A Call to Ethical Living

The author has concluded the main part of his epistle, having argued his points with convincing forcefulness, and now turns to various matters he desires to mention before concluding. chapter 13, therefore, is like an appendix. This is not to say, however, that the material in this chapter is unrelated to the main part of the epistle. Indeed, some of the author’s main concerns are again touched upon here, but in a somewhat different way, fleetingly, in order to bring out the practical significance of what has already been argued. At the same time, much material is similar to the general ethical exhortation found in the final sections of other epistles of the NT. Despite the unusual way Hebrews begins, these specific and concluding exhortations give the work the ch…