Hospitality: the act, practice, or quality of being hospitable; friendly and solicitous entertainment of guests. So says Webster’s New World Dictionary.
Hospitality: PHILOXENIA, love of strangers (philos, loving, xenos, a stranger), is used in Rom. 12:13; Heb. 13:2, lit., be not forgetful of hospitality, writes W. E. Vine in An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words.
We are exhorted positively to be given to hospitality (Rom. 12:13), and negatively to not forget to entertain strangers (Heb. 13:2).
Get a taste for entertaining and you will look for opportunities to be given to hospitality. Whether you entertain regularly or have never thought you could do it, here are seven observations about hospitality.
1. Hospitality meets a practical need. In assembly life we have visitors. It might be a traveling preacher or missionary. It could be believers visiting in the area or a college student away from home. Opening your home to them meets a practical need in providing a meal and perhaps a place to stay during their visit.
2. Hospitality provides rest and comfort. Visiting speakers at your assembly, new believers needing exposure to a Christian home, or a young student facing a first away-from-home experience at an ungodly university can find spiritual rest and strength in your home. It is not culinary skill, but the spiritual environment that refreshes. Uplifting conversation and fellowship, good, clean humor and a listening ear all contribute to a refreshing time for all believers.
3. Hospitality is an opportunity to develop lifelong friendships. You cannot beat having a cup of coffee or a meal with someone as a means of getting to know one another. Many lifelong Christian friendships began through hospitality.
4. Hospitality will demand sacrifice. It is not always convenient to entertain. A meal has to be planned and prepared. Other activities may have to be put aside. You may even have to give up your own bed. Hospitality touches our hearts. It tests us as to what kind of servants we really are. You see it is not the condition of the carpet that determines hospitality, but the condition of the heart. However, it is a sacrifice well rewarded. I do not know a single Christian given to hospitality who regrets it. The inconvenience is minor. The blessing is major.
5. Hospitality influences our children for good. It is good to open your home when you are young. Young couples should determine to use their home for the Lord. This is not only good for you and the assembly; it is good for your children, too. They get to see other Christians in a slightly different light. Preachers and missionaries who may appear almost superhuman on the platform, turn into warm and wonderful friends in the home. Don’t worry about children’s inappropriate remarks or outbursts of the old nature. Most traveling workers have seen it all, usually beginning in their own homes. It will influence your children for good when they see you serving the Lord’s people.
6. Hospitality encourages others in this important Christian duty. When entertaining visitors to your assembly, invite others from your assembly as well. Encourage them to entertain by example. Some folks are hesitant to step into this ministry, but once they see how it is done, they will have confidence to do it themselves. It will shock your elders when the saints line up to do the entertaining.
7. Hospitality towards others is considered a ministry towards the Lord Himself. “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me” (Mt. 25:40). I would have liked to have been in that home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus in Bethany. It was in that home the Lord Himself was a guest, right up to the time of the cross. We can only imagine what went on there. It would have been days of heaven on earth. But our homes can be like that now. When we serve His people, we serve Him. And His blessing will remain.
Hospitality. What about you? Are you given to it, or is it done grudgingly? Do you forget, or is it foremost in your mind? The blessings of hospitality are many, but I’m not sure who gets the bigger blessing, the host or the guest.