Hospitality: Definition, Duty, Objects, Reasons

Driving home: The forgotten duty and lost art of Christian hospitality.

Martin compares the unvaried but substantial diet of God's word (precepts and promises) to his wife feeding him only meat and potatoes, highlighting the sufficiency of Scripture.

One of the charges that the Apostle Paul gave to the elders of the church at Ephesus was that they should feed the flock of God over which the Holy Ghost had made them an overseer. And the teaching elder, which is the technical name for the one that we call pastor, feeds the flock with both the promises and the precepts of the word of God. Now, that's a very unvaried diet, but it's the most substantial diet and perfectly adequate for all the needs of the people of God. Frankly, if my wife just fed me with a certain kind of meat and potatoes all the time and only had two elements in her diet, I...

0:04 - 0:47 Read in full sermon

The point: Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, reminding yourselves of this duty.

Martin uses the analogy of medical care (nurse, intern, doctor, specialist) to explain that while all believers should practice hospitality, elders are expected to demonstrate it to a greater, more developed degree, not a qualitatively different one.

Let me illustrate. Whenever the care of the human body is concerned, whether it's a nurse, an intern, a family doctor, or a specialist, you desire and you have a right to expect that there shall be carefulness, thoroughness in the area of cleansing and observation of your problem. Those things should mark any medical treatment, whether it's an RN, an intern, a family doctor, or the specialist. Now, you expect a greater degree of it perhaps in the specialist or in the family doctor than you would in what we call the probate, a girl that's in there taking her first year of nurse's training.

17:16 - 18:00 Read in full sermon

The point: If not providentially hindered, cultivate the grace of the open door, or you are sinning against God.

Martin shares his personal example of regularly having others at his table and counseling visitors, challenging the congregation to follow his lead in cultivating hospitality.

Beloved, a few of us can't do it all by ourselves. And just as Paul could say, be ye followers of me even as I am of Christ. In that sense, I say that there's not one Sunday out of four or five that not only is our table graced with the presence of others, but many times my whole afternoon after a full morning and before another evening message is given over to counseling with people who've come among us seeking to enter into their problems. And a few others have caught the vision of this.

20:09 - 20:39 Read in full sermon

Driving home: So the first great ministry then is that of tangibly expressing the love of God as he says in verse 18, my little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth.

Martin recounts his experiences in itinerant ministry, visiting simple country homes with meager furnishings and meals, yet where the 'open door' eloquently expressed Christian love, demonstrating that hospitality isn't about material wealth.

You see, the open door bespeaks an open heart. That's what it bespeaks. What's behind that door doesn't amount to a hill of beans. One of the great blessings that I received amongst many in the five years that I was in an itinerant ministry, much of which was spent not in city churches, but in little country churches, is to be where some people hadn't gotten all wrapped up in confusing Christian hospitality as being basically the table.

28:13 - 28:42 Read in full sermon

The point: Exhort one another daily, sharing struggles and victories in a context of open hearts.

Martin shares a personal anecdote of a Scotsman friend who lovingly but directly rebuked him for too much 'Al Martin' in his sermon, illustrating how hospitality (the open door) fosters the trust needed for mutual exhortation.

We'd actually sometimes sit chairs in a circle and open up our Bibles and tear into one another in love. Say, how about this? Well, sometimes it hurt. Like the time when the young Scotsman came up to me and took the lapel of my coat after I came out of the pulpit and preached and he looked me straight in the eye with his eyes that seemed to look right down into your soul and he said, Al, he said, there's too much Al Martin in that sermon.

32:18 - 32:42 Read in full sermon

Driving home: You entertained me when you entertained my people. In opening the door to my people you opened the door to me.

Martin references Genesis 18, detailing Abraham's hospitality to three strangers who were, unbeknownst to him, the Lord and two angels, illustrating the blessing of entertaining strangers.

He says, well, you just might get blessed in the process for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. And you know what that's a reference to? Turn back to Genesis 18 and you'll see. It seems to be a direct reference to Genesis 18 and here we have a flesh and blood example of what the writer to Hebrews is talking about.

35:59 - 36:24 Read in full sermon