Video Transcript: Biblical Foundations of Hospitality Ministry

Abby - We're back,  

Henry - we're back, and this time we're going to talk about like, the early  church. Great.  

Abby - So we looked a little bit more at the Old Testament, the New Testament.  Now we want to explore even more that impact of ministry hospitality in the early church, beyond the New Testament.  

Henry - Yeah. So the first 3, 4, 500 years of the early church was characterized  by such hospitality.  

Abby - Hospitality is a hallmark of the early church, and we already started  touching on that a little bit, but the early church really carried forward that  teaching of hospitality. And, you know, it became central to the mission and  witness to the world. What that act of hospitality,  

Henry - and when we say Central, it became the strategy right of church  growth, 

Abby - the way to really spread the gospel and reach more and more  communities and people,  

Henry - you know. So in the 1980s there were all these like trainings on break  the 100 barrier, break the 200 barrier. And they had all of these things, and they  would like address sermons and all their stuff. But the churches that really grew,  I remember this professor said the churches that really grew grew because they  understood how to be welcoming of strangers, despite you could go to the  seminar learn all about more effective this, more effective that. But at the end of  the day 

Abby - this was the key, yes,  

Henry - was the key to everything,  

Abby - a culture of sharing and communal living. Early Church Christians  shared resources. They met in their homes for meals, worship and fellowship.  We see that a lot in Acts as well that emphasize on the communal living as a  reflection of faith in God. And there's that verse, All who, let's go back through it  all. Who believed were together had all things in common. They were breaking  bread at home, and they took their food with gladness. Yes, 

Henry - I mean, really, it's a passive hope. It's like, you know, I find the Hope  Community. I'm a person of despair. I read a book right now that's talking about  Kurt Cobain and what a lonely life this young, gifted artist in America music had,  and he would reflect on that nobody cares, nobody you know, and he would  have these just crazy words he would write and stuff anyway and it, but here's  what's fascinating is So many people identify with him and call him a his suicide, a martyrs death of their despair. You know, it's just, it's you know. But again, you  see, we're the people of hope, and we want to welcome people to know this  hope.  

Abby - Hospitality for all. Early Christians extended their care beyond believers,  focusing on the needy and marginalized. So I love that sentence below, if you  want to read that  

Henry - radical inclusivity in a society that devalues the poor, I mean that was  what that place was, so poor. You know, there was really something interesting  too, and in my readings and studied in the early church period, there was a  pagan named Celsus. So Celsus decried Christianity as the religion of the  slaves, the religion of the poor, the religion of poor born women and other  women and the religion of a few radical rich people who should know better. So  in the readings, we have a read about Philemon and Aphia,  

Abby - which is a great example of someone who really opened their home  because they had the resources to do that, but then they were able to, you  know, reach so many people who were maybe being devalued in the society.  And so Matthew 25:35-36 really shows the inspired acts of kindness. And again, then living out that I was hungry, and you gave Me food, and I was a stranger,  and you took me in. So  

Henry - yeah, again. So enjoy that reading, because whatever resources we  have, hospitality is the same. We whatever we have in our hand we can share,  yes, our life, we were not given our life. Our life was given to us. I have seen, as  I have traveled the world, acts of hospitality that have defied any economic  status. They were just people who loved and that's how they shared Christ.  

Abby - Breaking the social barriers hospitality creates unity among the rich and  poor, the slave and free. And you see that in many passages. And I was saying  to you before I started this presentation that my Bible reading last night was  about that word. It was the verse about the slave and the master, and that God  just shows no favoritism between that slave and master, and there needs to be  that love and unity, right, 

Henry - that Paul's transformation. Inclusion reading in Acts 9 about the whole  how he's a persecutor, and he turns out to be really an apostle for but you see  that whole transformation, and even how there was concern whether or not if he  was real. And it was Barnabas who  

Abby - offered hospitality  

Henry - so he could be inclusion, even after he was persecuting Christianity.  Very powerful,  

Abby - yeah, powerful witness to love. Early Christian church leaders  emphasize hospitality as evangelism. And this quote here, if you want to share  about that, well,  

Henry - Tertullian here, he's a he's a Christian writer, and he characterizes why  Christianity is appealing and and he quoted how the pagans will say, see how  they love one another, and then how they then love people they didn't know.  Just very powerful.  

