Reading the Bible a certain way changes the heart.
Ephraim Radner

Let brotherly love continue. 
Hebrews 13:1

I’ve been arguing that Hebrews is concerned to show how the sacrifices of Cain and Abel both fail, and how Jesus’ sacrifice, as pure gift, exposes those failures in the light of the fire of the love of God. Hebrews wants us to see how that love, flaming forth in Jesus’ priestly self-offering, consumes all other offerings—undoing for Abel what Cain did and doing for Cain what Abel did not. Now, at the end of the letter, we’re told that brotherly love must continue. And thanks to Jesus, who’s proud to call us brothers, it can and does. We are, just as he is, God’s kith and kin.

This chapter may seem like a random list of instructions and imperatives. But in fact, it’s a cunningly conversionary conclusion, one that, by its form, catches us up into the form of life it calls for.

Two weeks ago, while we [at OpenTableConference.com] were discussing the first part of Hebrews 12, someone asked if verse 13 is an oblique reference to Jacob and his wounding: “make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.”

They pointed out that Esau is mentioned in verse 16, described as “an immoral and godless person… who sold his birthright for a single meal” (Heb. 12:16).

I must’ve had that observation in mind while I read, because the opening lines of chapter 13 struck me suddenly as a reference to these brothers. The preacher has already impressed on us the fact that Esau came under God’s judgment for defiling marriage with his wickedness. And who, if not Jacob, “entertained angels unawares” (Heb 13:2)?

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