Q: I’ve heard the phrase “Christian hospitality” but am not sure what it means. What does God expect of me in the area of hospitality?
A: Sometimes we wrongly equate hospitality with kindness in general, as in, “She’s so hospitable that she invited her brothers and sisters over for Thanksgiving.” While kindness to family and friends is admirable and even commended by God, generally it is not what the Bible calls hospitality. Hospitality in the biblical sense is a specific type of kindness—kindness toward those in the body of Christ who you don’t know so well. The Greek word for hospitality, philoxenia, literally means “love of strangers,” and often the New Testament uses it to reference Christians doing acts of kindness for spiritual brothers and sisters with whom they share little in common except a love of Christ. Indeed, the claim of Hebrews 13:2 that by showing hospitality, “some have entertained angels unawares” makes little sense if the writer is talking about kindness that’s limited to friends and relatives. Of course, through hospitable acts, Christians can minister to non-believers as well.
In biblical days, hospitality was especially important because inns were few and far between, and often unsafe or unsavory. If travelling Christians were to have a wholesome respite for lodging and food, they needed fellow believers to open their homes. That’s why the apostle John once rebuked a church member who refused to host travelling preachers (3 John 5-10).
While modern hospitality could include opening one’s home to travelling ministers, generally that’s not a pressing need today. Hotels abound, and most pastors and teachers find the local Holiday Inn more comfortable and private than a stranger’s home. Yet showing kindness to believers outside our circle of friends remains a requirement for God’s people. For some, hospitality could mean a major sacrifice, but God does not call all His people to do the same acts of hospitality. The resources and time God has given you will determine the specific deeds He requires of you.
However you show hospitality, it will take sacrifice. That’s why Peter said to “show hospitality . . . without grumbling” (1 Peter 4:9). Obviously the difficulty of the task tempted some to complain. And when Paul commanded hospitality among the Romans, he didn’t tell them merely to “show hospitality,” but to “pursue” it—a word that means to run after something, or move rapidly and decisively toward an objective.
Of course, God does not ask us to do things that recklessly put our families in danger. There are situations in which discretion is godlier than opening your home to someone who poses a danger to your children and your possessions. Indeed, the apostle John recognized that hospitality must have limits to prevent false teachers from taking advantage of generous believers (2 John 10-11). Similarly, the Didache, an early Christian treatise, counseled, “Let every apostle who comes to you be received as the Lord, but he must not stay more than one day, or two if it is absolutely necessary; if he stays three days, he is a false prophet.” This was not a dogmatic prohibition against receiving any needy stranger for more than two days as much as a warning to beware of wolves who would take advantage of kind believers.
Still, loving strangers is not optional for Christ-followers. We must be set apart by our warmth and helpfulness. Perhaps by doing so we too will “entertain angels unawares.”