Hospitality in the Bible
It is more than just a calling. Hospitality is the foundation of our faith and God’s character.
By Chris Holmes
Many cultures and social groups in the ancient world regard hospitality—the reception of a guest or stranger—as a virtue. As Christine Pohl explains in her book on the topic, most in the ancient world believed that hospitality was “necessary to human well-being and essential to the protection of vulnerable strangers. Hospitality assured strangers at least a minimum of provision, protection, and connection with the larger community.” Examples of hospitality, and its opposite, can be found in the writings of the ancient Greeks, Romans, and the Bible.
In an age when apps like Hotel Tonight and Airbnb make finding a place to stay easy and instantaneous, one might overlook or undervalue the significance of hospitality in the ancient world. Returning to the Bible’s perspective on hospitality is important for several reasons. The Bible can expand our contemporary understandings of hospitality, which tend to limit it to private actions within existing relationships—say, hosting a dinner among friends or throwing a Christmas party for coworkers. The Bible invites us to broaden our understanding of hospitality, to learn to see ourselves as both host and guest, and to find ways to practice hospitality as part of our spiritual lives. Below are several images of hospitality in the Bible that can shape and revitalize our church’s commitment to radical hospitality.
Abraham’s Welcome
One of the earliest and most memorable examples of hospitality in the Bible can be found in Genesis 18. Some of the details in the story are hazy, owing in no small part to the construction of language in Hebrew. Still, we can summarize the contours of the story. In the heat of the day, Abraham suddenly sees three men standing near him. Immediately after seeing them, Abraham runs from his tent, bows down before them, and practically begs them to tarry a bit and let him serve them. They grant Abraham his request, and Abraham and his wife, Sarah, prepare a rich meal for the men to enjoy. At some point, one of the men makes a bold declaration: he will return “in due season,” and Sarah will have given birth to a son, fulfilling God’s long-awaited promise to Abraham and Sarah. There are several things to note about this story of hospitality. First, Abraham and Sarah extend hospitality, while they themselves are sojourners and strangers. In Genesis 12, God commands Abraham and Sarah to leave their familiar country and their family and to follow God into a yet-to-be-disclosed land. Second, Genesis 18 highlights Abraham’s eagerness to extend hospitality. There is no reluctance in his offer and no stinginess in the meal he provides. Third, there is no reason to think that Abraham had any idea who these three men were. There is no note about their being kinfolk or particularly worth his attention. Abraham’s response to the three strangers becomes paradigmatic of hospitality, not just among Jewish interpreters but also for Christian (see Hebrews 13:2) and Muslim writers (see Surah 51:24–30 in the Koran) as well.
The Bible invites us to broaden our understanding of hospitality, to learn to see ourselves as both host and guest, and to find ways to practice hospitality as part of our spiritual lives.
God as Host in the Wilderness
The Bible imagines God as the gracious host of the wandering people of Israel. God shows up as a host to the pilgrim people of God by giving them manna from heaven each day of their journey (Exodus 16–17). We see a more intimate picture of God’s hospitality in Exodus 24, when Moses, Aaron, and a large group of elders share a meal on the holy mountain after God summons them to come up. In Leviticus, God reminds the people that they are perpetual “aliens and tenants” in the land that ultimately belongs to God, who hosts them there (Leviticus 25:23). The memory of the people of Israel’s own sojourning deeply shapes their moral and religious lives. Exodus 23:9 demands the fair treatment of strangers since the Israelites had been strangers themselves in Egypt. Likewise, the Psalmist requests God’s assistance with this memory in mind: “Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear to my cry; do not hold your peace at my tears. For I am your passing guest, an alien, like all my forebears” (Psalms 39:12). These stories not only turn God into the gracious host of God’s people; they also demand that the people of faith identify with the experiences of other strangers and sojourners.
