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[Minister Monardo]

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[Arc F1]

Titus 1:8. Be a lover of hospitality.
1 Peter 4:9. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.

For many people the mention of hospitality calls to mind Martha Stewart more than the Gospels. While it is worthy to mention the value of opening your home to others, there
is a bit more being conveyed in these words.
The word being translated hospitality actually means loving kindness to strangers. And the word strangers refers to resident aliens, minorities, and sojourners in the land. In other words, these scriptures are dealing with the age old problem of ethnicity, prejudice and racism. Do you really think that will ever be properly dealt with outside of Christ?

The Law and The Prophets
Exodus 23:9. Also you shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the heart of a stranger, because you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

Leviticus 19:34. The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; as you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

Deuteronomy 10:18, 19. He administers justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing. Therefore love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

Jeremiah 22:3. Thus says the Lord: “Execute judgment and righteousness, and deliver the plundered out of the hand of the oppressor. Do no wrong and do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless, or the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.

Ezekiel 22:29. The people of the land have used oppressions, committed robbery, and mistreated the poor and needy; and they wrongfully oppress the stranger.

So we see beyond the prophets condemning society’s injustice, a Law given to Moses that
was acutely concerned for the rights of strangers. How then did this wall of separation
come to exist that Paul speaks of in his letter to the Ephesians?

Ephesians 2:12. At that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth
of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in
the world.

How could this be true when the Law of Moses had made every accommodation for the foreigner who desired to seek the Lord? In verse fifteen he says that the enmity was
created by the law of commandments in ordinances: nomos entole en dogma. This
expression refers to what Jesus referred to as the traditions and rules of men undermining
the Word of God.
Because of the mutual hatred and distrust that existed between the Jew and of the neighboring societies, no Jew would even sit at a table and eat a meal with a gentile.
This is something that even the apostle Peter was called out on by Paul, the apostle
of the gentiles. In contrast, Jesus always ate with publicans and sinners.

Those of us who have faith are required to do good works. You can't have one without the other.