Hospitality

Assuming we have houses, beds, chairs, food, drink, medicine and other provisions to share with others and the needy, we are encouraged to be hospitable. 

Dear friend, you have always been faithful in helping other followers of the Lord, even the ones you didn’t know before. They have told the church about your love. They say you were good enough to welcome them and to send them on their mission in a way that God’s servants deserve. When they left to tell others about the Lord, they decided not to accept help from anyone who wasn’t a follower. We must support people like them, so that we can take part in what they are doing to spread the truth. - 3 John 5-8

Paul and his traveling ministry team were deeply grateful for the hospitality that facilitated their ministry.  Without the support of those disciples called by Jesus to have and share possessions, those called to leave possessions behind couldn't carry out their mission.

We have three good instructions regarding our attitude towards wealth.

Don’t store up treasures on earth! Moths and rust can destroy them, and thieves can break in and steal them.- Matthew 6:19

Warn the rich people of this world not to be proud or to trust in wealth that is easily lost. Tell them to have faith in God, who is rich and blesses us with everything we need to enjoy life. Instruct them to do as many good deeds as they can and to help everyone. Remind the rich to be generous and share what they have.  This will lay a solid foundation for the future, so that they will know what true life is like. - 1 Timothy 6:17-19

 Any of God’s people who are poor should be glad that He thinks so highly of them. - James 1:9

Believers who lived in humble circumstances were not second class but of equal importance - some, because of persecution, lost their possessions and social status and became poor.

Since God hates partiality, the affluent do not marginalise or look down on the less affluent.  It is why ministries to do not court flatter the wealthy or court donors.

Here are five good reasons to be careful when we find ourselves with more than we need.

People who want to be rich fall into all sorts of temptations and traps. They are caught by foolish and harmful desires that drag them down and destroy them.- 1 Timothy 6:9

God blesses his loyal people,
    but punishes all who want
    to get rich quick. - Proverbs 28:20


 Jesus said to his disciples, “It’s terribly hard for rich people to get into the kingdom of heaven!- Matthew 19:23

But they start worrying about the needs of this life. They are fooled by the desire to get rich and to have all kinds of other things. So the message gets choked out, and they never produce anything. - Mark 4:19


Don’t trust in violence
or depend on dishonesty    or rely on great wealth. - Psalm 62:10

 We should not be preoccupied with God's plan for others.

Jesus answered, “What is it to you, if I want him to live until I return? You must follow me.” - John 21:22

May we have not so much that we become proud and independent of the Lord and not so much that distracts us from our purpose or insulates us from our sense of His need and dependence on Him.

Make me absolutely honest
and don’t let me be too poor
    or too rich.
    Give me just what I need. If I have too much to eat,
    I might forget about you;
if I don’t have enough,
    I might steal    and disgrace your name. - Proverbs 30:8-9

 Giving is the safety valve that releases the excess pressure of wealth.


 

Coming to grips with the needs of the poor and the lost

Naked did you not drop from the womb? Shall you not return again naked to the earth? Where have the things you now possess come from? If you say they just spontaneously appeared, then you are an atheist, not acknowledging the Creator, nor showing any gratitude towards the one who gave them. But if you say that they are from God, declare to us the reason why you received them. Is God unjust, who divided to us the things of this life unequally? Why are you wealthy while that other man is poor? Is it, perhaps, in order that you may receive wages for kindheartedness and faithful stewardship, and in order that he may be honored with great prizes for his endurance? But, as for you, when you hoard all these things in the insatiable bosom of greed, do you suppose you do no wrong in cheating so many people? Who is a man of greed? Someone who does not rest content with what is sufficient. Who is a cheater? Someone who takes away what belongs to others. And are you not a man of greed? are you not a cheater? taking those things which you received for the sake of stewardship, and making them your very own? Now, someone who takes a man who is clothed and renders him naked would be termed a robber; but when someone fails to clothe the naked, while he is able to do this, is such a man deserving of any other appellation? The bread which you hold back belongs to the hungry; the coat, which you guard in your locked storage-chests, belongs to the naked; the footwear mouldering in your closet belongs to those without shoes. The silver that you keep hidden in a safe place belongs to the one in need. Thus, however many are those whom you could have provided for, so many are those whom you wrong. - St. Basil the Great, Sermon to the Rich

 But obedience to the Great Commission has more consistently been poisoned by affluence than by anything else. The antidote for affluence is reconsecration. Consecration is by definition the "setting apart of things for holy use." Affluence did not keep Bordon of Yale from giving his life in Egypt. Affluence didn't stop Francis of Assisi from moving against the tide of his time.- Ralph Winter, Money and Mission

 Wealth is not limited - it can be produced and enlarged.

 But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing today. - Deuteronomy 8:18

Wealth is being produced every day as a result of ingenuity and hard work.

If we have indeed exploited the poor then we need to face up to it.  We should adopt the posture of Zacchaeus who determined to pay back fourfold those whom he had cheated.

We are to feel responsible to compassionately and wisely use our abundance to help the less fortunate.  Every person is our neighbour, and we are to show mercy and care for each in their need.

There is a letter from Roman emperor Julian to Arsacius, the High-priest of Galatia when he was on his way to Antioch.  He makes some interesting comments, but this one compliment was an interesting sentence --

"For it is disgraceful that, when no Jew ever has to beg, and the impious Galilaeans support not only their own poor but ours as well, all men see that our people lack aid from us."

 Third-century Christian author Tertullian observed,

“It is our care for the helpless, our practice of loving kindness that brands us in the eyes of many of our opponents. ‘Only look,’ they say, ‘look how they love one another!’”

So there was a hope and peace in Christians that was nurtured by the Holy Spirit. There was an attitude of outgoing love even in the sore trial they faced. Around A.D. 260, at the time of the plague, Dionysus wrote:

Most of our brother Christians showed unbounded love and loyalty; never sparing themselves and thinking only of one another. Heedless of danger, they took charge of the sick, attending to their every need and ministering to them in Christ, and with them departed this life serenely happy; for they were infected by others with the disease, drawing on themselves the sickness of their neighbors and cheerfully accepting their pains. Many, in nursing and caring for others, transferred their death to themselves and died in their stead…. The best of our brothers lost their lives in this manner, a number of presbyters, deacons, and laymen winning high commendation so that death in this form, the result of great piety and strong faith, seems in every way the equal of martyrdom.

John Wesley came up with rules for church stewards and here is one of them --

If you cannot relieve, do not grieve, the poor. Give them soft words, if nothing else; abstain from either sour looks or harsh words. Let them be glad to come, even though they should go empty away. Put yourself in the place of every poor man, and deal with him as you would God should deal with you.

John Wesley personally practised what he preached.  He limited his expenditures by not buying the kinds of things generally considered essential for a man in his station of life. In 1776 the English tax commissioners inspected his return and wrote back,

“[We] cannot doubt but you have plate for which you have hitherto neglected to make entry.” They assumed that a man of his prominence certainly had silver dinnerware in his house, and they wanted him to pay the proper tax on it. Wesley wrote back, “I have two silver spoons at London and two at Bristol. This is all the plate I have at present, and I shall not buy any more while so many round me want bread.”