Hospitality
Hospitality plays no small role in the realm of biblical ethics. Biblical admonitions exhorted the Israelites and the early Christians to practice this virtue. Its practice characterized Abraham ( Gen 18:2-8 ) and the church leaders ( 1 Tim 3:2 ; Titus 1:8 ). And, as hospitality is an attribute of God, one finds its images in the biblical proclamation of the relationship between God and the covenant people.
Hospitality in the ancient world focused on the alien or stranger in need. The plight of aliens was desperate. They lacked membership in the community, be it tribe, city-state, or nation. As an alienated person, the traveler often needed immediate food and lodging. Widows, orphans, the poor, or sojourners from other lands lacked the familial or community status that provided a landed inheritance, the means of making a living, and protection. In the ancient world the practice of hospitality meant graciously receiving an alienated person into one's land, home, or community and providing directly for that person's needs.
Some forms of hospitality toward nonforeign strangers appear to have been commonly practiced among the nations of the biblical world. There appears to have been some decline in hospitality from the period of the Old Testament to that of the New Testament, since hospitality is omitted from later Greco-Roman virtue lists. In its literature, Israel alone seems to have included the foreign sojourner along with those other alienated persons who were to receive care: the widow, the orphan, and the poor. Although the narratives of the patriarchal period advocate receiving the foreigner/stranger at least on a temporary basis (Gen. 18-19), landed Israel showed some ambivalence toward foreign strangers by favorably distinguishing the sojourner, who made some allegiance to the Israelite community of faith, from the foreigner, who might represent some threat to cultic purity. For the early church, hospitality remained an important expression of lovingkindness, one that received support in the teaching of Jesus ( Matt 25:31-46 ; Luke 10:30-37 ; 14:16-24 ; 16:19-31 ).
Hospitality took several forms. Acts of hospitality included the humble and gracious reception of travelers into one's home for food, lodging, and protection ( Gen 18:2-8 ; 19:1-8 ; Job 31:16-23 Job 31:31-32 ), permitting the alienated person to harvest the corners of one's fields ( Lev 19:9-10 ; Deut 24:19-22 ; Ruth 2:2-17 ), clothing the naked ( Isa 58:7 ; Ezekiel 18:7 Ezekiel 18:16 ), tithing food for the needy ( Deut 14:28-29 ; 26:1-11 ), and including the alien in religious celebrations ( Exod 12:48-49 ; Deut 16:10-14 ).