GIVEN TO HOSPITALITY

There is tremendous joy in showing hospitality to one another.

Today’s Bible command exhorts to be ‘given to hospitality’. The idea of ‘given’ here is to pursue, be given or press toward. It is not the idea of being hospitable because no one else will, or being last to volunteer out of grudging necessity. It is a determination to show hospitality.

Hospitality meets a practical need. When believers travel and are in need of a meal or accommodation, it is good to provide such. This is becoming to Christian faith and expresses fellowship among believers.

It is of particular importance in caring for travelling Christian workers, preachers and teachers and any others who move about in caring for God’s people. The apostle John links such acts of hospitality as sharing in the work of the gospel itself: ‘Beloved, thou doest faithfully whatsoever thou doest to the brethren, and to strangers; which have borne witness of thy charity before the church: whom if thou bring forward on their journey after a godly sort, thou shalt do well: because that for his name’s sake they went forth, taking nothing of the Gentiles. We therefore ought to receive such, that we might be fellowhelpers to the truth’, 3 John 5-8.

Showing hospitality is the way God intends His servants are to be cared for, ‘after a godly sort’ and also demonstrates that the work of God will not be done at the world’s expense, ‘taking nothing of the Gentiles’. The ‘behind the scenes’ work of caring for travellers is just as important as the preaching and teaching itself, ‘that we might be fellowhelpers to the truth’.

Being hospitable is to be done not only to those we know, but also to those who are strangers to us. Many of us have developed lifelong friends from showing and being shown hospitality by people that, at the first, were strangers to us.

We cannot imagine what kind, Christian hospitality will do for another. Your kindness could lift another’s burden or provide a place, safe from the dangers and snares of the world to fellow believers. Abraham was unaware of the good he had done when he ‘entertained angels unawares’, Heb. 13. 2.