Practice hospitality. (Romans 12:13)
We’ve been studying what Paul says about the importance of love in overcoming evil with good, the focus of Romans 12. Let’s continue this study by looking at verse 13. “Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.”
Sharing with God’s people who are in need means to share with others as if their needs were our own. There is a partnership pictured here. It is not sharing from our excess, what we can spare easily. It is making their need your own need.
When he adds to this injunction that we should “practice hospitality,” he is expanding this act of mercy to anyone in need, not just God’s people. Why do I say that? Because the word translated hospitality has the idea of “fondness or affection for strangers.”
In addition the word practice has within it the idea of pursuing, to seek after eagerly, earnestly endeavoring to acquire something. Caring for the needs of others is not something that comes naturally for most of us. We must pursue it earnestly, looking for opportunities to give of ourselves in helping others.
Practicing hospitality with fellow believers generally involves people we enjoy being with and who likely will return the favor. What Paul encourages here is reaching out to the undesirable, the stranger, the one who would not be in a position to return the favor. This is a sincere expression of agape love, a love that is interested in the welfare of the one loved without looking for anything in return or looking at the cost to self.
If we as Christians practiced this kind of hospitality God would turn the world upside down through us.
