Hospitality Gifts

Read

1 Peter 4:9–11 (NET)

9- Show hospitality to one another without complaining.

10- Just as each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of the varied grace of God.

11- Whoever speaks, let it be with God's words. Whoever serves, do so with the strength that God supplies, so that in everything God will be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen.

What it is speaking to me:

Isn't it funny when you read a set of verses and they suddenly strike you differently than every other time you've read them? I have usually read verse 9 as a separate thought from verses 10 and 11. Because what does hospitality have to do with spiritual gifts?

But what if the verses are connected? What if spiritual gifts are meant to be used within the context of hospitality?

Historically, it makes sense. The early church met in homes. Hospitality was the beginning, middle, and end of church gatherings. You were welcomed into the home, hosted there, and blessed when leaving. Amidst the hospitality of the home, the spiritual gifts were exercised within and without the church gathering. The early churches in homes was small groups at first. Everyone knew each other and were in close-knit relationships. Spiritual gifts are often best used within the context of those kinds of relationships.

Then churches got bigger and bigger, platform ministry took the focus, and spiritual gifts got put on display there, slowly separating in our minds from hospitality, which we now reserve the term for the greeting team or having people over to our house.

Instead, what if the gifts God has given us are best stewarded in the context of hospitality? Gifts shared over a meal, afternoon tea, or a backyard BBQ? What if we disconnected spiritual gifts from only being used on Sunday morning platforms and connected them to our daily dinners at the dining room table? Would you use them more? Would they be used better?

Isn't it funny how a verse can strike you?

What is it saying to you?

Have you connected your spiritual gifts to your hospitality?

If so, how does that affect the way you use them?

If not, how would it change the way you think about and use them?

What are we going to do about it?

Think of a specific spiritual gift you have and try to use it deliberately today in the context of hospitality.