The Hospitable Family

What is Hospitality

Being hospitable is a condition that every Christian should aspire to have. Our families should be hospitable, it is even coined that the wives of leadership should be the front runners or examples of hospitality to the church.

I believe is it quite easy to be hospitable to people of importance. It is easy to be hospitable to people that have some sort of vested interest in our lives. For instance, when family comes to town for the holidays we might clean up a little more or pull out the fine china for the family. exclaims that we should seek to show hospitality especially as it pertains to the needs of the saints.

Hospitality is defined as the practice of receiving a guest or stranger graciously. The word derives from the idea of being welcoming to a foreigner, stranger or even enemy. In we see the conversion of Lydia. We know that this is a missionary journey of Paul, Silas, and Timothy as well as many other missionaries. We see the setting on the Sabbath day as Paul, Silas, and Timothy come to a place of prayer in which they see women who had come together.

They meet a woman by the name of Lydia a seller of purple goods who was a worshiper of God. The bible said she opened her heart and paid attention to what was said by Paul. Not to demean her conversion in any way, but today I want to focus on her ability to be hospitable to these men pre and post trial.

I believe it is easy to be hospitable to people who are not going through anything. I also believe it is easy to hospitable to people who have not had anything happen to them that affects their identity and affects yours by what they have gone through. But when association has the ability to demean your stature that is when true hospitality is shown.

Mi Casa es Su Casa

We see that Lydia responded to the teachings of Paul as it pertained to the gospel. Her response to her salvation was ministry. Salvation should prompt you to be hospitable to people.

She could have been thankful for salvation, but she went the extra mile and saw an opportunity to pay it forward. Think of the danger she ultimately put her self in.

Everyone was not a fan of the teachings of Christ. This could have affected her business and even more so her life. But her hospitable heart did not allow fear to get in the way.

Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. 9 Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. 10 As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace:

The bible tells us to show hospitality without complaining. We all have recieved something from God that we did not deserve, being good stewards of grace we should return the favor of God by being good to others.

They might be strangers, they might be from foreign countries God expect us to be hospitable to all of mankind.

The bible states that this is Lydia’s house, there is no mention of a husband, she is a business owner, a homeowner and a very influential woman in her home.

We can infer that what God had blessed her with she used it immediately to bless those who had been sent by God.

Hospitality is encouraging, this type of sisterly or brotherly love keeps us going. Many times when we want to give up it is an act or acts of kindness that keep us going.

She essentially responds to her salvation or baptism with an act of kindness by opening up her home to Paul and the rest of the missionaries at this time.

Hospitality is a devotion to good work, it is up to us to be hospitable to people pre-trial and post trial. This type of hospitality can serve as an encouragement.

Do not hesitate to be hospitable, you never know, your deed of kindness might be the last act of kindness people receive prior to experiencing a life altering trial.

It is really easy to be hospitable to someone who is not going through something. A Sunday afternoon, invite me over for dinner hospitality is a whole lot different than I need a place to stay a couple days because I got evicted type of hospitality.

Lydia opens up her home but it brings the scriptures of to life. “And he said to them, Take nothing for your journey, no staff, no bag, nor bread, nor money; and do not have two tunics. And whatever house you enter, stay there, and from the depart”.

I know we can be hospitable to each other pre-imprisonment, pre-ridicule, pre-embarrassment but how welcoming can you be to me after I’ve went through the incarcerations of life, after I’ve experienced the embarrassment.

These same men that had just stayed in Lydia’s house had been beaten in the city center, thrown in Jail, did not let that stop them from evangelizing. They ended up speaking a saving truth to a man on the brink of suicide.

Even after all of this verse 39 “so they came and apologized to the,. And they took them out and asked them to leave the city. So they went out of the prison and visited Lydia and when they had seen the brothers they encouraged them and departed”.

Hospitality is a ministry we all can engage in.

Hospitality can be the encouragement one needs because you never know what type of trial someone is about to walk into.

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

We become so accustomed to to being in our own homes, worrying about our own lives that we forget that it was God that blessed us with everything we have.

Trust and know that some of the things God has blessed you with are so you can bless others. Fridges filled with food, extra rooms with new furniture that no one is sleeping on, closets of clothes that we do not wear nor does anyone else, refusing to understand that the foundation of the church is built off of hospitality.

And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need.

Do not miss this, many of us will look at this text and read it with a Goodwill mindset, meaning getting rid of the stuff we do not want anymore, but that is not true sacrifice. True sacrifice is getting rid of the stuff you might want because you desire to help those in need.