The Gospel Comes with a House Key
The Jesus Paradox (5|5)
The Vitality of Hospitality
Pages 41-46
TOGETHER read the book and discuss the content below.
INDIVIDUALLY take notes in your journal on what stands out (try to keep it brief).
2 Corinthians 10:4-6 (NIV) The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
Isaiah 52:7 (NIV) How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!”
In order to practice radically ordinary hospitality as spiritual warfare - we must be deep in the means of. grace and fluent with the way that God’s law and God’s grace cannot be compromised or detached.
TOGETHER pray for one another.
INDIVIDUALLY answer the questions in your journal - process your notes and pray.
Committing your life to good neighboring is both art and science.
The quaint and sometimes misleading moniker “Christian hospitality” beckons mystery, births community, and bequeaths truth telling. Hospitality commands the kind of truth telling that makes your teeth stand on edge. It sounds domestic, but it really shakes the gates of heaven for the souls of the people you feed, hold, and love.
What is your response to these statements?
What is your definition of “Christian hospitality”?
Below is a prayer for good neighboring. Feel free to pray it as-is or change the wording to make it more your own.
Dear Lord, give me a faith in Jesus that says, “I love my neighbor because she is mine, and not because she loves me back.” Show me how you loved those who were hurting even when it wasn’t comfortable, and help me to repent of the selfishness, fear, and idolatry that keeps me from loving fellow image bearers. Build in me a willingness and humility to be both a guest and a host.
EXTRA READING:
“Sabbath observance invites us to stop. Invites us to rest. It asks us to notice that while we rest, the world continues without our help. It invites us to delight in the world’s beauty and abundance.”
- Wendell Berry, American novelist, poet, essayist, and farmer (born 1934)