God Running is a place for anyone who wants to (or even anyone who wants to want to) love Jesus more deeply, follow Jesus more closely, and love people the way Jesus wants us to.
In our last post from the book of Acts we saw how Paul had a choice between two paths: a very difficult path, and a path that was apparently easier. If you’re interested you can learn more here: “The Easy Way vs. the Hard Way–Acts 21:7-14”.
In today’s post we’ll see how Paul was received by believers during his journey.
Acts 21:15-17
After this, we started on our way up to Jerusalem. Some of the disciples from Caesarea accompanied us and brought us to the home of Mnason, where we were to stay. He was a man from Cyprus and one of the early disciples.
When we arrived at Jerusalem, the brothers and sisters received us warmly.
(Acts 21:15-17 NIV)
Kathy and I know a couple who have blessed us with their close friendship over the years. When we first met they lived in a small cheap apartment. But what stood out about our visits was their warm welcoming hospitality.
This couple began following Christ before we did. And they might not realize it but the way they welcomed us was a big part of what attracted us to Jesus.
In today’s passage we see how the brothers and sisters in Jerusalem received Paul warmly. And in the previous verses we see how Paul was accompanied by some of the disciples and how a man named Mnason provided a place for Paul to stay.
It seems to me in today’s society, warm hospitality is undervalued. There are so many interesting things to do in the world, we can feel as though opportunities to provide hospitality are too disruptive to our interests and our routines.
I think the warmth and hospitality we see in our passage today, and in many other places in the Bible, is pleasing to the Lord and an example for us to follow.
The way other Jesus followers treated Paul with warmth and hospitality is how you and I can provide warmth and hospitality too.
It’s another way you and I can love like Jesus.
“Father, please fill me and the dear person reading this right now with the deep abiding love of Jesus for You and for others. Help us to recognize the opportunities You send us to provide warm hospitality the way the believers did for Paul.
“In Jesus’ name we ask this of You.
“Amen.”
Image of a warm welcome via pxhere.com — Public Domain
Available on Google Play Books and on Amazon!
Love Like Jesus: How Jesus Loved People (and how you can love like Jesus)
Love Like Jesus begins with the story of how after a life of regular church attendance and Bible study, Bennett was challenged by a pastor to study Jesus. That led to an obsessive seven year deep dive. After pouring over Jesus’ every interaction with another human being, he realized he was doing a much better job of studying Jesus’ words than he was following Jesus’ words and example. The honest and fearless revelations of Bennett’s own moral failures affirm he wrote this book for himself as much as for others. Love Like Jesus examines a variety of stories, examples, and research, including:
- Specific examples of how Jesus communicated God’s love to others.
- How Jesus demonstrated all five of Gary Chapman’s love languages (and how you can too).
- The story of how Billy Graham extended Christ’s extraordinary love and grace toward a man who misrepresented Jesus to millions.
- How to respond to critics the way Jesus did.
- How to love unlovable people the way Jesus did.
- How to survive a life of loving like Jesus (or how not to become a Christian doormat).
- How Jesus didn’t love everyone the same (and why you shouldn’t either).
- How Jesus guarded his heart by taking care of himself–he even napped–and why you should do the same.
- How Jesus loved his betrayer Judas, even to the very end.
With genuine unfiltered honesty, Love Like Jesus, shows you how to live a life according to God’s definition of success: A life of loving God well, and loving the people around you well too.
A life of loving like Jesus. (Kindle, hardcover, and paperback now available on Amazon and the ebook is now available on Google Play Books.)
We are building a new home that has a studio apartment and we are praying that God can use this extra space to glorify his Kingdom.
A HOSPITALITY MISSION FIELD
Posted onOctober 15 by Agent X
I wrote a book on Christian hospitality that is nearing completion (barring a sudden editor to help me revamp it one last time, who as yet is unknown to me). I wrote the bulk of it two years ago, and I hope to engage in self-styled guerilla publishing soon (going so far as to not even call it a “book” at all). (Yeah. What else do you call it? I dunno yet, but one blog reader has suggested calling in an “intervention” which sounds interesting to me.)
Anyway, I am not posting today to talk about THAT. However, it is significant to my post, and so I mention it up front.
The thing is this: I already researched, studied, and produced a study of my own on the topic. In my estimation, God dropped the project on my lap. I wasn’t running from it, but initially I had no interest BECAUSE the very idea of “hospitality” was both completely off my radar and beneath my contempt. (Ain’t that a hoot?) But way back shortly before the pandemic broke out, a reader here (who hasn’t visited in a very long time now) suggested, based on the kinds of things I promote, that I read a book called I Was A Stranger by Arthur Sutherland.
To be frank, I was well aware of the passage in Hebrews 13:2, but it was such an independent, free-floating notion to me at the time, I just had not plugged it into my study, work, and experiences in street ministry. (Shame on me! I should have been all over that like white on rice!!!) And, also to be frank, I had the idea that any “study” of hospitality would be something written by older (not younger) Christian women dealing with social graces, home decor, and possibly a bit about the “hospitality industry” if it got serious. I just don’t care if the drapes match the doilies or if your salad fork is on the left or the right.
