Practicing Hospitality

Serving – September 2017 – Grace & Truth Magazine

Practicing Hospitality

“Distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality.” —Romans 12:13 NKJV

An Example From My Experience
For several years I did some professional work in Cork, Ireland, which necessitated my being there for a few days at least once a year. My commitments were such that I rarely had any free time. One evening I was free and I visited a Christian fellowship in the city. Because I was entirely unknown to this group, I took with me a letter of commendation from my local church and joined in fellowship with them. This was my habitual practice, based on 2 Corinthians 3:1.

While there, an Irish Bible teacher spoke from Romans 12. He said that “agape” 1 love dominated the exhortations, it being the essence of Christian discipleship. After the meeting he and his brother conversed with me, and the conversation eventually came around to the subject of how I would get back to my out-of-town hotel. I said I would hire a taxi. Then a remarkable thing happened as the brother thought out loud. He said that the exhortations of Romans 12:13 had an immediate application to my situation and therefore he would take me to my hotel in his car. That was very generous of him for the hotel was a few miles out of the city. The love of God constrained him to provide for my need. So the evening ended with their being surprised that I had introduced myself with a letter of commendation (the only sure way they could know I was a genuine saint of God), and with my being impressed that the effectiveness of the living Word of God in the ministry on Romans 12:13 had such an immediate practical result.

What Does Romans 12:13 Mean?
The first expression, “distributing to the needs of the saints,” was well practiced in the early church. For example, members in the early Jerusalem church “had everything in common” (Acts 2:44) and shared their possessions. Fellowship not only involved church meetings (v.42), it also involved satisfying the daily needs of that Christian community in Jerusalem by their mutual generosity, one to another.

If generosity is directed primarily to needy saints, hospitality is shown to strangers – those unknown to the local church, whether believers or not. Philadelphia, the Greek word for “brotherly love” and the love that believers have for their brothers and sisters in the family of God, has to be supplemented by philoxenia,2 which means “hospitality” or the love of strangers. Both are indispensable expressions of Christian love for us to practice.

Nowadays we generally think of hospitality as being sociable with our Christian friends. There is nothing wrong with this idea for it is based on 1 Peter 4:9: “Be hospitable to one another without grumbling.” Peter stated that where love is fervently active among God’s people, hospitality will be practiced without hypocrisy. I’m sure that all of us have experienced such expressions of Christian love from fellow believers. In the context of 1 Peter 4, it is showing proper stewardship of God’s varied grace, which He has gifted us. But the original idea of hospitality means to show God’s love to strangers, like I initially was to that gathering of believers in Ireland. It was this meaning of hospitality that the Bible teacher stressed that night. Yes, a stranger may be a believer who is unknown to you. Caring and providing for such a one is very rewarding. “Do not forget to entertain strangers for by so doing some have unwittingly entertained angels” (Heb. 13:2).

Some Bible margin references for Hebrews 13:2 give Abraham (Gen. 18:2) and Lot (19:2) as being the “some” referred to by the writer. However, I am sure that Abraham recognized his visitors: that two were angels and that the third was the Lord (18:3). On the other hand, Lot did not recognize the two as angelic. Lot was the only one in Sodom who practiced hospitality and showed the visitors what was inbred into the moral fiber of early mankind. But the Sodomites had no moral qualities and were totally consumed with unbridled lust (19:4-5; Ezek. 16:49-50). It is a sobering thought that today’s Christendom, consisting of all who say they are “Christian,” exhibits some of these selfish features (see Rev. 3:17)! The late William MacDonald was so bold as to write many years ago that in the United States “hospitality is a lost art. Small homes and apartments are used as excuses for not receiving Christians who are passing through. Perhaps we do not want to face the added work and inconvenience.” 3 Lot was concerned about the protection of his visitors in addition to their practical needs of food and a bed for the night (Gen. 19:2-5). They entered his house and shared in his family life that evening. He provided for their every need just as Abraham had done the previous evening.

Points To Ponder
I would like to point out two Scriptures which to me are almost definitions of hospitality:

1. In Romans 16:2, where Paul commits Phoebe to the care of the church, hospitality means to: “welcome [believers into your church] in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints, and [to] help [them] in whatever [they] may need from you” (ESV).
2. In Galatians 6:10, practicing hospitality is to be “[whenever] we have opportunity, [to] do good to everyone and especially to those who are of the household of faith.”

Practical Issues
Hospitality is to love strangers in the spirit of “love ... your neighbor as yourself” (Lk. 10:27 NKJV). In verses 30-36, the Lord Jesus provided a parable with which to illustrate His answer to the lawyer’s question of verse 29, “And who is my neighbor?” The practical application of this parable is the Lord’s instruction, “[You] go and do likewise” (v.37).

In reality, Paul did not urge his readers in Romans 12:13 to “practice” hospitality. Rather, they were to pursue or “seek to show” (ESV) it. We are not only to receive strangers when they come to our church or arrive on the doorstep of our home, but we should also look for them – even search them out! The love of the Lord Jesus Christ is to constrain/control us to become like Him (2 Cor. 5:14-15). He is the ultimate Example of “loving the stranger,” and He is portrayed by the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:30-36.

When hospitality becomes a significant part of our Christian discipleship, we will not always be conscious that we are being hospitable as the Lord indicated in Matthew 25:35,38,43-44. In these verses He equated such service to others as being service to Him. He was the Stranger who said, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head” (8:20). But He was shown hospitality at Bethany in the home of Martha, Mary and Lazarus (21:17; Jn. 12:1-3). He appreciated this oasis each night of that last week leading up to His death, during which He was exposed to the hatred and fury of the world (Mk. 11:11)

Especially Elders
First Timothy 3:2 and Titus 1:8 specifically require elders to be hospitable.4 As church leaders, or shepherds, they are to be examples to the flock. They must show this Christian trait, which, along with other factors (such as caring for their families, 1 Tim. 3:5), qualifies them to shepherd God’s family. I remember one occasion when I provided a traveling Bible teacher hospitality in my home with my then young family. On leaving he thanked us for the hospitality shown to him with the words, “You made me feel at home.” Obviously, he felt more than a guest. This seems to be the secret of hospitality: make the stranger feel “at home” and part of your family.

A Scriptural Example: Gaius
It is always best if a writer or speaker can present an example of the meaning of his subject from Scripture. So I close with Gaius: “Beloved, you do faithfully whatever you do for the brethren and for strangers” (3 Jn. 5).

What a wonderful example Gaius is of a believer who is “given to hospitality”! He knew the truth and walked in it (v.3). As a recognized, practicing elder, he had brought up his children in the fear and admonition of the Lord (Eph. 6:4; 2 Jn. 4). How different he was from Diotrephes (3 Jn. 9-10)! Gaius had welcomed both saints and strangers. He had cared for them (v.5), and then he sent them on their journey “in a manner worthy of God” (v.6). This means that he looked after them in the same way that the Lord Himself tenderly cares for His sheep. GT

END NOTES
1. All previous references in Romans have been to the love of God, where the special Greek word for His love is agape: it was demonstrated on the cross (5.8), poured into our hearts (5.5) and refuses to let us go (8:35,39).
2. The Greek noun philoxenia means the love of strangers.
3. MacDonald, W., & Farstad, A. 1997, Believer’s Bible Commentary: Old and New Testaments. Thomas Nelson: Nashville, USA.
4. The Greek adjective philoxenos means to be hospitable or to be generous to guests. Oxenos is translated as “stranger,” except in Romans 16:23, where Gaius is called “my host” by Paul, presumably because Paul had lodged with him.

By David Anderson