1Keep on loving each other as brothers and sisters. 2Don’t forget to show hospitality to strangers, for some who have done this have entertained angels without realising it! 3Remember those in prison, as if you were there yourself. Remember also those being mistreated, as if you felt their pain in your own bodies. 4Give honour to marriage, and remain faithful to one another in marriage. for God will surely judge people who are immoral and those who commit adultery. 5Don’t love money; be satisfied with what you have. For God has said, “I will never fail you. I will never abandon you.” 6So we can say with confidence, “The LORD is my helper, so I will have no fear. What can mere people do to me?” Hebrews 13:1-6
It does seem a little incongruous that marriage and faithfulness in marriage, immorality and adultery are mentioned in this list of exhortations the author has listed for those who are facing coming persecution in the time of Nero. Some commentators mention this as a strange exhortation to include. I don’t think so at all. The exact same Greek grammar is used for these exhortations. I will spare you a grammar lesson, but this comment in poetic chiastic structure fits well with all the others.
The literal Greek reads:
- [timos] “honour”, “respect” the [gamos] marriage
- [amiantos] “undefiled”, “unstained”, “pure” the [koitē] “marriage bed”, “intercourse,
- [pornous] “fornicators” “those playing around while married” and [moixos] “adulterers”, “sexual players”, “paramour”, “the illicit partner of a married person”
- God will judge.
These four lines are set in a chiastic structure with each line balanced against the others forming a parallelism with opposite points in a poetic X contrasted. The strong point made is to preserve the sanctity, the honour of marriage and the marriage bed and not to be involved in that which defiles marriage. God intended the marriage relationship to be an example of a promise and the commitment to one another between the husband and wife.
Give honour to marriage, and remain faithful to one another in marriage. God will surely judge people who are immoral and those who commit adultery. [NLT] Hebrews 13:4
Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled; but God will judge fornicators and adulterers. [LITV] Hebrews 13:4
Have respect for marriage. Always be faithful to your partner, because God will punish anyone who is immoral or unfaithful in marriage. [CEV] Hebrews 13:4
Honour marriage, and guard the sacredness of sexual intimacy between wife and husband. God draws a firm line against casual and illicit sex. [MSG] Hebrews 13:4
Why would the author of Hebrews make such a strong statement about marriage in the midst of the exhortations of what these Jewish Christians should do in the time leading up to the persecution they will face, and for us the coming shaking in the end times? Simply because of the nature of the world around them (and us) at the time the author is warning them about; a time when morals and restraints were cast off and anything was possible. That is what life was like in the Roman and Greek world at this time.
Years ago I read a fascinating series of books called Children of the Lion series written by Peter Danielson. The series included 19 paperback novels which traced a family and their descendants through the time of Abraham down through the ages. It was a look at the world which paralleled the biblical story. The account of this one family’s lineage intersected with the biblical account as the story progressed. It was fascinating the insights it gave to the nature of the Ancient Near East. I am not recommending you read the series but for me, fascinated by the Biblical Story, it brought home the violent and sexual nature of the world in which the Bible Story is set. This was indeed true through the centuries up until the time of the Roman emperors and the social life that surrounded those who were trying to live as God intended. These Jewish Christians in Rome were faced with trying to stay pure in the midst of a dirty world. Thus the author of Hebrews is exhorting them to maintain their purity in marriage and not to allow the world around to defile them.
Here is the list of the Roman emperors from 31 BC to the time of Nero
- Augustus (31 bc–14 ad)
- Tiberius (14–37 ad)
- Caligula (37–41 ad)
- Claudius (41–54 ad)
- Nero (54–68 ad)
I have coloured three emperors in this list of Roman emperors red at the time leading up to Nero’s persecution of Christians as evidencing times of sexual promiscuity. I am sure you can work out why red. During the time of Caligula and Nero sexual aberration was rife. But so too was it at the time of Augustus. Read the account I gave in Gem 416, when the issue of “because of the angels” in 1 Corinthians 11:10 was discussed. That gives you an idea of the sexuality of the time. Now I am sure you understand a little more clearly what these Jewish Christians at the onset of Nero’s reign were facing. The author of Hebrews is encouraging these Jews who have become followers of Christ to maintain the purity of their marriages at a time in history when “anything was permitted”. Welcome to the Roman world, welcome to the world which parallels the biblical one. God’s planned design for marriage runs counter to the secular world around Christ followers across the ages. Hence the exhortation to stay pure in the midst of this counter-cultural world.
I like what Neva Miller, a Greek scholar and exegete, has to say in her Analytical and Exegetical Handbook of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Miller’s suggestion is that the author’s exhortations related to marriage at this stage appears to be an extension of the brotherly love example which the writer begins these series of exhortations. The brotherly love theme could well apply through the love for strangers (hospitality) and into marriage as well. In each case Miller suggests it is a part of the Christians encouragement one to another and all the more as they see the day approaching (Hebrews 10:25). Yes, it is something that the body of Christ should be doing to strengthen one another in the challenge before us to maintain purity in a world which is living in opposition to God’s plan for us. We are in this together and ought to be supporting one another.
There is one more connection which strikes me in this letter. That is the reference to [pornos] in the Esau example (12:16). I still stand by what I wrote in Gem 2165 – How Does Esau Fit Here. The link between the two influenced me to title Gem 2165 and 2174 in a similar way. The ‘immoral’ attribute to Esau in my opinion can’t be substantiated. Rather in Esau’s case I think the pornos, and bebēlos ought to be marked by an Oxford Commaa, to separate the two. The latter one applying to Esau and not the former. But I do find it interesting that [pornos] is found in the list in Hebrews 12:16 and again here. When you think about it, it makes sense using [pornos] in such a list when such immorality was rife at that time in Roman society.
a – an Oxford Comma is a term given to a comma inserted after the penultimate example in a list to make the distinction or separation between the penultimate example and the last example. Normally there should be no comma before the ‘and’ at the end a list. But sometimes it is inserted as a stylistic thing and sometimes it is inserted to highlight the separation between the penultimate and the ultimate which I suspect is the case in Hebrew 12:16.
It is not marriage that fails; it is people that fail. All that marriage does is to show people up.
Harry Emerson Fosdick
More marriages might survive if the partners realized that sometimes the better comes after the worse.
Doug Larson
What If God Designed Marriage to Make Us Holy More Than to Make Us Happy.
Paul Helligenberg
Success in marriage does not come merely through finding the right mate, but through being the right mate.
Barnett Brickner