Pagan Hospitality

Introduction

Every year, charitable organizations like Feeding America fund different philanthropic services to our communities. Feeding America raises appx. 4.4 Billion dollars. 99% goes directly to those in need. They have been awarded 4 stars consistently for the past 10 years by Charity Navigator. I am not saying all of this because I think we need to get on board with Feeding America. As best as I can tell this is a secular organization doing philanthropic work because they see a need in society. There are a lot of needs in our world:

Homelessness

Kids going hungry

Drug and alcohol addiction

Human Trafficking In 2022, 6,500 who had been reported as trafficked in some way, but it is important to realize that these are only those who we reported. 22/36 states in India reported nothing and yet it is still going on in their states. Nothing is being done to stop it. Back in 2019, Oklahoma had 207 reported cases of Human trafficking, but again it is often not reported.

Domestic Violence

Grief

The lost world has programs for dealing with many of these pain points in our society. These programs provide an important service to those who are suffering. It can be easy to slip into thinking that only Christians can show love to others because we are the only one’s who have experienced the love of Christ, but the honest truth is that sometimes the world shows love better than we do. But it has not always been this way:

165 Ad Marcus Aurelius

15 year epidemic 1/3 of the population died

During the first plague, Galen fled Rome to his country estates

Bishop Dionysius describes the pagan reaction: “At the first onset of the disease, they [pagans] pushed the sufferers away and fled from their dearest, throwing them into the roads before they were dead and treated unburied corpses as dirt, hoping thereby to avert the spread and contagion of the fatal disease; but do what they might, they found it difficult to escape.”

Christians took it on themselves to provide food and basic nursing for those who were sick. In their midst, it was observed that few died from the plague. but Christians were out there helping others when everyone else would not.

Some Christians have a heart for this but by and large in America, this kind of work has been relegated to the lost.

This morning I want to talk about pagan hospitality from Acts 28:1-10.

When Paul and the other sailors finally drive their ship to land in a small creek, they all cast themselves into the sea and swam for shore. They still were lost but no one had died from the storm. Some floated on boards and pieces of the ship to the shore. This was a major catastrophe. A ship carrying 276 people is wrecked and all those people are washed up on shore, wet, hungry, and probably injured.

The pagans showed their love by providing hospitality

Vs 1 as they make their way to shore they still have no idea where they are. But they discover that this is the island of Malta or Melita as our text says. These sailors would have recognized Malta except for the fact that this was not the main port. They put in at another part of the island.

Shivering and hungry they make their way to shore and the people of the island welcome them in. Luke in vs 2 calls them barbarous people. This does not mean they were natives with loin cloths and spears. The island of Malta was actually a pretty sophisticated island for the times. But in Greco-Roman culture anyone who didn’t speak Greek as their primary language was considered a barbarian. The people of the island of Malta would have originally come from places like Carthage in North Africa and they spoke a Punic language. As we see in this text, it isn’t like they didn’t know Greek at all because they are able to communicate.

These uncultured people from the standpoint of the Romans open up their homes to show no little kindness. The phrase here is literally philanthropia. Philanthropy is the love of mankind and these pagans showed all 276 sailors great love and kindness in taking them in. When tragedy strikes like a tornado, have you ever thought of taking someone in? It does take a lot of selflessness to do that. They showed their love by kindling a fire and giving them a place to stay. They provided for the basic needs for these people because they saw that they were suffering.

There is a little bit of an interlude here in the story. Paul is gathering sticks in vs 4 which that is an amazing side note. Paul does not view gathering sticks as beneath him. He is willing to get down with the people and work. But there is also an application to hospitality: you do not have to always let the other person do all the serving. Relationships are all about give and take and it is no different here.

But as Paul is gathering the sticks, a poisonous snake latches onto him and everyone thinks he is going to die. They suppose that he is a murderer who though he escaped the sea, justice is going to get him. In your bibles, the word vengeance is probably lower case. This actually should be uppercase because it is a proper name for the Greek goddess Dike the goddess of justice. In fact the Greek name is even capitalized in most Greek NT. They believe that their god has intervened to enact Justice on Paul.

But when he shakes the snake off and is unharmed. They change their opinions. We do not see Paul correcting their assumptions, but we know that he must have because of how he interacted with this same type of situation in the past.

