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Mosaic depicting the last judgement of Christ and the dividing of the sheep from the goats. Either side of Christ are angels.

The End of All Things is at Hand

Part 4 of the Hospitality & Revival Series

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This post is the fourth and final part of a series on Hospitality & Revival. Part one “Invisible Barriers and the Hospitality of God” traced the theme of God’s hospitality to us from creation to new creation, and the Western Church’s disadvantage in separating evangelism and hospitality. Part two of this series, “Hospitality and Resurrection,” followed the interwoven motifs of hospitality, covenant, and resurrection in the lives of Abraham, Lot, Elijah, and Elisha. Part three, “The Son of Man Came Eating and Drinking,” explored how hospitality permeated the ministry and teaching of Jesus.

Once you start tracing the theme of hospitality in the scriptures, it isn’t easy to stop. God built the concept of hospitality into the very fabric of the universe, bound it up in his covenants, and wrote it into the national constitution of Israel.1See Part 1: Invisible Barriers and the Hospitality of God. In an act of hospitality, Abraham received a promise of a miraculous son. Lot, in an act of hospitality, was spared the wrath God poured out on his city. Elijah raised the widow of Zarephath’s son from the dead while staying at her home and eating her food. Elisha resurrected the Shunammite’s son in Elisha’s own furnished guest room in the Shunammite’s house.2See Part 2: Hospitality & Resurrection. Jesus had a reputation as a “glutton and a drunkard” because he often ate and drank with sinners. Even the account of his resurrection is bookended by the breaking of bread in the Last Supper and dinner in Emmaus.3See Part 3: The Son of Man Came Eating and Drinking.

Time would fail me if I tried to recount angels cooking pancakes,4 See 1 Kings 19:5–6. ravens bringing sandwiches,5 See 1 Kings 17:6. or picnics on the beach with freshly grilled fish.6 See John 21:9. The generosity of God is truly endless, and there are not enough forests in the world to make enough paper to document it.

As we survey the stories we reviewed in this series, however, I hope that a few patterns and themes have risen to the surface. Hospitality is not an incidental or accidental part of these accounts—it is central. Extending hospitality to strangers involves a certain level of persistence, urgency, and practice. Receiving hospitality highlights those open to accepting the gospel because those who open their home to God’s workers also open their hearts to God’s word. Hospitality, as ordinary and modest as it may seem, is surrounded by epic signs and wonders that point us to God’s coming kingdom—resurrection, healing, baptism, and the opening of jail doors. Because hospitality and these miracles are so intertwined, the act of hospitality itself can be seen as a prophetic sign, pointing to a future reality that all salvation history is bending toward.

What future am I speaking about? Jesus answers this in his teaching at a Shabbat banquet in Luke 14.

Highways and Hedges: Compel Them to Come In

Tension dominated the atmosphere of this feast. Jesus had just received threats from the government 7 See Luke 13:31. and then lamented over the city of Jerusalem, promising, “You will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”8Luke 13:35

Despite his multiple run-ins with various teachers in the Pharisee movement, Jesus is found dining in the house of one of the Pharisees’ leaders on the Sabbath. As the meal got underway, Jesus could tell he was under scrutiny, and it wasn’t long before a test presented itself. Jesus has a man with dropsy brought to him. Jesus turns to the learned guests with a direct question that has followed him throughout his ministry, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?”9Luke 14:3 The guests all remained silent, so Jesus turned to the man, healed him, and sent him on his way. Jesus then makes a legal argument for the lawfulness of healing on the Sabbath from Deuteronomy 22:4, saying, “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?” This reasoning was met with continued silence, with the other guests unable to reply.

Jesus then tells a parable in response to the grappling for places of honor he has observed at this particular dinner. And after that teaching on humility, we come to the meat of our story.

Jesus turns to the host of the feast and says, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”10Luke 14:12-14

This advice is interesting on multiple levels! First, there is a distinction made between hospitality and fellowship. Fellowship is wonderful, godly, and encouraged for a whole and healthy life. Fellowship is necessary for you to have something to invite strangers into, but it is not the same as hospitality.

I will sometimes ask others what sort of images they associate with hospitality. Often, scenes of the family at Christmas or coffee after the church service get mentioned. These are joyful images of great worth, but I would put Jesus’ admonition to his host alongside these scenes to gently challenge their relationship to hospitality. Without diminishing the need for and place of fellowship, are we inviting those who cannot reciprocate to our homes and meals? Are we welcoming the stranger? Are we looking for an immediate reward in terms of honor, friendship, or a full social schedule, or are we looking for the prize in the resurrection of the dead?

