Christian hospitality was a subversive act that obliterated societal barriers involving gender, race, economic condition, and citizenship status. The extension of hospitality was a moral statement with moral overtones that offered a dramatic and often effective witness to the world and was crucial to the growth of the early church.(1)
The book of Acts is an extended historical account of the growth of Christ's church, and episode after episode shows hospitality as integral to this growth. Hospitality was at the centre of the critical meeting of Cornelius and Peter. It was also central to the discipleship of Apollos by Priscilla and Aquila. Hospitality enabled the transmission of the Gospel in the early church. Nothing has changed. We should be asking if our own loss of understanding and practicing hospitality as a means to spread the Gospel is one reason why the Gospel is not spreading in our culture the way it did in Acts. (2)
Hospitality emerges from a grateful heart; it is first a response of love and gratitude for God’s love and welcome to us. It will not occur in any significant way in our lives, homes, or churches unless we give it deliberate attention.(3)
When we develop a lifestyle of hopsitality we allow room for the serendipities of God. In Hebrews 13 we are told not to forget being hospitable to strangers, because some have discovered that they were actually entertaining angels unawares. This idea almost certainly draws from the Genesis 18 account of Abraham being visited by angelic strangers. Hospitality allows for supernatural surprises. These could include unexpected divinely arranged friendships and timely fruitful connections , provisions of food and clothing, or even changes of perspective on people. Put simply, God shows up in hospitality settings, and the miraculous occurs in our midst.(4)
Hospitality can also transform our lives by forcing us to remove self form the centre, and focussing on others.
1. Jason Foster, Christian Hospitality: A Way of Life. Online at http://faithepchurch.org/files/Documents/Discipleship%20Resources/Hospitality.pdf accessed August 2010, 4.
2. Ibid, 21-22.
3. Christine D. Pohl, ‘Hospitality, a Practice and a Way of Life’, in Vision Spring 2002. Online at http://www.mennovision.org/Vol%203%20No%201/Pohl_Hospitality.pdf accessed August 2010, 37.
4. Jason Foster, 25.
No comments:
Post a Comment