This unfamiliar godly principle is spoken of beginning in Romans, continuing in 1 Timothy and Titus and finally in 1 Peter 4:9. In Romans, Timothy, and Titus, the direct command to “be given to showing hospitality” is a weighing in for all church leaders, but according to Peter, it is not considered only a must for leaders in the church; but for everyone.For, for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit. But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch to prayer. And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins. Use hospitality one to another without grudging. As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. 1 Peter 4:6-9

We often think of hospitality as a challenging and often overwhelming role of host. Being a host and being hospitable are two different things, yet linked. Being hospitable is a virtue that American culture is fast losing. Fast paced life styles, constant business, and agendas waiting to be met, are shutting down this avenue of relations and styling a life or external indifference and internal recluse. Hospitality is played out in an often business-like or premeditated form. Hospitality in American culture may mean inviting friends to our house for occasional meals, parties, or socializing in some public event. To the American mentality, hospitality means lots extra work, salary depletion, and time lost from our jobs, hobbies, sports and personal time.

As Christians, I think it is very necessary that we rethink and become re-accustomed to hospitality the way God wants us to see it, and begin practicing the fervent charity and ungrudging hospitality. I have heard 1 Peter 4:9 described in this way. “Hospitality is a gift just as the gift of evangelism. If God has given you the gift of hospitality then you should minister the same.”

This is definitely the wrong way to look at it. The Lord is telling us this… …as every man hath received the gift… of the manifold grace of God…even so minister the same[manifold grace of God] one to another, as good stewards…. To use the excuse that you just weren’t called to show hospitality, is like giving God’s own promise of grace an edge. It like saying “maybe I wasn’t called to receive the grace of God”. We all know that His grace is for everyone who believes on Him.

Hospitality in its essence is this – making yourself available to others. To make yourself available, opens the field quite a lot and cuts out our narrow minded thinking. Hospitality is not just inviting people to your house for a meal, a Sunday afternoon visit, or giving up your bed; but includes being there for someone that needs to talk, being willing to pray with someone, allowing someone into your heart, going out of your way to befriend, and noticing needs and meeting them as the opportunity arises. Practicing making yourself available to others is something that you can do no matter what your situation may be.

For some single young ladies, the idea of practicing hospitality by inviting someone to your home for a meal, maybe more of a liberty than she is permitted by her parents. However, there are so many other things you can do if your heart is to learn this virtue. I will attempt to share a few of my own experiences and some very practical advice in this direction. I promise you, you will find hospitality an addictive joy and a virtue that will bring you so much fulfillment.

The first thing I would like to say is, learn hospitality with your family. Is it difficult to reach out to your family members and give of yourself to them? Think of ways to surprise, bless, and serve your dad and the male figures in your life. This may seem very strange, but is a crucial step in learning to serve. Being a servant to your Mom is very good, but learning to attend to the needs of your man is very important first of all as a daughter, and later in life a wife. I know that there is no way that you can fully prepare yourself for the life you will live after you are married, but there is no doubt that it will be easy for you to be a sweet, collected wife and mother, if you learn the art of hospitality with your own family. Where better a place to learn than working alongside your mother and sister to continuously surprise your father and brothers with tasty meals, cold drinks of water, a bright smile, and warm loving atmosphere that moves with you? Be an eager beaver in including other people in your life… this is where hospitality takes place. It may be by building relationships within your immediate family, but it also goes so much farther by including your friends, relatives and neighbors, along with a host of people who continuously flow in and out of your life.

I was raised with the mentality that hospitality is work – lots of extra work, and a way to impress the guests with food and a good time. Our house is rather small and my parents weren’t always of great means. It was therefore a huge family affair, and we as a family made huge efforts to occasionally invite a family of our friends over for a meal or a Sunday afternoon. My parents were raised in a culture where guests were treated as royalty, food was abundant, and having the house spotlessly clean was a necessity.

Even now at times I instinctively think of Victorian hospitality as idealistic. Unfortunately we no longer have maids and butlers to do all our work therefore it’s us doing the frantic hurrying about trying to be both maid and hostess. I know that this is one of the biggest reasons that I would ever find hospitality overwhelming. We are setting our standards by standards that are no longer normal. So rather than enjoying our guests and not worrying so much about the huge impression we are leaving, slow down and think of your guests as real people and normal and slow down to enjoy them.

