Words'nTone

“But remember the former days, when, after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, partly by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations, and partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated.  For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one” (Hebrews 10:32-34).

Sometimes interpretive insight is simply “connecting the dots.” Hearing a text read and remembering another text that sounds similar—connecting the dots.  Just plain old paying attention helps, too.  And, becoming familiar we the content of Scripture (for immediate recall and recollection) doesn’t hurt the “insight potential” either.  (Just remember, not every text with the same words are meant to interpret each other. Contexts matter first.) This happens all the time to me: One Sunday, while Pastor was reading a text from Hebrews, I connected the dots.  The above verses were the ones that caught my attention.  My mind immediately went to Jesus’ words in Matthew 25:

“I was in prison, and you came to Me” (Mt 25:36)
and
“When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?” (v 39).

It has always bothered me that the Matthew verses are used to get people involved with prison ministries as if that’s what Jesus was saying.  Of course, Christians should be involved with prison ministries, but that was not the point in Matthew recording the words.  (Again, this is worth a Rough Cut—some other time.  Here, I am just connecting the some obvious dots…) I have always believed that Jesus’ words on visiting prisoners went with the overall theme of Matthew’s Gospel:

There was a certain portion of the church that did not want to work at incorporating Gentiles (‘outsiders’) into the fold, into the congregation, and in fact opposed such activities, and refused to believe that was the intent of the promises of the kingdom as fore-promised in the Old Testament, that is to include the outsiders, the Gentiles.

I take it that there were some, perhaps a minority, who took this task seriously and, as a result, it put them in “legal” jeopardy, and for some, jail.  The Matthew text has been used to say that Jesus is in even with the criminals in jail—and that in visiting them (or not visiting them), you visit (or not visit) Jesus (“Me”).  The Hebrews text indicates that the current (church) faithful identified with the faithful of the past who had been jailed because of their faith.  Later the writer of Hebrews says:

“Remember the prisoners, as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you yourselves also are in the body” (Hebrews 13:3).

In Matthew 25, he starts with parables of the in-breaking of the kingdom and how people respond (and not respond) to this new redemptive era.  The juxtaposition of the parables (i.e., unfaithful bridesmaids who were not prepared and the unwilling servants to bring about the desired end of the master) and the judgment at the end of the chapter (where our Matthew “visit the prisoners” text is found) suggest that the parties involved are related to what it means for the kingdom to be present and what the followers of Christ are to now invest (do).  Hebrews 10 and Matthew 25 might be talking about the same thing, suggesting that the prisoners in Matthew 25 are there because of their faithfulness to the promise of the kingdom.  At risk to their own lives they worked to bring the grace of the Gospel to outsiders; we, too, should, at a minimum visit them in prison (or whatever the dyanamic equivelant is in application today) and, as well, more so identify with them in the task, because we, like them, understand the promise of the Old Testament to bring in the outsiders into the fold.

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