NOTES for Heb 13:1-8
Describing the path of Christian life, the author of the letter returns to the traditional understanding of poverty as a spiritual state without which that life is unthinkable and about which both the Savior Himself and Paul, the teacher of the author of Hebrews, also reminded people. The author of the letter describes poverty as being "outside the camp." In nomadic times, outside the camp, outside the encampment of nomads or the military camp of militia fighters, were usually those who for some reason had become unclean.
Before returning to the encampment or to the camp, they had to be purified by performing the prescribed rituals and then offering a purification sacrifice. Following the general logic of his letter, the author compares the Savior's death on the cross with such a sacrifice, and compares the spiritual state of Christians with the state of those being purified, those who remain "outside the camp." The whole life of a Christian is just such a process of purification on the way to the fullness of the life of the Kingdom.
This process will be completed on the day of the Savior's return and the final triumph of the Kingdom. This, purification and sanctification, is the main thing that makes up the essence of Christian life. Christ does not change; He is still the same One He was before, and therefore there is no need to look for any new teachings, theories, or concepts. The author compares them to luxurious dishes that do not so much nourish as overfill, bringing no benefit.
Indeed, the constant search for some new Christian theories and fascination with abstract theological concepts distracts from the main thing: from that spiritual practice which forms the foundation of Christian life. In this sense, it is best to look at the example of those leaders who once bore witness to Christ to the recipients of the letter, having in practice walked the very path the author recalls. It is not excluded that some of these people ended their lives as martyrs, completing and supplementing their witness by their death.
And it is no accident that, in addition to everything already said, the author of the letter reminds his readers of things that would seem to be common knowledge, concerning, for example, married life, hospitality, or help for prisoners. Perhaps among his readers there were also some who, carried away by fashionable teachings and theories, had begun to forget the simplest things that any Christian knows without any theories. The reminder of the main thing was meant to help these people return to the spiritual reality from which they had become somewhat detached in their search for a certain abstract "truth."