God’s Banquet at the End of Days
God’s hospitality is not just a memory from Israel’s past; it’s also tied to their hope for the future of the world. The prophets imagine God’s promised future of justice and peace using the metaphor of a feast. While there are traces of this elsewhere in the prophetic writings, we see it most clearly in Isaiah 25. First, the prophet Isaiah speaks of God’s constant care and concern for the most marginalized in that day—the poor, the needy, and the alien. Then, Isaiah imagines God’s saving action in the future. “On this mountain, the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear” (Isaiah 25:6). God’s anticipated action also includes powerful things like the elimination of death and the end of mourning (Isaiah 25:8). But it is striking that Isaiah portrays God first as host, welcoming the weary and heavy ladened to a bounteous banquet of delightful food and drink. The image of God as hosting a banquet at the end of days speaks powerfully to the connection, intimacy, and conviviality of God’s saving purposes.
Jesus—Host and Guest in the Gospels
It is not surprising that Jesus, being nurtured on the visions of the prophets, symbolizes the coming kingdom of God with images of a festive meal. Jesus compares the kingdom to a great banquet with more than enough space for those who respond to the master’s invitation to come and celebrate (Matthew 22:1–14, Luke 14:16–24). Jesus speaks of people coming from “east and west” to eat “with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 8:11). The feeding miracles recorded in all four of the New Testament gospels portray Jesus as a host providing for the people in the wilderness, an obvious allusion to God’s hospitality to the wilderness generation in Exodus. The gospels also note Jesus’s habit of hosting or at least sharing meals with some of his society’s most undesirable individuals: tax collectors and sinners (Mark 2:15–17). Apparently, Jesus had such a tendency for sharing meals with these sorts of people that his critics began to speak negatively of him. “Behold, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!” (Matthew 11:18–19). What a reputation for the incarnate Son of God! But Jesus is not only host in the gospels, but also he appears, paradoxically, as a guest. Who could forget the story of the tax collector Zacchaeus and Jesus’s having to share a meal with him (Luke 19:1–10)? Less memorable (or at least less recognized) is the hospitality of the often-overlooked women—Mary, called Magdalene, Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, Susanna, and many others—who provided for Jesus and his disciples from their own resources (Luke 8:1–3). In another memorable episode, the parable of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25:31–46), Jesus identifies himself as the stranger who receives hospitality from others who have no idea who he really is.
Hospitality and Christian Ministry
Hospitality played a key role in the growth and expansion of early Christianity. Not only did Jesus rely on the hospitality of others during his ministry; so, too, did those who preached and taught about him throughout the ancient Mediterranean world in the centuries following his resurrection. There were alternative options, similar to inns or hostels in our contemporary world, but these often had negative reputations for attracting the “wrong” sort of people. Traveling Christian missionaries and teachers relied instead on others who opened up their houses to them for a period of time (Matthew 10:11). The list of names tacked on to the end of Paul’s letters gives us the picture of early Christianity as an ancient network of hosts and guests, Christian workers and their patrons. Hospitality becomes a key way to demonstrate “genuine love” within the Christian community (Romans 12:9–13) and even a qualification for Christian leaders (1 Timothy 3:2, 5:10).
The brief survey above indicates the central place of hospitality in the Bible. It is a fundamental practice for the people of faith, and it is foundational to the character of God. Although it does not use the Greek words related to hospitality, Paul’s encouragement in Romans 15:7 exemplifies our church’s calling to demonstrate “radical hospitality.” Speaking to groups of Christians who had become accustomed to judging and despising one another, Paul says this: “Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.” The basis of welcome, Paul says, is the very action of Christ, who welcomed humanity when they were at their very worst—enemies of God (Romans 5:10). If this is the basis of welcome, how can Christians limit their welcome? How can we do anything but extend radical hospitality, to the least and lost, to those on the other end of the theological or political spectrum, and even to those we think of as our enemies? As Paul notes, this is done for the glory of God—our hospitality (or lack thereof) reflects the character of God to a world desperately seeking to experience God’s welcome and that of God’s people.
