Hospitality (philoxenia), "the entertainment of strangers" is urged upon believer more

than once in the epistle. Rom. 12: 10 and 13 unite "brotherly love" with "hospitality" as

does Heb. 13: 1, 2. One of the qualifications of the bishop was that he should be "given

to hospitality" (I Tim. 3: 2; Titus 1: 8), and I Pet. 4: 9 says: "Use hospitality one to

another, without grudging", for an element of unwillingness blights service to the Lord.

The onus of hospitality in our present mode of life often falls upon the woman. Here is

an act of acceptable service, as truly rendered to God as the prayer, praise and pulpit

utterance of her husband. Indeed, Heb. 13: 15, 16 shows that worship in the assembly

may be vitiated by the lack of consideration for others afterwards. The times for true

acceptable service are not only 11 and 6:30, but they may have as much to do with clean

sheets as with robes of righteousness, and in dispensing the bread that perisheth as with

the Word of truth.

We have had brotherly love and love of strangers (philadelphia and philoxemia). We

are now reminded of love that goes out to those who, though not present with us, need

our sympathy: "Remember them which are bound" (Heb. 13: 3). God is ever "mindful"

(same word) of man "and visitest him". We are neither to forget hospitality nor to omit

sympathy, for the full quotation of verse 3 is much beyond mere remembrance.

This sympathy has been spoken of earlier: "Ye became companions of them that were

so used. For ye had compassions of me in my bonds" (Heb. 10: 33, 34). The intimate

relationship between believers has been expressed in I Cor. 12: 13, 14, 26: "Whether

one member suffer, all the members suffer with it." So sympathy goes out to those in

bonds, as bound with them, and to those in adversity, as being equally in the body. There

is much to be said for the interpretation that makes the passage equivalent to, "For you

also are still in the flesh, and liable at any moment to similar adversity".

The statement in verse 4 that marriage is honourable, and its most intimate

relationships undefiled, seems to have been necessitated by the presence of those who,

like the Essenes, taught that marriage should be shunned. The word "undefiled" in this

particular is noteworthy, for it occurs in but one other place, namely, in Heb. 7: 26,

where it speaks of our "undefiled" High Priest. This is a sufficient answer to those who

would impose celibacy upon God's ministers, and is a word in season for us on whom the

night of I Tim. 4: 1-3 is fast descending. The danger is all the other way. The decrying

of marriage cannot but lead many into the paths of Baal-Peor, the doctrine of Balaam and

the teaching of that woman Jezebel. George Bernard Shaw writes on page 666 of

John O' London's Weekly under the heading The Right to Motherhood:--