Hebrews 13:10

Since Jesus does not change (Hebrews 13:8), believers should avoid being drawn to strange, new ideas. The false teachings mentioned involved rules about food. In some parts of Judaism, certain ritual meals were thought to provide God's grace to participants. Some in the community might have been tempted to leave the Christian community to join Jewish fellowship meals. These Jewish meals sometimes encouraged participants to focus on the Jerusalem altar. The author reminds listeners that we have an altar that those under the old covenant cannot access—Christ’s sacrifice (7:27–28; 8:13; 9:11–14; 10:11–14).

This middle part of chapter 13 is framed by mentions of the community's leaders (13:7, 17–19). Rabbis often used a technique called inclusio, where similar words or phrases mark the start and end of a section, like a subheading in a modern book. This part suggests there were several challenges in the church that the book of Hebrews originally addressed.