Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.

Tom Wright says:

‘The writer turns to the darker side of early Christian experience. Prison has been a feature of Christian life from the earliest days. Those at present enjoying freedom must regularly think of, pray for and find ways of helping those who are in prison…But the writer would certainly not have excluded the wider work of caring for those in prison in the modern world, where locking people up is used far more often as a straightforward punishment than it was in the ancient world. There people were often executed, fined or banished for crimes both serious and not so serious.’ ‘Hebrews for Everyone’, pp.169,170.

But I also remember a church secretary in Leeds, not a young man himself, who felt a solemn call to visit elderly, shut-in people from the church. He didn’t drive, but criss-crossed the city on the bus. Jesus said, ”I was in prison and you visited me’, he told me, ‘and there are many people who are prisoners in their own homes.’