Hospitality and the Welcome of Christ
By Liz Roy
What words or images or feelings come to mind when you hear the command to practice hospitality? Do you feel guilt because you know it is required of us in Scripture? Does a heavy burden get placed on your shoulders? Do you make excuses that your “stage of life” is too difficult? Or that you’re not a good cook? Or it’s too much work to clean your house in order to have people over? Or…?
I’m sure I have not exhausted the list of what you might be thinking or feeling in regard to practicing hospitality. I had many of those same thoughts and feelings towards hospitality years ago. It was too difficult to have people over because I cared more about my kingdom of self than God’s commands. I cared more about my priorities than about opening our home to others. I trusted in my own way instead of trusting in God and His ways.
Jay desired for us have people in the home, and it is one of the elder qualifications in 1 Timothy. I fought God. But Jay “won.”
I didn’t understand God’s good and wise command to practice hospitality. To me, hospitality was more about what to do or a place to do it than a person to be. I didn’t want to fit it into our family schedule. I was too protective of our nuclear family time instead of living as one in the household of God with a family that extended beyond the four of us. I was too concerned with our girls’ schedules instead of opening our home to others.
It’s not wrong to be sensitive to family time. It’s not wrong to be concerned about your children’s schedules. In vocational ministry it is often said to not sacrifice your family on the altar of ministry. This was not my danger, though.
My danger was that I was willing to sacrifice God’s commands to be hospitable on the altar of family time, rigidity to a schedule for our girls, and my own fears of cooking large quantities of food due to my past eating disorder.
Slowly God began to show me that biblical hospitality is not so much about “doing” things but being a person with a heart of hospitality that leads to practicing hospitality.
It’s important to note the distinction between hospitality and entertaining. Over the years what had been modeled to me by the world was entertaining. There is a difference between entertaining and hospitality that is only truly evident in the heart! Entertaining says, “Look at me.” Hospitality says, “Look to others.” Entertaining says, “Welcome!” to those who are like me. Hospitality says, “Welcome!” to all people. Entertaining says, “What can I get from you?” Hospitality says, “What can I give to you?” Entertaining looks inward. Hospitality looks outward.
Christ purchased our welcome through His life, death, and resurrection, and therefore we have been welcomed into God’s heart! We love one another through hospitality because hospitality is love in action. The pattern of our lives is not about entertaining so that we receive accolades, but the pattern of our lives is a heart of welcome because of Christ’s welcome of us. Hospitality becomes who we are first and only after that—what we do. It is not a “thing” but a heart posture of welcome. We pursue people through the means of hospitality. We seek to show hospitality to people. We are eager to practice hospitality for people.
Hospitality is trusting in Christ’s welcome of us so that we then welcome others. It begins in your own heart and turns outward to love in action.
We see this exemplified in the brief story about the conversion of Lydia in Acts. Although she was a worshiper of God, she did not yet know Jesus. But, as Paul and his companions gathered near the city gate, they shared the good news of Jesus Christ and God changed Lydia’s heart and she was baptized. She then urged them to come and stay with her. Lydia’s heart had been transformed and therefore her desire was to welcome Paul and the others into her home. The love that had been poured out to her in Christ was now the love she wanted to share with others by opening her home to them. The fellowship she now had with the Father through Christ was now the fellowship she wanted to experience with other believers.
Consider the welcome you have received in Christ and then seek to pursue hospitality rooted in His grace and with the same welcome and love. What might that look like in your life?
“When fellowship is the sweetest, your desire is the strongest that others may have fellowship with you; and when, truly, your fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ, you earnestly wish that the whole Christian brotherhood may share the blessing with you.”
-Charles Spurgeon
Liz Roy is a pastor’s wife in Louisville, KY where she serves alongside her husband in their northeast Louisville church plant. She finds great joy in shepherding the women of her church and caring for their souls. She and her husband, Jay, have been married for 28 years; they have two daughters and one grandchild on the way. In her free time, Liz enjoys discipleship, writing, taking walks with her husband, running, and Earl Grey tea with cream. Liz serves as a volunteer mentor for Practical Shepherding Women.