2024 Scripture Union U.S.A. All rights reserved. Reproduction of the whole or any part of the contents without written permission is prohibited.
Encounter with God is published in the USA under license from Scripture Union England and Wales, Trinity House, Opal Court, Opal Drive, Fox Milne, Milton Keynes, MK15 0DF.