[Let your] conversation [be] without love of money, satisfied with [your] present circumstances; for *he* has said, I will not leave thee, neither will I forsake thee.
Hebrews ends with practical advice for people under pressure, and this verse reaches into the wallet. The reason to be content is not a comfortable life but a word God has spoken — and commentators ask hard questions about who may claim it.
The command targets more than envy of a neighbour. One writer traces the word itself back to its plainest sense:
As we look around us today, we see that covetousness marks the whole world. The word "covetousness" in the original means "having more." It is not always about wanting what someone else has. It is about wanting more than I have. At the root of all covetousness lies discontent with what we already have.
Another writer calls greed beneath anyone who follows Christ:
Greed is grubby and unworthy of any decent person. It is far beneath those called to follow Christ in faith and love, whose eyes have been opened to their better and lasting possessions where Christ is. Discontent with things is natural to unbelievers.
Why should anyone be content? One writer asks the obvious questions before giving the answer:
"Be content with what you have." Why? Is it because you are so well off in the world? Is it because you have everything your restless heart could want? Is it because there is not one crack in your circumstances for empty desire to slip through? Is this to be the ground of our contentment? By no means. What then? "For He has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you." Blessed portion! Had Lot been content with that, he never would have sought the well watered plains of Sodom.
Lot was an early Bible figure who chose the well watered land near the city of Sodom.
Contentment sounds easy until you look at your actual circumstances. They are often the last thing anyone would choose. One writer meets the objection head on:
Are our present circumstances then so very desirable; are they just what they should be? They are the very reverse of that... Why then are we to be satisfied with them? Because, as Hebrews 12 has shown, God appoints them to correct and train us. And because He has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." That is it. We can be satisfied in our present circumstances, because God guarantees us the lasting presence of the One our hearts thirst for.
God spoke these same words long ago to Joshua, one of Israel's great leaders. That raises a fair question. May an ordinary believer claim a promise made to a man like that?
We might very properly say to ourselves, "But I am no Joshua. He was a very eminent man of faith, and I am a very insignificant and often a very feeble believer. Would it not be pushy and out of place for me to assume that a promise made to him is just as valid for me?" It is delightful to discover from these verses that such an application of this ancient promise is not the boldness of presumption but the boldness of faith.
God gave the same assurance to men whose lives had little in common:
As He said long ago to Jacob the wanderer (Genesis 28:15), to Joshua the warrior (Joshua 1:5), and to Solomon the worshipper (1 Chronicles 28:20), so He says to us. His word gives strong comfort, because it is impossible for Him to lie.
The cure for a grasping heart is not a bigger income but a better portion:
The living God is the source of all wealth, and He Himself is our portion. If we grasp that, and if He fills the heart, there is no room left for greed... The flour may be down to the bottom of the barrel. The oil in the jar may look too small to bother pouring out. Even then we hear Him say to our empty circumstances, "I" — blessed substitute for all the hoarded wealth of this poor world — "I," the living God, "will never leave you nor forsake you."
The verse does not stop at information. What God says about Himself, His people are meant to repeat about themselves:
"He has said … so that we may boldly say …" If God speaks we may accept what He says with all confidence. More than this, we may assert what He asserts with all boldness... we may take it home with full confidence, as spoken to each one of us. In our reading of Scripture let us form the happy habit of applying the words of God to ourselves in this way.
- Root — Covetousness is not mainly envy of others. It is discontent with what you already have. It wants more, so no amount of getting ever cures it.
- Ground — Contentment never rests on comfortable circumstances. It rests on a sentence God has already spoken. Lot's move toward Sodom failed that test — a failure of contentment, not of income.
- Gift — The promise guarantees a Person, not better conditions. With the living God as your portion, the heart has no room left for greed.
- Reach — God said these words to Jacob, to Joshua and to Solomon. Weak believers may claim them too, and claiming them is faith, not presumption.
- Result — Because He has said it, we may say it. Read God's promises as spoken to you personally, and greed loses its grip.
