Hospitality is a Christian Virtue

Dear Saints,

The Scriptures regularly exhort us to hospitality. But what is hospitality? In the modern conception of the term, it often means simply being nice to people, especially guests. This is why many hotels and resorts have some sort of “hospitality center.” This is the place you go to make sure you are getting the resources you need while you are there.

If that is our primary idea of hospitality in the Church, though, it is very easy to reduce hospitality to something like a welcome center. That has indeed happened in many churches today. But there are a couple of aspects missing from this understanding. These are important if we are going to see what it looks like to practice hospitality as Christians and as the Church.

Perhaps the most common text brought up regarding hospitality is from Hebrews: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some have entertained angels unaware.” Even here, though, when this text is pulled out of the larger context, it can become a kind of “welcome center” theology. But the passage is saying much more than that.

First, the addition of “stranger” in the text is a bit redundant, since the word hospitality in Greek simply means “love of the stranger.” So it could be more clearly rendered, “Do not forget to love the stranger.” But just before all of this, the preacher to the Hebrews reminds us of an important reality from which all the exhortations will flow: we belong to Jesus, we look to Him, He perfects our faith, and in Him we are gathered not into a temporary or unstable kingdom, but into an eternal and enduring one.

Second, right around this particular phrase, there are two other related exhortations: “Let brotherly love continue,” and “Remember those in prison as though with them, for you also are in the body.” The exhortations in this little section are unmistakable in their movement toward the reality that we dwell together in the Church and in the great reality of Christ’s work for us.

When we expand into some of the other texts on hospitality, we see something else very interesting: the appeal to hospitality is rooted in the Church itself. “Show hospitality to one another without complaining,” with “one another” referring to fellow Christians. Likewise, “Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality,” with “the saints” again referring to Christians. The thrust of hospitality is bound up with the reality that the Church is not simply a collection of strangers, as at a hotel or resort, but a body, a family.

But this does not mean hospitality is insular, as though it only applies to the people we already know in the Church. Rather, it drives us to incorporate and draw into that reality the stranger who has shown up in our midst. It is basically saying, “I do not know you yet, but welcome to our family. Come participate in our life together. Rejoice with us. Get to know us. We love you, not in a superficial way, but deeply, as someone who is part of our extended family. Welcome home.”

We extend that hospitality not only to the guest, the stranger among us, but also to one another. And we do this not only when we gather on Sunday, but all the time, because it is actually a mark of our Christian life. Hospitality is a Christian virtue.

In Christ,

Pastor Sean Kilgo