Why Should a Church Care About People in Prison?

A person can disappear before our eyes

A church member may know that someone from their neighbourhood is in prison and still feel unsure what to do. Perhaps the family has stopped mentioning the person. Perhaps others speak as though a charge or a sentence tells the whole story. The distance can become comfortable. A person who once had a name becomes a category, and eventually the congregation stops remembering them at all.

Hebrews interrupts that disappearance. Its call to remember those in bonds places prisoners within the attention of people who can move about freely. The writer asks believers to imagine their connection with those confined, rather than allow a locked door to become the boundary of their concern. Remembering belongs beside brotherly love, hospitality and sharing. ¹

Care for a person in prison begins with the conviction that a human life still matters. Genesis locates human dignity in God’s creating work. A person may need repentance, truth and accountability; they also need food, relationship, hope and the possibility of being addressed as a person. Mercy can take those needs seriously without deciding that every accusation is true or every conviction is mistaken. ¹

This responsibility can feel demanding because prison lies outside many believers’ ordinary experience. Yet the church need not become an expert in every part of the justice system to understand the biblical question. Someone is cut off from the familiar supports of life. Their family may be carrying fear or shame. Christian love has reason to notice them and to consider what faithful presence can mean.

Remember them as bound with them

The Greek expression behind “as bound with them” pictures people jointly bound, or fellow prisoners. In Hebrews 13:3, it addresses believers who are being asked to remember others in bonds. Its force lies in identification: imagine their confinement as a concern that touches your own life, rather than observe it as someone else’s distant trouble. ²

The surrounding letter gives this instruction a history. Hebrews 10 recalls people who endured public affliction, stood with others who suffered and showed compassion in connection with imprisonment. The precise episode and location cannot be securely recovered. What is clear is that shared hardship and costly solidarity had already shaped the community’s life. ⁷

Brotherly love makes that solidarity more than a passing charitable impulse. Early Christian communities spoke of one another as family and maintained relationships of support. A believer’s imprisonment therefore challenged the others to keep that person within their shared life. Their confinement did not cancel the relationship or make their needs the responsibility of somebody else. ¹⁵

The instruction also remembers people who suffer adversity. Its appeal to being in the body reminds those who are free that they, too, can suffer. Such recognition can soften the easy assumption that another person’s distress proves a fundamental difference between them and us. The writer asks for attention rooted in shared vulnerability, rather than confidence that we could never find ourselves needing help. ¹

Remembering has practical weight. A name kept in a congregation’s concern can lead to a conversation with the family, a message where communication is possible or support that meets a real need. The appropriate form will vary. The movement is from forgetfulness toward relationship: someone confined is still within the reach of faithful concern, even when direct contact is difficult.

Jesus names the prisoner among those who need care

In Matthew 25, the Son of man comes in glory and judges the nations. Food, drink, welcome, clothing, care during sickness and coming to someone in prison form the scene’s repeated list. These are recognisable human needs. Jesus makes the response to people in distress a matter of profound seriousness before God. ¹

The scene closes a long teaching sequence about readiness and the coming judgement. Its concern with lived response is continuous with Matthew’s earlier teaching about discipleship. Compassion does not suddenly appear as an optional addition to faith. The judgement scene brings the consequences of refusing care into sharp focus at the end of Jesus’ public teaching. ⁴

There is a genuine disagreement about “the least of these my brethren”. One reading identifies them particularly with Jesus’ disciples or missionary witnesses. It draws on Matthew 10, where receiving Jesus’ messengers is receiving him, and on the language of his brothers. This interpretation places special emphasis on care for vulnerable people who bear his message. ³

On that reading, the judgement scene also gives assurance to persecuted followers whose mistreatment might seem unnoticed. The glorious Son of man identifies with people who have little worldly protection. Their hunger, sickness or imprisonment matters to him. A community carrying the gospel should therefore understand support for suffering witnesses as part of its responsibility. ¹⁶

A broader reading understands the least as needy people generally. Its arguments include the gathering of all nations, the range of ordinary needs and the place of the scene within Matthew’s final discourse. Both readings deserve to be explained honestly. The phrase’s precise scope remains debated, even though the call to tangible compassion stands at the centre of the scene. ⁵

The disagreement does not leave Christian love without direction. Matthew 5 calls disciples to love enemies and do good beyond the circle of those who love them back. Care for an imprisoned believer has a particular bond of fellowship; concern for another prisoner can also express the wider mercy Jesus teaches. The interpretation of one phrase need not become a reason to ignore suffering outside the congregation. ¹

Both groups in Matthew 25 ask when they saw the King in need. The righteous had attended to people without recognising him in them. Their surprise gives compassion a searching quality: the person receiving care matters even when helping them offers no obvious prestige or repayment. Christian service becomes distorted when someone’s need is treated chiefly as an opportunity to display the helper’s goodness. ¹⁷

The passage is a call to take mercy seriously, not a price list by which a congregation purchases salvation. Ephesians 2 speaks of salvation by grace through faith and then of being created in Christ for good works. Receiving God’s grace and learning to act mercifully belong within the same life. A visit can express that life without becoming a claim that God now owes us acceptance. ¹

People in chains remained part of the church’s life

Paul’s writings and Acts show why historical detail matters. Chains do not establish one uniform kind of custody. Acts 28 describes guarded accommodation in Rome where Paul could receive visitors; other accounts describe different restrictions. Scholars also dispute the location of some prison letters. His experiences should not all be collapsed into a picture of one modern prison cell. ¹⁴

The enduring point is that Paul received care while afflicted. In Philippians 4, he thanks the congregation for sharing his affliction and for the things brought by Epaphroditus. His confidence in Christ’s strengthening did not make their material support unnecessary. Their giving participated in a relationship that endured across distance and difficulty. ¹

