Hebrews 3:13

Context

The author of Hebrews is not identified in the text. The recipients were a Christian community in danger of abandoning the faith amid persecution and discouragement, and they have traditionally been understood to be Jewish Christians. In Hebrews 3:7–4:13 the author quotes Psalm 95, whose key line is "To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts" (Hebrews 3:7–8). The author holds up as a mirror for the readers the generation of Israel that tempted God in the wilderness and failed to enter the Promised Land (Numbers 14). The preceding verse, 3:12, warns against "an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God," and verse 13 offers the remedy: "But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin." Verse 14 then urges readers to hold the beginning of their confidence steadfast to the end.

Interpretation

• The meaning of "To day": Most commentators read "To day" as the season of grace during which God's call can still be heard; the "To day" of the psalm is transferred to the present of the readers of Hebrews. As to when this season ends, some take it to be the span of an individual's life, while others take it to extend until the Second Coming.
• "The deceitfulness of sin" and "hardening": The Greek word, rendered "temptation" in the Korean translation, is closer in meaning to "deceit" (the KJV has "deceitfulness"). The verse is therefore read as a warning that sin gradually deceives a person and hardens the heart. The Korean term gangpak, used in older translations, denotes a heart that is hard and obstinate; the New Korean Revised Version renders it as "stubborn."
• Communal reading: This reading emphasizes that the exhortation is addressed not to individuals alone but to "one another." It understands the keeping of faith as the responsibility of the whole community and is widely shared across denominational lines.

Debates and Issues

Together with the other warning passages in Hebrews, this verse is cited in discussions of whether salvation can be lost.

• Reformed (Calvinist) reading: In keeping with the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, which holds that true believers are preserved to the end, this reading understands the warning and the mutual exhortation as means by which God keeps believers until the end. It holds that those addressed by the warning include people who never had true faith in the first place.
• Arminian and Wesleyan reading: This reading takes the warning to presuppose that believers can actually fall away from faith. It therefore stresses the need for constant watchfulness and sanctification.

In the Korean Church

The verse is often cited in sermons on the fellowship of believers, in which members look out for and exhort one another. It is also used to explain the purpose of gatherings in which members watch over one another's faith, such as small groups and district cell-group worship meetings.

Related Passages

• Psalm 95:7–8 — the original text quoted in Hebrews
• Hebrews 4:9–11 — the conclusion of the same section, urging readers to labor to enter into God's rest
• Hebrews 10:24–25 — the exhortation to consider one another and not to forsake assembling together
• Hebrews 10:26–31 — another warning passage in Hebrews
• Colossians 3:16 — the instruction to teach and admonish one another