I have visited many, many homes and there is one home that sticks out to me above all the others. I’ve never felt more at home anywhere, as I could feel there. I think I could count on one hand the times that I entered that home, and yet it seemed that when I walked in the door it was as though I was arriving home. It wasn’t that the family was messy, or on the other extreme, spotless. It wasn’t that they treated me like a princess, nor did they make me feel like a nobody – when I was there they made me feel like one of them. It wasn’t that I was a life time friend of the family; they just knew how to give what they had and they were themselves. I think that the greatest way to show hospitality is being your real self, and giving the gift of you to the one that you are trying to serve.

Usually, a false front is more obvious to the guest, than to the one putting it on. People who put on fronts somehow tend to convince themselves that they really are the people they are pretending to be. Uncomfortable guests are most likely uncomfortable, because you are uncomfortable. Once I was in a home of a family of fronts. Everyone was as stiff as cardboard and although I was enjoying spending time with my dear friend, the meal with the whole family was awful. I never want to relive the experience. The food was passed in the most dignified way. Everyone was polite and quiet and well mannered. Suddenly the “perfect” family meal was bashed out and real people began to sog through sodden teary shells. What I thought was a stiff, polite, nice family, had turned into a bowl of seething anger and bitter tears; selfishness and impatience. One of the little girls was sent away from the table for a slight misdemeanor (that I hadn’t even noticed because it happens all the time at our house too). She had embarrased her family in front of me and was being punished. I asked my friend later if such actions where consistent and she said; “No, I’m sure dad just didn’t want to embarrass you.” I said to my dear friend; “I was more embarrassed by what happened. Your poor sister can hardly bare to face me again.” Not only was the family uncomfortable with me as a guest, but now I knew it too.

When you have guests, be yourself. Guests love seeing YOU and they will love you just like you are normally, just as your family loves you for who you are. At our house, guests are becoming highlights and the simplest pleasures of all. I love cooking for guests and stretching their taste buds. I must tell you about the fun we had when I invited my pastor and his wife over for a meal of Thai stir fry. We were having a great meal and laughing and talking about our days, and all the things that we normally do when we sit down to a meal. I politely asked our guests if they would like to be served more stir fry. (Normally we eat by the “you want it… you take it” rule here, but you never know about guests, so it’s nice to offer and serve them especially). My pastor said that, yes, he would like more. So I got up to serve him more. The large spoon in the wok in the center of the table was full of slippery Chinese noodles. As I passed over my pastor’s glass of ice water, plop, I lost a noodle! How embarrassing and yet so funny. We all laughed so hard about it and had a great time. Moments later the pastor’s wife was being served and the same thing happened. Catastrophic family of servers; yes, we must be that. But that night we bonded in a very special way with our new pastor and our relationship has grown so much. (By the way he still mentions the Chinese noodle at times) .

Beginning with friends is a great way to deepen hospitality skills. I know, friends can be very intimidating especially because you know their status of living, and sort of know what they expect from you. I know how intimidating even the dearest of friends can be. Nevertheless, give of what you have and never, never apologize about gifts that God has given you; your house or your food. Hospitality is not about trying to appear on ‘the same level as the one you are having as a guest but rather just being and giving of yourself’.

American culture is constantly changing its patterns of food and if we have to eat the same thing for three days, we think we are crazy. For instance, if I were very poor and were thinking of serving something to the president I would think of a Coney Dog as rude and inadequate but on the flip side of the coin I would probably feel fine feeding another child the Coney. These are huge contrasts but a very real way of thinking for anyone because we always tend to give our very best for the great people. As Christians though, what we do unto the least of these we do it unto Jesus.

Giving our best out of our means is always enough. Never be embarrassed to serve something “normal” to your guest. Even a burned meal can be endured where there is peace, healing, and happiness.

