How should we live?

Part of the series on core values

Hospitality is disappearing from the American scene, except as is practiced by more upscale hotels. What used to be the arena of the gracious home, now is the domain of those having degrees in 'hotel and restaurant management.' Whom did the Apostles Paul and Peter and John have in mind when they talked about hospitality as a trait of the Godly?

Well, simplistically we could say that Paul was talking to the church in Rome, and specifically to Gaius in Romans 16. We would be a little more hard-pressed to pinpoint to whom Peter was talking. John, in 3 John, was obviously talking to Gaius.

The implication, from reading all associated passages mentioning the acts of hospitality, is summed up with these two verses:

Ro.12:13 ...Practice hospitality. 

I Peter 4:9 Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.

There's no way I can see to get around it - they intended everyone reading this to understand it as a mandate. It is to be a core value! 

We are to practice hospitality without grumbling.

So, what is hospitality? That, my dear friend, is a definition left between you and the Holy Spirit. 

It isn't a matter of how little can I get by with, but rather, can I do enough. It isn't a quota, but a lifestyle. It isn't a task, but a great pleasure.

Until it is a great pleasure, it isn't a core value. If it isn't a core value, it is merely a philosophy with which we agree and not a belief by which we live our lives.