The short answer is “probably”. I doubt that all of us have had these encounters, but certainly some of us have. Angels are recorded as appearing in human form in several places in Scripture. But hold your excitement for a moment, because there is another reason to be kind that is far more important.
It’s given to us by Jesus in Matthew 25, where He says “if you did it for the least of these, you did it for me”. So in fact, when we are kind to someone here on earth who ISN’T an angel, we are actually being kind to Jesus himself. That’s so much more important than treating angels nicely. Although I think we should probably make a habit of doing both.
Anyway, it seems interesting that two areas the author talks about are faithfulness in marriage and pursing worldly gain. Lust is likely the condensed version, and the motivation behind that is self. That makes sense, because if I am caught up in helping me I won’t care too much about “the least of these”. Only a person who isn’t self-centered can go there.
One more illusion to the priesthood and the old covenant is given here. The priests operated inside the temple, and discarded as unclean everything that left the temple. The author points out that Jesus was “discarded” outside the temple, so even though His blood was used “inside” to forgive our sins, His body was taken “outside…in disgrace”. The author is pointing out that you and I may be seen as a “disgrace” to the religious zealots (or, I guess by the unbelieving crowds) of our day. We will take our place outside the city, where our ruler was taken.
I know that there can be no higher honor than to be forsaken by men and then “dumped” into a place that contains Jesus Christ himself. Talk about God reversing the story at the very end, and making the losers the winners. Those who seek to humiliate us are simply making us more desirable.
Stay strong,
PR