Hebrews 10

Hebrews 10:1

Discreet - Particularly in the love of their children. Chaste - Particularly in the love of their husbands. Keepers at home - Whenever they are not called out by works of necessity, piety, and mercy. Good - Well tempered, sweet, soft, obliging. Obedient to their husbands - Whose will, in all things lawful, is a rule to the wife. That the word of God be not blasphemed - Or evil spoken of; particularly by unbelieving husbands, who lay all the blame on the religion of their wives.

Hebrews 10:2

To be discreet - A virtue rarely found in youth.

Hebrews 10:3

Showing thyself a pattern - Titus himself was then young. In the doctrine which thou teachest in public: as to matter, uncorruptness; as to the manner of delivering it, seriousness - Weightiness, solemnity.

Hebrews 10:4

Wholesome speech - In private conversation.

Hebrews 10:5

Please them in all things - Wherein it can be done without sin. Not answering again - Though blamed unjustly. This honest servants are most apt to do. Not stealing - Not taking or giving any thing without their master’s leave: this fair - spoken servants are apt to do.

Hebrews 10:6

Showing all good fidelity - Soft, obliging faithfulness That they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour - More than St. Paul says of kings. How he raises the lowness of his subject! So may they, the lowness of their condition.

Hebrews 10:7

The saving grace of God - So it is in its nature, tendency, and design. Hath appeared to all men - High and low.

Hebrews 10:8

Instructing us - All who do not reject it. That, having renounced ungodliness - Whatever is contrary to the fear and love of God. And worldly desires - Which are opposite to sobriety and righteousness. We should live soberly - In all purity and holiness. Sobriety, in the scripture sense, is rather the whole temper of a man, than a single virtue in him. It comprehends all that is opposite to the drowsiness of sin, the folly of ignorance, the unholiness of disorderly passions. Sobriety is no less than all the powers of the soul being consistently and constantly awake, duly governed by heavenly prudence, and entirely conformable to holy affections. And righteously - Doing to all as we would they should do to us. And godly - As those who are consecrated to God both in heart and life.

Hebrews 10:9

Looking - With eager desire. For that glorious appearing - Which we hope for. Of the great God, even our Saviour Jesus Christ - So that, if there be (according to the Arian scheme) a great God and a little God, Christ is not the little God, but the great one.

Hebrews 10:10

Who gave himself for us - To die in our stead. That he might redeem us - Miserable bondslaves, as well from the power and the very being, as from the guilt, of all our sins.

Hebrews 10:11

Let no man despise thee - That is, let none have any just cause to despise thee. Yet they surely will. Men who know not God will despise a true minister of his word.

Hebrews 10:13

Remind them - All the Cretan Christians. To be subject - Passively, not resisting. To principalities - Supreme. And powers - Subordinate governors. And to obey - Them actively, so far as conscience permits.

Hebrews 10:14

To speak evil - Neither of them nor any man. Not to be quarrelsome - To assault none. To be gentle - When assaulted. Toward all men - Even those who are such as we were.

Hebrews 10:15

For we - And as God hath dealt with us, so ought we to deal with our neighbour. Were without understanding - Wholly ignorant of God. And disobedient - When he was declared to us.

Hebrews 10:16

When the love of God appeared - By the light of his Spirit to our inmost soul.

Hebrews 10:17

Not by works - In this important passage the apostle presents us with a delightful view of our redemption. Herein we have, The cause of it; not our works or righteousness, but “the kindness and love of God our Saviour.” The effects; which are, Justification; “being justified,” pardoned and accepted through the alone merits of Christ, not from any desert in us, but according to his own mercy, “by his grace,” his free, unmerited goodness. Sanctification, expressed by the laver of regeneration, (that is, baptism, the thing signified, as well as the outward sign,) and the renewal of the Holy Ghost; which purifies the soul, as water cleanses the body, and renews it in the whole image of God. The consummation of all; - that we might become heirs of eternal life, and live now in the joyful hope of it.

Hebrews 10:20

Be careful to excel in good works - Though the apostle does not lay these for the foundation, yet he brings them in at their proper place, and then mentions them, not slightly, but as affairs of great importance. He desires that all believers should be careful - Have their thoughts upon them: use their best contrivance, their utmost endeavours, not barely to practise, but to excel, to be eminent and distinguished in them: because, though they are not the ground of our reconciliation with God, yet they are amiable and honourable to the Christian profession. And profitable to men - Means of increasing the everlasting happiness both of ourselves and others.

Hebrews 10:22

An heretic (after a first and second admonition) reject - Avoid, leave to himself. This is the only place, in the whole scripture, where this word heretic occurs; and here it evidently means, a man that obstinately persists in contending about “foolish questions,” and thereby occasions strife and animosities, schisms and parties in the church. This, and this alone, is an heretic in the scripture sense; and his punishment likewise is here fixed. Shun, avoid him, leave him to himself. As for the Popish sense, “A man that errs in fundamentals,” although it crept, with many other things, early into the church, yet it has no shadow of foundation either in the Old or New Testament.

Hebrews 10:23

Such an one is perverted - In his heart, at least. And sinneth, being self - condemned - Being convinced in his own conscience that he acts wrong.

Hebrews 10:24

When I shall send Artemas or Tychicus - To succeed thee in thy office. Titus was properly an evangelist, who, according to the nature of that office, had no fixed residence; but presided over other elders, wherever he travelled from place to place, assisting each of the apostles according to the measure of his abilities. Come to me to Nicopolis - Very probably not the Nicopolis in Macedonia, as the vulgar subscription asserts: (indeed, none of those subscriptions at the end of St. Paul’s epistles are of any authority:) rather it was a town of the same name which lay upon the sea - coast of Epirus. For I have determined to winter there - Hence it appears, he was not there yet; if so, he would have said, to winter here. Consequently, this letter was not written from thence.

Hebrews 10:25

Send forward Zenas the lawyer - Either a Roman lawyer or an expounder of the Jewish law.

Hebrews 10:26

And let ours - All our brethren at Crete. Learn - Both by thy admonition and example. Perhaps they had not before assisted Zenas and Apollos as they ought to have done.