It is good to see hospitality reviving in the church.

It was widely practiced in the Old Testament, as well as the New. Many times it was unplanned such as when Abraham and Sarah unknowingly invited angels to dine with them or planned as in the case of the Shunnamite woman preparing a room for Elisha to lodge in when he was passing through. In I Timothy, it was required of elders to be hospitable. It’s interesting, as well, in I Timothy that a widow who was to be cared for by the church must have likewise, been hospitable.
Yet sometimes we as Christians are so reluctant to open our homes and hearts to others? What obstacles are preventing us from being hospitable?

When I was a new bride and my husband wanted to invite people over to our home, I would get extremely stressed and sometimes even cry~I had such unrealistic expectations for myself. Through the years of practicing hospitality, I have come to learn that my mind must be on meeting the needs of my guests, not on my skills in entertaining them. We have to change our thinking if we are going to practice and enjoy opening our homes to others. I like to think of hospitality as sharing our resources of home, goods, and food to bless others. There are very few of us who are rank up there with the glamorized “homemaker models” we watch on tv and find in magazines. Our homes may not be fancy, as organized as we would like, or contain the most expensive, gourmet menus. However, Jesus has not called us to impress people with “entertaining” them, but rather to bless them with hospitality.

In this post, let’s think about the difference in “entertaining” guests and showing biblical hospitality.

Entertaining is all about the hostess–how perfect my house is, how nice the food is, how perfectly the setting, and on and on. Hospitality focuses on your guest–meeting his/her needs, drawing your guest out by listening and asking questions. Entertaining obviously causes the hostess a great deal of stress in preparations, thereby making her guests feel stressed out too. Hospitality focuses on making your guest feel comfortable by having a welcoming spirit. Entertaining must always be a planned event, whereas hospitality can happen very spontaneously, gasp, even with a messy house or unmade bed!

Two women in the bible who routinely showed great hospitality were Martha and Mary. Their frequent guest was Jesus Himself! Martha, however, one time was very concerned about all the preparations, while Mary was sitting at the feet of Jesus listening to her guest. Jesus corrected Martha for being concerned about all the preparations and commended Mary for listening and choosing the better part. That should be a lesson for all of us.

If you are new to using hospitality, start out slowly. Maybe just have someone over for a cup of coffee. You don’t have to make a full meal–keep your expectations realistic, especially if you have several small children.

Next post………practical helps in becoming more hospitable and obstacles to hospitality we need to overcome (Thursday!).

Rhonda @ WalkingwithSarah