In the end, I didn’t use Sutherland’s book all that much, but he demonstrated for me quite clearly that there are huge theological implications for biblical hospitality, and I ran to my own library for more. I searched ABD and found John Koenig’s contribution there, and discovered this is central to my cause, AND is already well mapped out in Christian scholarship, but somehow had not surfaced in any of my studies.
I freely confess, I purchased three (maybe four) books on the topic after that, but I found so much hiding in the footnotes and obscure chapters of books I already own, that I was able to cobble together a full research project just in my home office. (Yes, a couple of internet cites too.) And I was kept busy with this throughout the pandemic – precisely when the whole world was shutting out the whole world! (Ironic.)
But, and here is where all that is going TODAY, even though I have a complete project, a whole study on Christian hospitality, complete with my own syntheses, assertions, hypotheses, and conclusions, I’ve had about two years since this project to continue thinking and acting on the things I have learned and wish to share.
Man, I have enough supplemental experience, information, and insight now to write a companion to the original project with still isn’t published.
I’m finding myself turning ideas around and inside out, looking at them with whole new perspectives. I a talking about biblical ideas we are already quite familiar with in OTHER terms, but now with new perspective, they come alive in whole new ways I never imagined. AND neither have you.
Anyone who still reads here (and that number seems to be dwindling terribly) and finds any value in this blog, I ask you to pray on it with me. I have something to offer to my church and to the world, but practically no way to share it. I can’t even get my own family to take this seriously or even read a single chapter of it.
So, this is sorta a shot in the dark. Who are you, the reader I have left? Care to pray with me about this? Do you have any connections or skills that might help?
Okay, so, let me put together one of these new perspectives for you. See what YOU think.
Missions.
Hospitality.
Now put them together.
How do they fit?
Well, for starts, think of Jesus sending out the 12 (or the 72). This is mission. But how are they sent? “Take nothing with you… stay at the home where you are received and eat what they feed you…”
Hmmm… The mission Jesus sends his missionaries out on requires they find hospitality. And when you study hospitality in the Bible and in Bedouin people, you quickly discover how much a host puts their home on the line for guests! There are some deep, life-giving/life-sustaining exchanges going on in this mission/hospitality scenario.
When I was in school, 25 years ago, Gailyn Van Rheenen was teaching us Bible missions students how historically the church had begun setting up fortresses in host cultures. There was a defensive posture in this. A bubble of cultural safety and superiority created behind “mission” walls from which to disseminate the Gospel and charity to the locals. This, 25 years ago, was coming in for review and found lacking.
I’m now seeing what it lacked.
When Jesus sent out those first missionaries, they still had not witnessed a crucified and risen savior! These were not men with Bible degrees, post grad work, medical doctors, or any of that. They did not raise money from contributions or organizations, and they took all manner of clothes, food, and other things with them when they went. There was no interdependence at all.
On the contrary, God revealed himself to both the host family AND THE MISSIONARIES in the breaking of the bread!
How’s THAT? We just had the first segment of this little Bible study, and it is quite revolutionary. Wouldn’t you say?
And after almost four years thinking on these things, I am prepared to tell you it is only scratching the surface. There is so much more to explore here.
Think about your heart for a moment.
We are always talking about LOVE and about your heart. And rightly so! But in our modern, American cultural lens, that sure struggles to represent MORE than a feeling. No?
Where your heart is, there your treasure is also.
Ever heard THAT?
Meet a bum on the street and have a warm feeling for him. Okay! Try it. (Hey! It is a start! and I support THAT!) Give him $5 out of your whole treasure, and call that the love of God if you can. OR, conversely, go to MY church, pay $30 to take a class published by Lupton, Corbett, and Fikkert which will spend weeks outlining to you how sharing your $5 is wrong and damaging to that bum. (Hint: It’s a smoke screen to hide your greed behind, and come Judgment Day, when the King separates goats and sheep, those who gave water, food, shelter, and care (ahem, hospitality) to the least of these, will go with the sheep.)
What does this have to do with missions?
Your heart and treasure are a mission field, bro. YOU are in need of Christ. It’s a two way street, and the roles reverse all the time. Oh, yeah. God is both missionary and host! Ultimately, he is host, but he plays both roles all the time, and he does it IN YOUR STUFF (or the stuff formerly known as yours).
Think about it.
And let’s talk.
Do you want to help me finish formulating this project and guerilla publishing it?
Let’s talk.
Do you want to learn more, perhaps obtain a copy?
Let’s talk.
It’s a two way street.
Hospitality and missions. They belong together. It goes a long way in explaining why/how the first century church met in homes, I expect. And, THAT church was relevant, spreading around the world with power.
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…may we be…
Amen John!
Thank you Kurt Bennett for sharing this message to us of hospitality…may be hospitable to others, sharing the love of Jesus,…God Bless you my friend!
God bless you John! You inspire me!