13:18,19
Like Paul in some of his letters, the writer asks his readers to pray for him. We are all dependent upon the grace of God for any success we might have, and this grace often comes via the prayers of others. It seems that the writer knew the people and had unavoidably been away from them for sometime. He desires to be able to visit them again as soon as possible.
13:20
“The God of peace” is reminiscent of the sort of blessing used by Paul. The old covenant was temporal, it was time limited. The new covenant is eternal, and is sealed in the blood of Jesus. If Jesus’ blood had not been sufficient to pay for all our guilt then He would not have been raised from the dead. The resurrection proved that His blood was indeed sufficient. And Jesus is the great shepherd of the sheep.
13:21
Our salvation is more than a rescue mission. We are saved from sin and death, but there is much more than that. We are equipped, empowered, to be the people God wants us to be. And God wants us to be effective, to be people who do things. Right from the beginning in Genesis to the end in Revelation we see that God creates us to do things, to be someone, and when He chooses people He chooses them for a purpose and with a purpose. Our greatest desire should be for God to work in us to make us ever more like Christ, and that starts to take effect now.
13:22-25
We might think that Hebrews is quite a lengthy book, certainly one of the longest epistles. However, he wants his readers to pay close attention to what he has said, and so should we. Timothy is almost certainly the same Timothy who worked with Paul. Evidently he had been imprisoned for a time. This could be prison in a cell, or some form of house arrest.
Finally the letter close with some brief greetings and the common closure of wishing God’s grace to be with them.
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