Biblical Hospitality Defined
This blog is part of a series of posts exploring the practices of biblical hospitality as a missional strategy.
Not surprisingly there are many misconceptions and much confusion concerning the definition of biblical hospitality. Specifically, the translation and meaning of philoxenia, used in Romans 12:13, Hebrews 13:2, 1 Peter 4:9, 1 Timothy 3:2, and Titus 1:8. Philoxenia is the combination of the Greek word for love or affection, phileō, which denotes love among people connected by kinship or faith, and the word for stranger, Xenos. The word literally means lovers of strangers.
The misconception and confusion concerning the definition of biblical hospitality is centered around two extreme interpretations of biblical hospitality.
First, biblical hospitality defined solely as a call for Christians to demonstrate love and action towards strangers and foreigners.
Second, biblical hospitality defined from the cultural practice of being cordial and relational to neighbors.
In reality, neither of these definitions measure up to the biblical understanding of hospitality. Ecclesiology, the study of the church, plays a significant part in clearly understanding the definition and practice of biblical hospitality. The early church, experiencing a diaspora from persecution, relied on biblical hospitality to survive and thrive as a community of people in the first century. Christians were practicing hospitality to strangers in the first century. However, the overwhelming evidence suggests hospitality is being practiced among strangers and visitors who are part of the church of God. For more evidence and research read the previous post in this series, Biblical Hospitality in the New Testament.
The practice of hospitality towards believers is not a justification to neglect those that are strangers and far from God, hospitality should be defined and practiced as a reflection of God’s missionary nature of bringing foreigners and strangers into his covenant community. But for clarity in definitions, the relationship between the church and hospitality is critical for a working definition of biblical hospitality that was practiced to both saints and strangers in the New Testament.
Biblical hospitality that is informed by the Old and New Testament realities of hospitality, specifically the understanding of soteriology and ecclesiology, would be correctly defined by saying,
Hospitality is taking the initiative to help saints and strangers go from unknown to known, by opening up our homes and lives for the sake of the gospel and the glory of God.
This definition rejects the two extreme positions of confusing cultural hospitality with biblical hospitality, and strict literal reading of foreigners and strangers that disconnects the early church reality. Defining biblical hospitality as taking the initiative to help saints and strangers go from unknown to known, by opening up our homes and lives for the sake of the gospel and the glory of God, communicates the heart of the gospel and opens a door for biblical discipleship. It cannot be overstated, Hospitality in the early church is THE catalyst for gospel advance and multiplication.
