The Blessing of Christian Hospitality

Cover Article

by Michael Jones · Week of July 19, 2026

Picture a lamp burning in a window on a dark street. The door stands open. Inside, bread is being broken, laughter is rising, and a stranger is being called by name for the first time. That scene is not a Hallmark moment; it is a snapshot of the living church. Paul commands with striking directness: “Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality” (Romans 12:13). The verb he uses, dioko, to pursue, is the same word used elsewhere for chasing down a fleeing enemy. We are not to wait until hospitality becomes convenient; we are to hunt for opportunities to welcome others. The writer of Hebrews reinforces the urgency: “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it” (Hebrews 13:2). Every unfamiliar face at your door may carry a purpose you cannot yet see. Peter weaves hospitality into stewardship itself: “Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms” (1 Peter 4:9–10). Your kitchen table and your spare bedroom do not belong to you in the final accounting. They are tools entrusted to you by the God who owns “the cattle on a thousand hills” (Psalm 50:10). When you set an extra plate, you are not depleting your pantry; you are investing in eternity. God refills the hands that give freely: “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap” (Luke 6:38).

The earliest Christians understood this instinctively. Luke records that they “broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people” (Acts 2:46–47). Their homes were outposts of the gospel, not private retreats. When Lydia obeyed the gospel at the riverside in Philippi, her first impulse was stunning: “She invited us into her home” (Acts 16:15). She did not wait for a better season of life. She trusted God and flung the door open. Priscilla and Aquila welcomed Apollos and “explained to him the way of God more adequately” (Acts 18:26). Their dining room became a seminary of two. Martha and Mary received Jesus himself under their roof (Luke 10:38–42), and there the Lord taught one of His most piercing lessons: that sitting at His feet is the “good part” no one can take away. Notice the pattern: hospitality did not merely bless the guest; it transformed the host. Every opened door became a corridor through which God walked in and did something new. Paul captures the principle: “My God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19). When you trust Him enough to share what you have, He proves trustworthy by supplying what you need.

Our culture trains us to guard our spaces. We build privacy fences and arrange our schedules so tightly that an unexpected guest feels like an intrusion. But Jesus calls His people in the opposite direction: “When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed” (Luke 14:13–14). He is describing a hospitality that reaches past the circle of people who can repay you. We wonder why loneliness persists even in a congregation full of friendly faces. We offer classes and programs, all good things, but what the aching heart truly longs to hear is, “Come sit at my table. You matter here.” Hospitality speaks that language fluently. “Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth” (1 John 3:18). So here is the gentle challenge: open your door this week. Invite a single member to lunch. Welcome a new family for a simple supper. Host a small group for prayer and Scripture. You do not need a spotless house or a chef’s recipe. People are not coming for your décor; they are coming because they long to be known. “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8). God gave you a home not merely as shelter but as a tool for His kingdom. Use it. Trust Him with it. Let your table become an altar of fellowship where hearts are fed and faith is strengthened. The blessing of Christian hospitality is simply this: when you open your door to others, God opens His heart to you. - MJ

Other congregations are welcome to reprint this. It may be reproduced in another congregation’s bulletin or newsletter without asking permission. An acknowledgement of Orange View Church of Christ is appreciated but not required.

Bible Questions & Answers

What does the Bible say about tattoos and body modifications?

This question surfaces regularly, particularly among younger Christians, and it warrants a thoughtful, text-driven answer rather than a reflexive reply in either direction. The passage most frequently raised is Leviticus 19:28: “Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the Lord.” At first glance the prohibition appears absolute. Yet careful exegesis demands that we read the verse within its literary and historical context. The Hebrew phrase translated “tattoo marks” is qa‘aqa‘, a hapax legomenon, a word that appears nowhere else in the entire Old Testament. Its meaning must be established from the surrounding material. The immediate context forbids cutting the body for the dead (a Canaanite mourning ritual), consuming blood (Leviticus 19:26), divination (19:26), and trimming the beard in a specific cultic fashion (19:27). Every prohibition in this block addresses a practice bound up with pagan religious customs. God was drawing a clear line: “You must be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy” (Leviticus 19:2). The tattoo prohibition, then, was not a blanket condemnation of ink beneath the skin; it was a command forbidding participation in idolatrous rituals that used body markings as devotion to false gods.