So that, taking courage, we may say, The Lord [is] my helper, and I will not be afraid what will man do unto me?
Hebrews 13:6 is the believer's answer to something God has already said. God has just promised never to leave or forsake His people. Because of that, the writer tells us what we can now say out loud: who our helper is, and how little man can do to us.
The verse starts with a link word. What we say rests on what God has said. The setting is money and the worry that comes with it.
The call comes: "Let your course of life be free of greed, contented with what you have. For He has said, I will in no way leave you, no, nor at all forsake you; so that we say confidently, Jehovah is my helper, and I will not fear: what shall man do to me?" (verses 5, 6.) Greed is sordid and unworthy of any decent person. It is even further beneath those called to follow Christ in faith and love, whose eyes are opened to their better and lasting possession where Christ is. Discontent is natural to unbelievers.
Read as a question, the closing words are not brave talk. They are an argument no one can answer.
We are to be content with the present circumstances in which God has placed us. The reason given is very blessed: whatever our circumstances, the Lord is with us. He has said, "I will not leave you, neither will I forsake you." If the Lord speaks like this, we may boldly say, "The Lord is my helper, and I will not be afraid: what will man do to me?" The last sentence is really a question. If the Lord is my helper, what can man do?
Neither half of verses 5–6 is new. The writer takes both from the Old Testament and hands them to us.
These verses hold two quotations from the Old Testament. The first is God's blessed promise to Joshua, a man of faith. Here it applies to every child of faith, in every age. Secondly, there is the bold response of faith to such language, from the Psalmist (Ps. 118:6), which every believer may adopt at all times.
The promise behind the boldness had a long life before it reached this letter, and it reached people in very different situations.
How full of comfort are those words in Hebrews 13:5: "He has said, I will in no way fail you, neither will I in any way forsake you, so that with good courage we say, the Lord is my helper: I will not fear; what shall man do to me?" (R.V.) These words were spoken first to the lonely wanderer Jacob, then to the warrior Joshua, and lastly to the worshipper Solomon. They are brought into the New Testament, it would seem, specially for us and at such a time as this.
The readers had once lost property gladly for Christ. That did not make them safe from the pull of getting more.
They had joyfully accepted the plundering of their goods. Yet they are not above the need of a warning against covetousness. For, as they declined in grace, they had grown in selfishness. They might give gifts to the saints, while taking care to add to their own worldly goods. As our hearts move away from Jesus, they draw nearer to themselves… Because of His words of faithful promise, we may speak confidently in circumstances that look most disheartening. Each one may boldly say, "The Lord is my Helper." … Man stands helpless and harmless before the power of the Lord, who counts every hair of our heads and keeps them safe.
The threat in view is not only violence. It includes the pressure of people who control your living.
We have our title to everything we need throughout our entire pilgrim journey in the gift of Christ Himself. "So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my Helper" — no matter what the circumstances are. No matter what groups of men may do. Vast associations of wealth may close down the little honest business where you earn your living. Labour may unite and shut everyone out of work who will not bow to its demands. Still we have the living God, the Lord and Master of all.
Hebrews keeps urging boldness, and this is one place where the boldness faces outward.
Others have made this confession and lived to see it honoured.
God never abandoned a man who stood for Him. "Our fathers trusted in You and were delivered." The Hebrew youths in the furnace of fire, Daniel in the den of lions, Elisha and his servant in Dothan — they all declare to us that God stands by those who are true to Him. The Devil is just as powerless as men if the Lord is with us.
- He said — the confidence starts with God's own promise never to leave or forsake; faith only echoes it back.
- So we say — that little word "so" is the hinge. Because He spoke, we speak, and we speak boldly, before God and before the world.
- Helper, not extra — the cure for greed and discontent is not more possessions. It is the presence of the One who is with us, in the circumstances He chose for us.
- What can man do? — the closing words are a question with no answer. Closed businesses, hostile employers, furnaces, lions, and even the Devil are all powerless while the Lord is with us.
- Old words, our mouths — God's promise to Joshua and the psalmist's bold reply belong to every believer, in every age.