I remember the time I visited Japan in 1995. I was with a group of students from Portland Bible College, serving in a variety of contexts. One evening we were invited over to the house of a local family as guests. After we were all seated on the floor at places of honor, a series of carefully prepared dishes were brought out and placed before. Our hosts didn't even sit down as they spent the evening serving us. After the meal, one of our Japanese students explained to me that the meal we had just been served would cost over $100 dollars each in a restaurant. This had not been a wealthy family so I asked how they had been able to serve us such an extravagant meal. The answer: In Japanese culture people work hard and put a large portion of their earnings into savings. They don't do so for a rainy day but for an opportunity to show hospitality. This family had spent a significant portion of their savings honoring us that evening.
That's what the Bible means by "hospitality."
"Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality" (Romans 12:13).
"Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers" (Hebrews 13:2).
"Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling" (1 Peter 4:9).
The early Christians were known for the quality of their love, including the quality of their love of strangers, of the "other," of those who were "unknown." That culture was based on a very clear Old Testament tradition. The Hebrew community often found themselves as foreigners in a strange land, at the mercy of their host country. Even in their own land they believed that all they had and the land itself belonged to God, that they were all really temporary pilgrims in a country not their own. For that reason, they were always to show hospitality to any stranger they encountered.
In fact, Hebrew culture defined three kinds of foreigners: (1) "aliens" or foreigners in general, (2) "aliens in transit," or foreigners who were just passing through, temporarily visiting Israel, and (3) "resident aliens," or foreigners who sought to settle in the land. They were not citizens of Israel and did not have "citizenship rights," but were to be welcomed by the citizens. As a result of having no citizenship rights, they were vulnerable in the land and needed additional care. Because the descendants of Jacob had spent over 400 years residing in Egypt, God commanded them to protect and care for strangers in the same way they would widows and orphans.
A sampling of Scriptures describing God's instructions concerning the protection and care of strangers might be instructive for 21st-century Jesus followers:
"Do not oppress a foreigner; you yourselves know how it feels to be foreigners, because you were foreigners in Egypt" (Exodus 23:9).
"Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the Lord your God" (Leviticus 19:10).
"When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them" (Leviticus 19:33).
"The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God" (Leviticus 19:34).
"He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing" (Deuteronomy 10:18).
"At the end of every three years, bring all the tithes of that year’s produce and store it in your towns, so that the Levites (who have no allotment or inheritance of their own) and the foreigners,) the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied, and so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands" (Deuteronomy 14:28-29).
"Do not deprive the foreigner or the fatherless of justice" (Deuteronomy 24:17).
"The Lord watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow" (Psalm 146:9).
"If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your ancestors for ever and ever" (Jeremiah 7:5-7).
"The people of the land practice extortion and commit robbery; they oppress the poor and needy and mistreat the foreigner, denying them justice" (Ezekiel 22:29).
"Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor" (Zechariah 7:10).
While the quality of our hospitality - of the way we welcome and the quality of our care for them - can be debated along political and economic lines, I really only have one question: What does the Bible say? And how therefore should we live?
