Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Understanding Hospitality

Mark Driscoll:
Hospitality is not just hanging out with Christians. The word “hospitality” in the Bible literally means to welcome the stranger. Fellowship is when you hang out with all your Christian friends. And that’s great and it’s good and you should. Hospitality is when, in addition to your friends, you invite strangers to hang out with your friends so that they too start to become friends.

That’s exactly what Jesus is talking about here. Hosting a party, hosting a banquet, hosting a feast, having a generous menu, having a generous guest list. And as we do these things, what we’re showing is something of the character of God, that we can party to the glory of God. We can have a great time and laugh deeply and eat well to the glory of God. And as we do, we’re showing something of the character of our God and something of his heavenly kingdom.
Read more and see some clips from a recent sermon here.

3 comments:

Chris Brauns said...

This is great encouragement - - we need more hospitality!

I understand the point of this was not to define "fellowship", so I don't want to be too picky. But I think summarizing fellowship as Christians "hanging out" doesn't say enough.

In the NT fellowship has more the sense of "invested partners" than "hanging out." So, Paul could talk in glowing terms about his fellowship with the Philippians though he was far removed. They had fellowship because they were invested partners.

So those who have invested in The Vine have fellowship with you all in the sense that the Philippians had it with Paul - - even though we don't get to hang out very often!

Kara Chupp said...

"There's Always Room for One More"

Seems like integrating lives, investing, and being open to inviting in those God puts on your path is a great place to start.

http://thechuppies.blogspot.com/2011/02/theres-always-room-for-one-more.html

Burly said...

I love the two comments above. Thanks, Chris Brauns and Kara.