I had a friend who was a student of mine in an English class I was teaching to Burmese refugees. I invited him to have a Sunday afternoon meal with us. Mom had fixed a normal meal; pot roast and corn. We had strawberries and shortcake for desert, and afterward guitar music and singing. My friend was very intimidated by my family and our riches. He had nothing except everything that he could pack in a small suitcase. Now he was sitting in a house 7 times bigger than his own home in Burma (and our house is very small – 4 small bedrooms for 9 people). I learned another skill about hospitality that day. Sometimes giving your best is too much. His feelings of being over whelmed by our “wealth” could have been stinted by us lowering ourselves to his level. The meal could have consisted of less variety in accordance with his cultural normality, we could have closed doors in the dining area and kitchen to make things feel smaller and more cramped (a homey feeling), and talked more about his home and family in our broken way, rather than enjoying music and fast English words and expressions. Although my dear friend’s trip to my house was a good educating experience for him, it was very taxing and exhausting. Later another student said to me, ” – says you live in a palace! Is this true?”
When being hospitable to people of other cultures, be very sensitive to the culture they come from. Refugees, immigrants, and other international people are flooding the United States and are coming to our back yards. There are literally foreign missions just miles away from virtually any of our homes.

Over 99% of these people are looking for American friends and long to fit in and belong in some way to our culture. There are so many open doors here in our own country. Next time you see a Muslim lady, walk up to her, and smile and shake her hand. Say hello and introduce yourself. I can almost guarantee that the first time you do this you will have a positive response. You may get very far out of your comfort zone, but this too is a very large part of God’s command to show hospitality. A smile is an internationally understood language; speak it. A very good challenge though is give yourself away spontaneously. Like I said before many people practice hospitality in a wide sense, but don’t know how to be hospitable in a situation when they feel less than prepared for the task that they are forced to accept.

A family I once knew was moving to another area, when a group of church friends rallied and threw a surprise party for them. The fact that 100 people spent an hour on their lawn was a shock to them and they felt threatened and frenzied. They said later that they totally missed the blessing that their body of friends where trying to bestow. Sister – told me later that at that point, she would have needed several weeks of notice before she could have enjoyed such a quick party on her front lawn. When asked why, she said, “I had absolutely no time to prepare my house, or lawn, or time to dress in better clothes, etc.” She had missed the blessing because she had not taken time before to learn how to give of what she had without apology.
My mother taught me many valuable ways to make a meal twice the size intended in less than half an hour. My mother keeps a variety of fast meals on hand for times when we’ve run late or had unexpected guests. Some of these basics are macaroni, rice, potatoes, and bread. Our basement is groaning too with cans and cans of fruit and vegetables. Canning is a very efficient way of preparing for guests… a snack, a meal, or a gift of love.
Hosting someone need not include a large feast of fancy food, or a well thought out planned set menu for after the meal either. In simplicity, is happiness and the earlier that you learn about contentment and committed-ness to serving, the closer you are to being about to give yourself away in a godly way in a selfless way… the way of hospitality. Of course I must make myself perfectly clear as well, there is nothing wrong with having a large meal or planning about what you want to do with your guests. Being spontaneous though, is so much fun.

Our family loves to sing, play outside games, inside family card or board games, or sit around and talk. Our guests are invited to do whatever our family wants to do. It is uncomfortable for a guest to ask to do something. Normal guests want to be asked to participate in something; not initiate activity. Being with friends and strangers has been so comfortable when I am invited to join into their family plans. Often as hosts we think that something that we normally do, would be boring to guests. In reality though, to keep everyone active or interested is just to be natural and normal. Invite your guests to do things that you need to do or would like to do. You will get to know each other so much faster and have such a good time.

Alone on a Sunday afternoon, I read, or take a nap, or work on a needle work project. These activities obviously won’t work if you are entertaining guests, unless your guest is staying a long time and really would like a nap too, or would like to read or work on a project of their own. Do things with your guests that you enjoy and that you can include others in. Hobbies like card making, scrapbooking, or hiking can be very fun to do together. Or on larger scale you may want a game to entertain a whole family. Our family loves playing games like Boggle, Scrabble, Dictionary, Occupation, Pictionary and Dutch Blitz.

Once, after leaving our home, one of my friends wrote to me and said, “I’ve never been anywhere where I felt so much like I could be myself. I had so much fun!” When the hosts are comfortable with themselves, the guest will automatically begin letting their own guards down. You will find addicting joy in entertaining and making yourself available to others, and find a whole world of friends and blessings awaiting you. Hospitality no longer is a command and something that you have to do, but rather a joy. True there will be those that are difficult experiences, but look at them as your challenges. God enjoys the impossible.