Sermon Tone Analysis

Text: Hebrews 13:1-14 (NLT)

13 Keep on loving each other as brothers and sisters.[a] 2 Don’t forget to show hospitality to strangers, for some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it!

3 Remember those in prison, as if you were there yourself.

Remember also those being mistreated, as if you felt their pain in your own bodies.‌

4 Give honor to marriage, and remain faithful to one another in marriage.

God will surely judge people who are immoral and those who commit adultery.

5 Don’t love money; be satisfied with what you have.

For God has said,“I will never fail you.

I will never abandon you.”[b] 6 So we can say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper, so I will have no fear.

What can mere people do to me?”[c]

7 Remember your leaders who taught you the word of God.

Think of all the good that has come from their lives, and follow the example of their faith.

8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

9 So do not be attracted by strange, new ideas.

Your strength comes from God’s grace, not from rules about food, which don’t help those who follow them.

10 We have an altar from which the priests in the Tabernacle[d] have no right to eat.

11 Under the old system, the high priest brought the blood of animals into the Holy Place as a sacrifice for sin, and the bodies of the animals were burned outside the camp.

12 So also Jesus suffered and died outside the city gates to make his people holy by means of his own blood.

13 So let us go out to him, outside the camp, and bear the disgrace he bore.

14 For this world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come.

Introduction

Today we will be examining the concept of Hospitality found in our text.

Our text is set from the book of Hebrews where the writer appears to have two aims:

1. Remind us of the superiority of Christ to all other things

2. Challenge us to stay faithful to Jesus even in the midst of persecution.

Hebrews 13:1-14 is part of the writer’s concluding remarks on how a believer should live as a result of a better covenant with better promises, and a superior God .

As always to see what the Holy Spirit is saying through this passage we need to adjust our thinking somewhat to get the context (Rom 12:1-2)

As always to see what the Holy Spirit is saying through this passage we need to adjust our thinking somewhat to get the context (Rom 12:1-2).

Heres my aim today.

That after you:

a) Understand the ancient concept of Hospitality

b) Understand the Christian concept of Hospitality

c) Understand the driving force behind Christian Hospitality

Then you would begin to live with a higher value and action of hospitality

So you ready?

Lets get into this topic:

1.

The ancient concept of hospitality

The concept of hospitality was not distinctly Christian.

When you do a little research, you discover that hospitality was a central part of society from the very beginning of history (see Word studies in NT).

This was in part due to the need for places for people to stay while traveling due to business, personal or political reasons.

Hotels or Inns as we know them were virtually nonexistent.

Any such place would have been used for drunkenness, prostitution, or the like, and were extremely unsafe places.

By New Testament times the ancient world, secular and religious, saw hospitality as a moral value.

To put that in the context of ancient writings we discover this topic had the same fervor of discussion that you would find today around the values of vaccination, climate change, LGBTQ, abortion, and marriage.

Your social status and personal identity was attached to being able to provide hospitality.

Added to that was the domination of their lives by keeping the many gods they saw in control of their world happy so their own lives would have peace, wealth, and happiness.

In the concept of hospitality many non jewish/Christians saw Zeus as the God of Hospitality and sought his protection by pleasing him.

Why is Zeus the god of hospitality?

This cultural law has its origins in Ancient Greece.

The Ancient Greek god Zeus is sometimes called Zeus Xenios, as he was also a protector of travelers.

He thus embodied the religious obligation to be hospitable to travelers.

The rise of the Roman world added to this fervor by the establishment of an empire built on peace & prosperity (Pax Romana) that saw people travel increase for commerce, public proclamations, and religious pilgrimage.

The result was an even increasing demand for hospitality.

Therefore, the need for people to provide a place to stay became more of a reality in this world.

Remember it was seen as a virtue where it was esteemed, highly valued, and encouraged.

Your status was connected to it.

In that world there were clear rules or societal norms surrounding it:

Adaptation from S. C. Barton’s three stages of hospitality employed in the ancient world.

a) Screening

A host must first evaluate the stranger to determine if incorporation of this guest is possible without undue threat to the security and purity lines of the group for whom the host is responsible.

A traveler would come to a gate or a well (public place) and wait for someone to invite them.

many would have references etc.

b) Invitation and provision

If so, the host will incorporate the stranger as a guest, and in accordance with culture-specific codes of hospitality, the host will extend obligations understood by both parties.

Wash their feet, provide a feast and give them refreshing rest.

c) Departure

Finally, the departure of the stranger now turned guest not only signals a healthy parting of ways between an honorable host and the refreshed traveler, but also serves to solidify future relations between the two parties and their respective communities.

It was for NO MORE than 2 nights.

(This gives a framework for hospitality.

It is not mindless or without boundaries)

Given this background we then begin to understand the context of our text.

Hebrews 13:1-3

“Let love of the brethren continue.

Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.

Remember the prisoners, as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you yourselves also are in the body.”

However, in this text we see that to Christians Hospitality went much deeper and had a much broader meaning.

This leads us to:

2. The principle of Christian hospitality

‌When we think of hospitality as Christians it is not less than the ancient understanding but goes way beyond that.

When we read Hebrews 13:1-14 we see hospitality listed not as a moral value but something far deeper which would be understood as resulting from the new creation.

13 Keep on loving each other as brothers and sisters.[a] 2 Don’t forget to show hospitality to strangers, for some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it!

3 Remember those in prison, as if you were there yourself.

Remember also those being mistreated, as if you felt their pain in your own bodies.

4 Give honor to marriage, and remain faithful to one another in marriage.

God will surely judge people who are immoral and those who commit adultery.

5 Don’t love money; be satisfied with what you have.

For God has said,

“I will never fail you.

I will never abandon you.”[b]

Keep loving each other but also don’t forget hospitality?

Entertain angels?

Can you see how hospitality here listed as an actual lifestyle reality, loving each other, faithful sexually, honoring marriage, looking out for prisoners, not loving money.

Goes far beyond the general meaning

Where did this come from?

Its more than paying it forward at the dairy queen or starbucks line.

The key is found in the potentially confusing statement of entertaining angels.

That phrase points to it being a divine action and surely refers (but not limited) to Genesis 18:1–16, of Abraham our prime example of the father of the faith.

So when you do a little digging deeper you find OT principle of hospitality exemplified by Abraham and spoken about in Deuteronomy.

‌

Deuteronomy 10:17-19

“For the Lord your God is the God of gods and Lord of lords.