Yesterday, we looked at the importance of kindness in the church. Today, I would like to take that a step further. The Bible is clear that we are to show kindness to one another in the body of Christ. We are too good to everyone, but especially the household of faith. The many verses that we looked at yesterday highlighted the need to show kindness to our brothers and sisters in Christ, to those we know.
However, we are also to show kindness to strangers. We translate the Greek word φιλόξενος and get our English word hospitality. The Greek word is actually two words put together. The first word is philos which is a Greek word for love, or a friend. The second word is xenos which is a word for stranger. Thus the word means a friend to strangers or loving to strangers, kind to strangers.
Romans 12:13 says that one should seek to show hospitality. The idea here is to pursue, to do something with intense effort and with definite purpose or goal—‘to do with effort, to strive toward. [1] We need to be intentional in our pursuit of being hospitable. It doesn’t just happen. We need to purpose to be a people who pursues being hospitable. Harvest, will we be a church that is hospitable? Will be a church that shows kindness and love to strangers.
When looking at someone who would be qualified as an elder in our church we see that he must be one who is hospitable. An elder should be one who is kind to strangers, one who is a friend to strangers. (1 Tim.3:2; Titus 1:7,8)
The writer of Hebrews highlights it’s importance when he tells them that there are some who have entertained angels when they showed hospitality to strangers.( Heb.13:2) We need to be a church that does not neglect showing hospitality to strangers. When we do show hospitality we need to do it with the right heart attitude. Peter writes that we need to show hospitality without grumbling. (1 Peter 4:9) How many people do the right thing with the wrong heart, which ultimately defeats what was to be accomplished. Let us be hospitable with joy and thankfulness. It is our opportunity and privilege to serve God in this way. Who knows what eternal good could come about by our showing hospitality! Harvest let us not neglect the importance of hospitality!!
[1]Louw, J. P., & Nida, E. A. (1996, c1989). Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament : Based on semantic domains (electronic ed. of the 2nd
edition.) (1:662). New York: United Bible societies.