Showing Hospitality

“Do not neglect to show
hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares”
(Heb. 13:2).

What I have to say
about this is primarily an observation. That is that Christian people do not
give much hospitality. When they do, it is to friends who then return the
hospitality. But this text says to give hospitality to strangers. That is not entertaining your friends or giving dinners
back and forth.

The text gives us a
motivation: some have entertained angels unawares. I remember talking to people
about this, not recently, but when we lived on the East Coast. They were not
about to invite strangers to their homes! They were not concerned that they might
be missing angels. They were concerned that the people they entertained might
be crooks or thieves who would take advantage of them. They do not expect to
entertain angels; they only expect to be taken advantage of. As a result,
hospitality goes by the board.

“Do not neglect to show
hospitality to strangers.” This
is not good advice; it is a command.
When we neglect it, we are disobeying God.

Even if we do not
get an angel, entertaining strangers is a great witness to those strangers.
This is not the kind of hospitality that says they owe us a dinner now; it is
one-way giving. Because of this, the people we show hospitality to are
profiting, not just from the dinner, but from the love of the host and hostess.
This love that you have when you open your house to a stranger is the kind that
the Lord Jesus speaks of; it is the kind of love we are to have as Christians.
It is selfless. It is not watching out for yourself; it is watching out for the
good of the other person. “Do nothing from selfish ambition or
conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the
interests of others” (Phil. 2:3-4).

This sort of
hospitality seems to be happening less and less in the Christian world. This is
an encouragement to reverse the neglect. There are certainly people who need
the food, but there are also people who need the love that you can give to
them.

If you are not
prepared for this, use your spare time to get prepared. Spend time in the Word
seeing what the Scripture says about it. Get trained to give hospitality to
friends and strangers alike. That is the nature
of the Christian home—characterized by hospitality.

How do you train
yourself? Start by inviting a bachelor or two—someone who is easy to entertain.
That will get you more prepared to invite others. When Bessie and I were a
young married couple, Bessie told me that if I wanted to invite a bachelor home
for dinner, I should go ahead and do it anytime I wanted. She didn’t have to
have any advance notice. But if I was going to invite a couple or a woman, she
wanted a week’s notice, because she was concerned about her housekeeping. She
knew that bachelors wouldn’t pay any attention to it.

You need to either
keep your house spic and span all the time, or be willing to invite people over when it’s not spic and span. Don’t
be concerned about it. Our foolish pride gets in the way of hospitality. We are
afraid of criticism of our house, our home, instead of loving people. If you
want to practice, practice by inviting bachelors, or tramps, or people who are
homeless. They will be very grateful and not critical. Don’t do nothing. Work
yourself into giving hospitality to people who need it.

This post coordinates with today’s reading in the Same
Page Summer Bible Reading Challenge. If you are not in a daily reading
plan, please join us at TotheWord.com. We would love to have you reading with
us.