Abby - So creating hospices and guest houses, formal institutions for hospitality developed, such as these guest houses for travelers or the sick. And one of the  ways that that happened is from Montessori  

Henry - monasteries. Montessori, that's a good thing, but monasteries really the monastic movement. One of the characteristics of it, they became hospitality  centers during the rise of monasticism. That was really that call to prayer. We  don't want to get into the history of that, but it took that hospitality of the early  church, and even in the third and fourth century, started moving into organizing  it. And the word hospitality, we get the word hospital out of Yeah, so you have  that caring for the  

Abby - sick, hospitality, yes.  

Henry - And notice a characteristic when you go to a hospital, the nurses, the  doctors, probably don't know you,  

Abby - no, right? They're showing care towards a stranger, for sure. Yes,  

Henry - and and before now, we have insurances and we have pay, we have  government funded. I mean, the whole world is different, but at its core value is  offering help to the sick. There were stories in the early church, many, many 

stories of a village was plagued with a plague. And the pagans, they had some  sense of germs, but so they would flee to their villages or their villas. But the  Christians instead would get into those places care for the many times they  themselves died in their care for the sick, but they showed hospitality even when it hurt, so  

Abby - even at its hardest. Yeah, well, and I love when you're talking about this,  like movement, you know, the monks and nuns really became social workers,  yeah?  

Henry - Ministry sciences, social workers, yes, they offered hospitality to  pilgrims and the needy. welcome. This was saint the Saint Benedict rule. So  they actually had a hospitality rule, yeah? This is like, this is really intense. This  is the host Minister rule. We should call that host minister 

Abby - welcome as Christ Himself. Yeah, again, and it goes back to that verse  that when you do to the least of these, it's like you're doing it to Christ. And that's what he says in that verse in Matthew  

Henry - so the call to hospitality in modern ministry, the early church model of  hospitality continues to inspire today. The church is called to welcome refugees,  the needy, the marginalized, those who are unconnected, in a community, again, wherever this is  

Abby - orphan, the widow, the sick. Yes,  

Henry - I remember your grandmother, my mother. She was the kind of gal who  understood this because she had a fourth grade education. But if all of a sudden the neighbor was sick and throwing up all her inside, she'd be up there. And I  remember one time coming to over there to look for her, I couldn't find her. She's over there, whatever. And my mother was on the floor cleaning throw up. And I  didn't really don't care for throw up as much. So I was like, if I've seen her do  this, and I realized and she would do this again and again and again. I mean, if  someone didn't know anything, she'd walk right up to them and and and through my mom and dad, I saw the power of hospitality. If there was a missionary in  town, of course they would come over our house. If there was this somebody  was hurting across the street, my mother would go over there, are you okay?  

Abby - Right? She knew, she knew that, no. And it's just such a great point  where it's like, you know, doesn't matter how smart you are, or this or that, or  this or that, when you practice that hospitality that speaks volumes beyond so  many other things, and it is. Yes, yeah, truly transformative for people. It 

Henry - is so caring, carrying forward the early church's legacy, hospitality was  reflection of Christ's teaching, the foundation of early Christian life. Host  ministers. That's what this is about. Today are called to offer physical, emotional, spiritual refuge by embodying hospitality. We continue that transformative word  of Christ, work of Christ. So, you know, I know in doing this class, I get more  excited about it. Well,  

Abby - I was about to make that same comment, yeah, I'm really glad to be a  part of this course. And just because it's so, it's so convicting and motivating and exciting, and just being reminded about, you know, we're called to do this. And  it's so easy to kind of just sort of do it, but not really, you know. And to actually  really radically show Christ through hospitality is just Yeah. It's motivating to be  reminded of how important this is in sharing the gospel,  

Henry - you know. And I think too of our world right now. I mean, we have  political divides in every country, and yet the countries are becoming chaotic,  and there are in wherever your political divide is. And it's to say, Forget that, and to be taken the responsibility about another image, bearer of God, another  human, that if God puts someone that opportunity in your life, that you're the one that can reach out  

Abby - absolutely