BETHANY BELUE | CONTRIBUTOR

When I was in my twenties, I was mentored by a woman in the church where I was on staff. What began as a babysitting job turned into a lasting friendship. She was a mom of three small children with a husband who worked long hours. Often, our conversations occurred during dinner and bath time with small children, while folding laundry, or during a walk to pick up a child from an activity. While I met with her regularly for prayer and counsel, receiving much wisdom from her, I mostly remember how she welcomed me into her home and her life. She likely thought that those moments together were loud and messy, while in my heart, I felt seen and welcomed into the mess with her. She showed me (and continues to show me) gospel hospitality.

The Greatest Commandment 

One of the most well-known passages in the Bible is found in Mark 12:30-31: “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” This command speaks two important truths: love the Lord first and love others as yourself. As believers, we are called to not only love the Lord but to love others around us. A very specific way we can do this is by showing hospitality.

The Challenge of Gospel Hospitality

When we hear the word “hospitality,” we may think only of inviting people into our home. The thought of doing so may create a feeling of panic deep within us as we think about cleaning the house or fixing an elaborate meal. Hospitality can feel risky as we think about letting strangers and even friends in our homes and our lives. But gospel hospitality says nothing about a clean house or fancy meals. In fact, nothing about the gospel is fancy or flashy. The gospel is good news. It is the message of Jesus loving us enough to leave the glory of Heaven and die on the cross for our sins. Everything about this act of Jesus was messy and sacrificial. The gospel says, “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Living a gospel-centered life puts others first and gives us the opportunity to show our love to friends, neighbors, and strangers.

The Beauty of Gospel Hospitality 

The beauty of gospel hospitality is that it can look different during various seasons of life.

When I was single, I lived in New York City in an apartment with three roommates. Having people in my apartment meant people would most likely be sitting on the floor as space was tight. Many times, hospitality was done outside of my home: welcoming people who were new to our city or church to meet for a meal, planning a place for people to gather in community, or serving at one of the many homeless shelters in the city. Gospel hospitality meant looking for opportunities for others to feel seen in a city that could often feel lonely.

A few months before my husband and I bought our first home, I read Rosaria Butterfield’s The Gospel Comes with a Housekey. Rosaria describes hospitality this way: “Radically ordinary hospitality is this: using your Christian home in a daily way that seeks to make strangers neighbors, and neighbors family of God.”[1] As we settled in our new home (which felt big to me after living in multiple apartments), we began to pray about how the Lord would use our home to be a place of radically ordinary hospitality.

Over the years I’ve watched the Lord answer our prayers as our home has become a place where many have gathered. It has been a home for college students and twenty-somethings in our church to enjoy a home-cooked meal in the middle of finals or after a long day of work. It has been the place where a single woman could join me on nights when my husband was out for a ministry event, allowing me the opportunity to hear about her life while she helped me feed and bathe my small children. It has been a place for meals served around the dining room table as well as picnics eaten on the floor when we ran out of chairs. It has become known as the “hotdog house” in the neighborhood after starting a Halloween tradition of grilling hotdogs and handing them out to all our neighbors who stop by when they are out trick-or-treating. Over the years, I’ve learned that hospitality may be preparing a meal in advance for a large group or opening the door at the last minute for a neighbor who is walking by after work.

As children grow and seasons change, I know hospitality will continue to change. For many moms with older kids, evenings are often spent at a sports field or transporting them to different engagements. Even in seasons when life feels busy and we are not home, we have the opportunity to show gospel hospitality to others. This may mean looking for the person who needs a place to sit beside us on the bleachers, sitting next to a new person who shows up to a women’s event at our church to get to know her and make her feel welcome, or throwing extra food in the crockpot to welcome a single person or family over for a quick meal after church.

The Privilege of Gospel Hospitality 

Hospitality is not always easy and will look different in different seasons of life, but I am continually reminded that gospel hospitality is more about others and less about me. When we look for opportunities to invite others into our homes and our lives, we have the privilege of the Lord meeting us in it and seeing ways that He is stretching us, growing us, and blessing us through the simple yet sacrificial acts of loving others above ourselves.

Matthew 25:34-40 describes the final judgment: “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.”

One of the greatest ways we can love and serve our heavenly Father is by loving and serving others. There is no perfect way to offer hospitality, but as I learned from my mentor many years ago, gospel hospitality is simply welcoming others into our lives and our mess. It is seeing others, serving others, and showing them the love of Jesus. May we all be challenged to think about how we can offer gospel hospitality to the people around us.

[1] p.31

Photo by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash