NOTES for Heb 13:15-17

The apostle asks his readers to obey their leaders, and to do so in such a way that these leaders do not have to grieve as they carry out their ministry. The author of the epistle reminds his readers that their spiritual mentors bear responsibility for them before God, and if their ministry is accompanied not by joy but by sorrow, the recipients of the epistle will gain no benefit from it. Speaking of mentors or leaders, he has in mind either teachers, or presbyters who headed the Church, or both at the same time. In those days the presbyters bore responsibility for the Church as a whole, while teachers carried out their ministry in particular church communities, explaining and showing by their own example what the Christian path is, the path by which a person is formed in Christ as the living Torah.

The many new eschatological theories and Christological concepts that were then coming into fashion, and that the author of the epistle criticizes quite sharply, were precisely what distracted Christians from Christ and from the path of the inner Torah, turning their attention to something else, usually something fairly abstract. Not only the author of the epistle, but any teacher who had not lost spiritual sobriety had to oppose these fashionable teachings. But no one, of course, could guarantee that, while outwardly obedient and in agreement with church teachers and presbyters, individual members of the church or whole groups within it would truly give up their views. After all, the issue is a person's inner life, and coercing its members in anything, whether views or way of life, has always been alien to the Church with a capital C. The only requirement was keeping the commandments, and only keeping them at the first, outward level was required. The path of the inner Torah, like everything connected with spiritual or intellectual life in general, was not subject to any control, remaining a matter for each person's conscience. Here one could only exhort, instruct, and inspire by example.

In that case, however, any normal spiritual life was possible only with complete sincerity and trust. If a person wanted, for example, to hide his views or his spiritual life from the teacher of his church community, nothing prevented him from doing so. But then it would have been more honest simply to leave, for in that case the one hiding could gain no spiritual benefit from his stay in the community or from his communication with the teacher. More than that: by deceiving the teacher of his church community, he was also letting that teacher down. The teacher knew that he answered before God for everyone who turned to him for help and counsel, and he tried to help on the basis that the person turning to him trusted him and would follow his counsel. Here it turned out that the one asking for help did not intend to follow what he was told, only pretending to listen to the words of his mentor. No normal mentorship can exist in such a case, and when the mentor learns of such a situation, he truly will not rejoice but grieve.

Judging by the concluding verses of the letter, one can think that its author was under arrest in Rome for bearing witness, and not alone (vv. 22-25). It is difficult to say exactly whether this is the group of preachers that was arrested together with Paul, or some other group. Of course, the letter was written at least several years after the apostle's execution, but a case of this kind was not entirely ordinary, and in such cases matters under the emperor's jurisdiction could sometimes be considered for years.

Be that as it may, the author of the letter clearly does not rule out his release, as had already happened with a certain Timothy who was under arrest with him (v. 23). But he connects this possibility, first, with the desire to live "blamelessly," that is, righteously (v. 18; in the Synodal translation, "honestly"), and second, with the prayers of those who are awaiting his return (vv. 18-19).

A person's life and death are in the hand of God, and the author of the letter understands this perfectly well. But he also, as can be seen, understands something else, something his teacher knew well: the life of a Christian is the life of a witness, and in this case not only life but also death can be witness. A Christian remains in this world as long as God needs his witness.

Of course, a necessary condition of witness is the personal righteousness of the witness: through him, those to whom he bears witness must see the Kingdom; by his life they will judge what the life of the Kingdom is. A witness who has lost righteousness and lost the Kingdom is impossible, just as, according to the Savior's word, salt that has ceased to be salt is impossible. Such a thing simply cannot be; it is unnatural, and in the world this kind of "former Christian" usually has no place. Neither his life nor his death has any meaning either for the world or for the Kingdom.

But even if the witness remains faithful, God can in some cases change His plan, meeting those who ask Him to give them the possibility of living a little longer beside one of His servants. That is why the author of the letter calls his readers to pray for his return, if they want to see him: their prayer really can affect the situation, if God considers such influence possible and useful. Nothing is predetermined in advance; God carries out His designs while taking into account the free will and desires of the human person, as long as these desires do not contradict His plans. And there is nothing surprising here, for the Kingdom belongs not only to God, but also to the people who sought it and, with God's help, found it.

In today’s reading, the Apostle Paul calls us to imitate the faith of our teachers. We should not use this passage to discuss whether our parish priest is worthy to be called a teacher in the faith. That is not what we are being told today. In the life of each of us, there have been people whose faith and words made a deep impression on us. Let us consider what they had in common. What was most striking and most important about them? For myself, I define it as “transparency.” Those who were true teachers for me were transparent—Christ could be seen through them! Each was a vivid and unique individual, yet their human personality did not obscure His light. This is why Paul continues his thought about teachers with the words: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” Whoever may teach us, what matters most is not the person of the teacher, but the Person of Christ, the One True Teacher.

As if responding to the events of A.D. 70, the author of the letter speaks of the altar to which the "servants of the tabernacle," that is, representatives of the traditional Levitical priesthood, have no relation (v. 10). He mentions the practice of Yahwist sacrifices, according to which the meat of the purification sacrifice (except for the part burned on the altar and the part allotted to the priests) was burned away from the place of sacrifice (Leviticus, ch. 4). In the same way, according to him, after the defeat of Jerusalem and the Temple all Christians found themselves "outside the camp," which, however, should not trouble them: after all, Jesus Himself shed His blood for the salvation of the faithful in the same place, "outside the camp," beyond the walls of Jerusalem (vv. 11-14). Such is the essence of the purification sacrifice: it cleanses a person while at the same time depriving him of the sacrificial meal. So it happened with the people of God: after the defeat of the Temple, they were deprived of the sacrificial meal not for no reason, but while receiving the possibility of being cleansed by the blood which, for those who accepted Christ's sacrifice, became the blood of the new, messianic covenant.

For those who rejected the sacrifice, the catastrophe was only a catastrophe, without hope and without a way out. For the Christians who accepted it, it gave hope that the end of the earthly Jerusalem was not yet the end of the history of the people of God, that the history of the Kingdom continues, and that over the ruins of the earthly Jerusalem the outlines of another Jerusalem, the heavenly Jerusalem descending to earth, would soon appear. And while awaiting that day, the day of the triumph of the Kingdom and the Savior's return, the author of the letter calls his fellow believers not to betray the norms and foundations of Christian life that they had learned from the first generation of Christians (vv. 1-6). This especially concerns those foundations of spiritual life that the author's contemporaries learned from their mentors: during a spiritual crisis, "teachers" inevitably had to appear, and evidently really did appear, who wanted to revise them and adapt them to the spirit of the age. That is why, as can be seen, the author calls his readers not to forget the mentors who once helped them set out on the path leading to the Kingdom (v. 7). Indeed, Christ has not changed, just as the Kingdom itself has not changed (v. 8). And the main task of those walking in troubled times was not to turn aside from the path on which they had once set out.