Pure and unconditional hospitality opens, or is in advance open, to someone who is neither expected nor invited. It means being receptive to whoever arrives as a foreign visitor, as a new arrival, unidentifiable and unforeseeable. Hospitality is central to being Christlike. One of the key Greek words for hospitality is philoxenia. It combines the word for love, phileo, and the word for stranger, xenos.
Hospitality is not a choice. Hebrews 13:2 tells us not to neglect hospitality towards strangers.
In Romans 12, we see that some callings/giftings are commands for all of us to obey (12:1-3 & 9-21) and other callings/giftings are for some of us and not others. There are times, however, when we can all operate in all of these gifts, as and when the Lord asks us to (12:4-8).
Lets look in particular at V.13 – “Distributing to the necessity of saints; given to hospitality.” The word ‘given’ here comes from the Greek translation and is dioko {dee-o’-ko}. It means;
1) to make to run or flee, put to flight, drive away
2) to run swiftly in order to catch a person or thing, to run after
3) to pursue (in a hostile manner)
4) in any way whatever to harass, trouble, molest one
5) to persecute
6) to be mistreated, suffer persecution on account of something.
This means that there may be times when some of the ‘saints’ will be running for their lives, or homeless. They could be strangers in our homes and we are all expected to open our homes to them, to feed them, give them a warm bed for the night, invite them to be a part of our family. Even give them medical help when needed, pray for them. We are to meet their needs in any way that you can. This is how the body of Christ expresses the love of Jesus.
