Biblion Bible Commentary
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A Sacrifice of Praise
Hebrews 13:15-19
15 Through him, then, let’s offer up a sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of lips which proclaim allegiance to his name. · WEB
Two sacrifices remain for people whose offering system is finished, and neither of them requires an animal.
Through him, then, let's offer up a sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of lips which proclaim allegiance to his name.
The letter has spent ten chapters retiring the sacrificial system, and its closing instruction is that sacrifice continue — with the terms redefined. What is offered now is praise, described as fruit of lips; the frequency is continually, which no animal system ever sustained; and the route is through him, the priest who never goes off duty Hebrews 7:25. The offering survives its own machinery, translated.
Verse 16 adds the second sacrifice, and it is deliberately unspiritual: don't forget to be doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.
Doing good, and sharing — the word is the ordinary one for common property and common life. Worship, in the letter's final accounting, is two things: what the lips give God, and what the hands give other people. Both are called sacrifices, and the second carries the note of divine pleasure that the old offerings had lost Hebrews 10:6.
Verse 17 returns to the living leaders, and balances the earlier instruction about the dead ones Hebrews 13:7: obey your leaders and submit to them, for they watch on behalf of your souls, as those who will give account.
The ground of the obedience is the leaders' own liability — they are watchmen who will answer for the watch, which makes their authority a burden before it is a privilege. And the aim is stated with the letter's characteristic realism: that they may do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be unprofitable for you. A congregation that grinds its shepherds down is spending its own inheritance; the groaning of the watchman is billed, in the end, to the watched.
Then the writer asks for himself, and the request is the letter's first personal note: pray for us, for we are persuaded that we have a good conscience, desiring to live honorably in all things.
The claim of a good conscience — the very thing only the blood could give Hebrews 9:14 Hebrews 10:22 — is made as persuasion rather than boast. And the urgency is affection with a timetable: that I may be restored to you sooner. The anonymous writer wants to be in the room.
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