This raises the crucial question of authority: does Leviticus 19:28 bind the Christian at all? Here we must set aside a common but mistaken approach—the habit of reaching back into the Law of Moses, sorting its commands into “moral” and “ceremonial” categories, and keeping whichever ones we judge to be moral in nature. Scripture never authorizes that kind of dissection. It treats the law as a single, indivisible covenant that stands or falls as a unit: “whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it” (James 2:10), and the man who takes up any part of it is “obligated to obey the whole law” (Galatians 5:3). That entire covenant has now been fulfilled in Christ and taken out of the way. Paul writes that Christ “canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross” (Colossians 2:14). What was nailed there was the law—not a fragment of it. Jesus said He came “not to abolish [the Law or the Prophets] but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17), and in fulfilling them He rendered that first covenant “obsolete” (Hebrews 8:13). This is why Paul can go on to say, “do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ” (Colossians 2:16–17). The prohibition of Leviticus 19:28 and the Ten Commandments alike belonged to that fulfilled law, and we do not reach back into it to bind the conscience of a Christian.

This does not leave the believer without a moral standard; it simply locates that standard where it belongs—in the New Testament. And when we listen to the apostolic writings, we discover that God has carried every weighty moral matter forward under the new covenant. The New Testament itself teaches, plainly and repeatedly, against murder, theft, adultery, coveting, dishonoring parents, and bearing false witness (Romans 13:9; 1 Corinthians 6:9–10; Ephesians 6:1–2). In fact, of the Ten Commandments, nine are restated as binding upon Christians; the lone exception is the command to remember the Sabbath, which is precisely why the Lord’s people gather to worship on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2) rather than the seventh. We keep these standards not because some surviving portion of the old law still reaches us, but because Christ and His apostles command them of us now. One further point is easy to overlook: the Law of Moses was never given to us in the first place. It was given to Israel (Deuteronomy 5:1–3; Romans 9:4), and Gentile believers were never parties to that covenant. So to invoke Leviticus 19:28 as a rule binding a Christian today is mistaken on two counts—the law has been fulfilled and set aside, and we were never under it to begin with. We do well to study the verse, as we have, to understand what God required of Israel and why; but we must be crystal clear that it carries no direct, binding authority over the Christian.

However, the absence of a direct prohibition does not mean the matter is trivial. The New Testament introduces a governing principle for every decision about our bodies. Paul writes: “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies” (1 Corinthians 6:19–20). The Greek word naos, translated “temple,” denotes the inner sanctuary, the holy of holies, not just any building. Paul is affirming that the Spirit dwells in the most sacred possible sense within the believer’s body.

This does not automatically forbid tattoos, but it establishes a weighty framework: every choice regarding the body should be made with reverence for the One who inhabits it. Paul also teaches in Romans 14:23 that “everything that does not come from faith is sin.” If your conscience is troubled about a tattoo, that conviction matters; do not override it simply because others call it permissible.

Beyond conscience, there is the matter of witness. Paul writes, “‘I have the right to do anything,’ you say, but not everything is beneficial. ‘I have the right to do anything,’ but not everything is constructive” (1 Corinthians 10:23). Christian liberty is genuine, but it is never self-serving. If a tattoo would cause a weaker brother or sister to stumble (Romans 14:13–15), or would hinder your gospel witness, wisdom calls you to set that freedom aside for love’s sake.

We urge younger Christians especially to think carefully before making permanent decisions about the body. Ask honestly: What is my motive? Does this honor God? Will this help or hinder my witness? Am I acting from faith or impulse? The bottom line: tattoos are not inherently sinful under the new covenant, but neither are they a matter of indifference. They fall into the category of Christian liberty governed by stewardship, conscience, love for others, and the overarching call to “do it all for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). - MJ