The Bible calls us to show love. Jesus Himself said loving God and loving our neighbor constitutes the two greatest commandments. We might become tempted to make a list of people we are supposed to love, and then keep a separate list of people we don’t actually have to love. But the author of Hebrews did not give us that option.
Notice what he says in 13:1-2: “Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”
This brotherly love, as some will recognize, is philadelphia in Greek, where the famous city in Pennsylvania (the city of brotherly love) derives its name. It is a combination of two words, and it literally means love from the same womb. The author told the Hebrews to love all those from the same womb. Because they were all Jews, they were each descended from the womb of Sarah, the matriarch of Israel. There is a clear call to love their fellow countrymen.
Extended out, we can apply this to the church at large. We should love all fellow believers, as we are all from the womb of Christ, so to speak. We should love everyone in our local church, and everyone in the universal church. But does that mean we are to only love those who are like us—who look like us and think like us?
Of course not! The very next verse says to show hospitality to strangers. In Greek there is a play on words here, as the author shifts from philadelphia to philoxenias. Xenias is where we get our word xenophobic (fear or hatred of foreigners), but when combined with philos, it literally means “love of strangers.”
There you have it. We are told to love those from the same womb and from a different womb. We need to love our siblings and the strangers. If you already are, let this love continue (v.1). If not, begin, and never end.
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