God blessed them for their hospitality by healing their sick

Vs 7-9 reveal that God blesses even the lost when they show hospitality to His children. Publius, most likely a Roman leader on the island comes to Paul because his father had gotten sick. The text describes the sickness as a fever and bloody flux. The bloody flux refers to dysentary and most likely this is what was called the Malta Fever which came from a bacteria in the goats milk at the time. Here in America, we cannot empathize so much with dysentary because it is very rare. When I did a two month missions trip over in Nepal, I actually did get dysentary. It was very rough and the only thing that made it easier was that the missionaries wife I was with was a nurse.

Paul comes in and prays and lays hands on the man who is then healed. Others on the island see what was done and they too come to be healed by Paul. I believe the healing on this island was a direct fulfillment of Jesus’ promises in:

Matt 10:40-42 “He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me. He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward; and he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward. And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward.”

God does not bless only the saved. Matt 5:45 “That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” We call this common grace. God blesses both the redeemed and the unredeemed and I think he promises to do good to those who take care of his children.

This makes sense because our God is a God of justice. Abraham asked Gen 18:25 “That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” Maybe we have forgotten this aspect of justice, but when someone does something good for you isn’t it right and proper to try to do something nice for them.

I remember in Japan it was culturally expected when someone invited you over to your house to bring a gift for the host. I don’t think we do that much here in America anymore, but it does make sense.

The lost were so moved by God’s blessing of healing that they honored them with honors. The word honors here is often used by Luke to include material gifts to show their appreciation.

One thing that surprises me about the text is that we do not see Paul preaching. It isn’t stated, but I think it can be assumed from the text. Consider that according to vs 11, Paul had been with these people for three months. Paul had a tendency when he stayed in a place. People either hated him or loved him. Basically, it is most likely that a lot of people got saved on the island of Malta at this time because we do not see anyone chasing Paul off and trying to kill him. Christian tradition says that Paul started the first church of Malta and Publius was its first pastor.

Challenge for Christians

Hospitality and philanthropy are not unique to Christianity. There are some people out there who are trying to make a real difference in this world by relieving the needs of society. And I think God does see that and promise a blessing in their lives. But if even lost people show this kind of love shouldn’t the believer be known for our love.

In fact, didn’t Jesus say: John 13:35 “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” One of the outstanding marks of a believer is our love for one another. 1 John 4:7 “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.”

Notice Jesus didn’t say they will know you are Christians by your confession. Go out there and preach and everyone will get the idea you are Christians.

Notice Jesus didn’t say they will know you are Christians by your church services. The world isn’t sitting there thinking who are these people gathering on Sundays. They sure have some pretty music.

Notice Jesus didn’t say they will know you are Christians by your clothes. Those Christians they dress really different than we do. Or that person must be a christian because they don’t wear what we wear.

Christianity will have an impact on all these areas of our lives and we should live as a testimony before the world, but what Jesus says will truly cause others to see the reality of our faith is our love.

Love showed up in these pagan’s lives through their hospitality. They took action when they saw a need in someone’s life and they provided what was needed. They build a fire and they took them in to their homes. The Greek word for hospitality literally means a love of strangers. As believers we are commanded to show hospitality to people we know and people we don’t know.

Hebrews 13:2 “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”

1 Peter 4:9 “Use hospitality one to another without grudging.”

Romans 12:13 “Distributing to the necessity of saints; given to hospitality.”

These people did not know Paul from Adam. Why were they willing to reach outside their comfort zone and take in a complete stranger? Their love is what moved them out of their houses and down to the beach to help these 276 stranded sailors. We say we love the lost and or people we haven’t met but when one walks into our church services, we struggle to walk out of our pews to talk to them. Maybe if we could reach out to strangers and show them the love of Christ by bringing them into our lives and our homes, we might have a greater impact on our community?

Conclusion

Let me end with a word of encouragement: Let’s step outside ourselves to show love with others through hospitality because God will bless. This is something that is dear to the heart of God or else he wouldn’t have talked about it so much. Hospitality to strangers is really just love in action. God sees and God will reward our efforts. I said this before, people don’t stay at a church unless they feel like they can have a real connection with the people there. Matt 7:11 “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?”

Let’s all stand, heads bowed and eyes closed.

Take a look at your heart.

Has there been a hesitancy to step outside your comfort zone and reach out to a stranger?

Are you alright with that and do you think God is alright with that?

What can we do differently to engage and show the love of God to those we do not know?

Is the world better at this than we are and if so why?