The Command to Remember the Prisoners

Jim ButlerHebrews 13:3

Hebrews 13:3 commands believers to 'remember the prisoners as if chained with them' — not as a vague awareness, but as an active, continual concern that issues in prayer, correspondence, advocacy, and tangible aid. The sermon traces the biblical pattern of righteous suffering from Joseph and Jeremiah through the apostolic era, demonstrating that enmity against the people of God is not an anomaly but an expectation rooted in Genesis 3:15. The command is grounded in the solidarity of the one body: those who enjoy liberty share membership with those who suffer chains, and to forget the persecuted church is a failure of brotherly love. Believers are called to cultivate a global, intercessory prayer-life that refuses to confine concern to the local congregation, and to find in Christ's worth the courage to rejoice if they themselves are called to suffer.