A Midsummer's Reflection Series

Tuesday, June 30, 2026

Meditation 30: Hebrews 13:1-4

Still Life with Bible, Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), Nuenen, October 1885

Chapter 13 of the Letter to the Hebrews opens with a command to love. Connected with this command is the showing “hospitality to strangers” (13:2), remembering “those who are in prison” as well as the “ill-treated” (13:3), and holding marriage “in honor” (13:4). All of these seem to be connected with Christian love, “brotherly love” (13:1), and “hospitality” (13:2). Hospitality and concern for those in prison and the mistreated are expressions of Christian love, as is the Sacrament of Marriage.

The encouragement to extend hospitality even to strangers includes a clear reference to Abraham with the mention of, “for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (13:2). This hearkens back to when Abraham extended hospitality to three angels sent from God in Genesis. 

Concern for prisoners and those mistreated is an important Christian act that can be lived by visiting those in prison or writing letters to prisoners—or, at the very minimum, praying for those in prison. Some are in prison for good reason, and some are wrongfully imprisoned—but either way, they are loved by God and they retain human dignity. We, as Christians, are called upon to extend the level of love hospitality we can as an important Christian act of love.  

Marriage and family life are the seedbed of hospitality. If we do not live hospitality with our spouses and children, what good is our hospitality to others? We should first live Christian love and hospitality with those with whom we live, in family life. In fact, our Christian hospitality to more distant relatives, friends, neighbors, and strangers should be an overflow of the hospitality we live in family life, for those of us who live in family life. God first loved us, and so we should love God and love others for love of God. It is in this context of receiving God’s generous love and hospitality that we should think about extending hospitality to others. 

O Lord, help us to live the brotherly love the Letter to the Hebrews encourages. Help us extend hospitality to strangers. Help us pray and serve those in prison and ill-treated as we are able to. Help us especially live hospitality within our families, and let that provide a source of the hospitality we live with others around us. 

Dr. Jeffrey Morrow, Ph.D. is a professor of theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville and the Director of the St. Paul Studies Center at the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology. He spent 15 years as a professor of theology at Seton Hall University’s Immaculate Conception Seminary School of Theology. In his final year in that role, Dr. Morrow worked on the Preaching as Hospitality Formation Program, writing these reflections on Scripture through a lens of hospitality. 

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