Second Timothy remembers Onesiphorus as someone who was not ashamed of the chain and who diligently sought out the imprisoned speaker in Rome. The contrast is personal: shame could produce distance, while friendship produced a search. Colossians ends with an appeal to remember the bonds. These passages allow imprisonment to enter the church’s correspondence and memory, rather than become an unmentionable subject. ¹

Early Christian worship also included shared resources for people in confinement. Justin Martyr’s account of Sunday gatherings connects the reading of Scripture, prayer and voluntary giving with help for those in bonds and others in need. It is an apologetic description rather than a complete record of every church, but it shows care within the community’s worshipping life. ²⁰

Tertullian describes voluntary contributions supporting needy people and Christians confined because of their faith. His account concerns a particular kind of imprisonment and defends Christian conduct before outsiders. Even with that limited scope, it witnesses to a practical conviction: people separated from the congregation by confinement could still be supported through its shared resources. ¹⁹

A hostile second century satire gives another glimpse of the reputation of that care. Lucian depicts Christians bringing meals, reading books and organising support for the imprisoned Peregrinus. The satire’s mockery and accusations require caution, and its details are not a ministry model. It nevertheless represents prisoner support as a conspicuous, communal Christian activity. ²¹

Care attends to the person who is actually there

People held in custody do not all have the same needs. Research on South African chaplaincy distinguishes women, young people, detainees awaiting trial, disabled people and older people, among others. Their family situations and practical concerns differ. Recognising that variety helps care begin with the actual person, rather than with a single imagined picture of a prisoner. ¹¹

The first useful act may be listening. A person may want to talk about their children, regret something they have done, ask about Scripture or simply know that someone will return. Another may not want to speak immediately. Attention becomes more truthful when a helper can receive what is said, rather than arrive with a story that the prisoner is expected to confirm.

Pastoral care addresses the loneliness of abandonment through sustained relationship. A study of prisoners in Cameroon connects personal attention, community support and hope in a difficult environment. Its setting is particular, but the human concern is recognisable: someone facing an uncertain future needs more than a brief reassuring phrase. Being remembered over time can make hope less solitary. ¹²

The person receiving help remains an agent, with dignity and freedom. Research on congregational projects arising from Matthew 25 sermons emphasises this alongside voluntary participation by church members. Applied to prison care, the point is simple: an offer becomes more respectful when it attends to the person’s own concerns, rather than treating them as a passive exhibit of someone else’s generosity. ⁶

Christian witness can be confident and humble together. A mission encounter marked by respect relinquishes manipulation and superiority while retaining courage and conviction. That disposition matters where one person has more freedom than the other. The gospel can be offered honestly, and prayer offered willingly, while the person receiving care is allowed a real response. ⁹

Religious participation numbers alone do not establish whether people have freedom of religious choice. A South African study raises that distinction through its analysis of prison reports and dignity. For Christian care, the implication is to value willing participation. Practical kindness should not become leverage to secure a profession of faith from someone whose circumstances already limit their choices. ¹³

Prisoners’ families also need a place to speak. A child may miss a parent; a spouse may face new responsibilities; relatives may be unsure whom to trust. Their needs do not disappear because others are angry with the person in custody. A congregation can receive these burdens with discretion and steady friendship, allowing a family to seek help without becoming the subject of public discussion.

Mercy can continue beyond the prison gate

Care for a prisoner does not require silence about harm. People who have been injured by wrongdoing may need protection, support and space to recover. Their pain deserves the church’s attention too. Mercy has enough breadth to recognise both a prisoner’s humanity and a victim’s suffering, without demanding a meeting, a quick reconciliation or a declaration that the hurt no longer matters.

Where wrongdoing has occurred, repentance includes taking it seriously. Christian hope can hold together the truth about sin and the possibility of a changed life. A person’s past should not become an excuse to promise easy restoration, but neither should it become a reason to assume that God’s grace has nothing more to do with them. The church’s care can remain truthful and patient.

Release brings a different set of concerns. Research on a Ghanaian prison initiative draws attention to stigma, family acceptance and community reintegration. The particular programme is not a template for every church. Its conclusion nevertheless identifies an important transition: the relationships that help someone during confinement also need thought when that person returns to the community. ¹⁰

Welcome after release grows through dependable relationships. A congregation may need time to understand the person’s circumstances and the needs of others affected. Care can continue through ordinary fellowship, encouragement and support appropriate to the situation. Hope is expressed through patient attention to a life still unfolding, rather than through a demand for an immediate public success story.

Hebrews places this practical life within worship. Its final ethical instructions develop what acceptable service to God looks like: brotherly love, hospitality, prisoner care and sharing belong together. Christ’s enduring faithfulness supports this way of living. The praise of the congregation and its attention to people beyond the gathering are parts of one response to him. ⁸

The chapter joins the sacrifice of praise with doing good and sharing. Worship therefore reaches beyond what is spoken or sung in a service. The congregation’s resources and relationships can become part of its offering to God. The person who cannot attend because they are confined can still be remembered within that shared life. ¹⁸

Pentecostal trust in the Holy Spirit gives room for prayer, healing, discernment and the gifts that serve others. Those gifts can accompany an encounter with someone in prison or support a family carrying its consequences. They express Christ’s love when they strengthen truthful, willing relationship. A powerful moment of prayer and the quieter faithfulness of returning need not compete. ¹

A church should care about people in prison because their confinement does not place them outside the reach of Christian love. Hebrews calls believers to remember; Jesus gives care profound weight before God; the apostolic communities kept people in chains within their relationships. The congregation’s response begins by seeing a person again, and continues as remembrance becomes faithful presence. ¹