Another one of the guests overhead Jesus’ advice to the host and exclaimed, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!”

This observation prompted a parable from Jesus that expanded on his initial words to the host.

“A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’”

Luke 14:16–24

Jesus said by welcoming those who could not repay you, you would be rewarded in the resurrection of the just. Why connect hospitality to the poor, the disabled, the blind, and the lame with the resurrection? Because the kingdom of God will be like this banquet that Jesus later described, where the downtrodden account for most of the attendance. Many others are first invited but decline the invitation. The cares of this life—wealth, work, family—so dominate their thinking that they have lost sight of the underlying purpose of life by declining communion with the king.

The house must be filled, so the invitation is spread far and wide, and the host’s servants are persuading anyone and everyone they can to come to the feast.

How can you preach the gospel of this coming kingdom? Jesus suggests that we prophetically model it, in a kind of sign-act, by filling our homes with those who answer the invitation, the same people who will party at the parousia. The king’s feast will be filled with many from the highways and hedges, and many will “come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at the table in the kingdom of God.”11Luke 13:29

Provoking Israel

Before moving on from Jesus’ parable in Luke 14, I would like to make one last observation. When Jesus lamented over Jerusalem, he made this controversial speech, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! Behold, your house is forsaken.” Showing that this desertion of the city of the great king is neither final nor forever, Jesus adds, “I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” 12See Luke 13:34–35. In the next chapter of Luke, Jesus concludes his parable with the statement, “For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.”13Luke 14:24

Commentators of this passage have made the connection that it was Israel who first received this invitation to an eschatological royal celebration but that most of Israel rejected both message and messenger, triggering the extension of the invitation far beyond Israel’s borders. But is national Israel in the position of, “none of those men who were invited will taste my banquet,” or is there hope for a future declaration of, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”?

Paul helps us resolve this question in his famous passage on the mystery of Israel in Romans 9–11. In the past, when I have worked through this section of scripture with a group, I’ll often start in Romans 8 with the question, “Who shall separate us from the love of God?” Paul uses this question to set the stage as he works through the difficult paradox surrounding Israel. “Did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather, through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. Now, if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean… For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?”14Romans 11:11–12, 15

Paul continues to explain that a partial hardening has come on Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. After this, all Israel will be saved for, reasons Paul, the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable. 15See Romans 11:25–29. Nothing shall separate Israel from the love of God.

Many naturally conclude this section with Paul’s spontaneous and beautiful hymn of praise, drawing from the words of Isaiah and Job. We sometimes forget, however, that Romans 12 begins with a “therefore,” connecting it directly with Paul’s preceding treatise on Israel. In chapter 11, Paul magnified his ministry to the Gentiles to “provoke” some of his fellow Jews to salvation. How can we join in this holy “provocation”? Paul doesn’t hide the answer from the Romans.

First, he says, be a living sacrifice.16See Romans 12:1–3. Second, be in fellowship with the people of God, contributing to the community of believers by exercising your gifts.17See Romans 12: 3–8.Third, lead an exemplary life by genuinely loving those around you. “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.”18Romans 12:12–13

Though hospitality is tucked into an expansive list of provocative Christian conduct, we should not be quick to pass over it. Much Gentile Christian history has been in complete opposition to the words of Paul in Romans 8–12 regarding the Jewish people.19“Ignorance, Arrogance, and the Specter of Christian Antisemitism” includes a timeline tracing nearly two millennia of Christian violence towards the Jewish people in their midst. After all the Jews have suffered, inhospitality seems a relatively minor offense.

Visiting Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial Center in Jerusalem might give some perspective. One of the significant projects of Yad Vashem is to document the “Righteous Among the Nations,” non-Jews who aided Jews during the Holocaust, often at great risk to themselves and their families. What was one of the main ways these righteous helped their Jewish neighbors? Opening their homes, hiding Jewish families, and scrounging up extra food for their secret guests during war rationing.20You can read more about Yad Vashem’s “Righteous Among the Nations” here.

If the modern state of Israel is documenting these acts of sacrificial hospitality as worthy of honor and remembrance, they are not alone. Jesus himself taught about the kind of hospitality that has been kept in the records of heaven and has eternal consequences.

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’”

Matthew 25:31–40

When hearing this familiar passage, we often receive Jesus’ admonition as a powerful but general picture of the eternal impact of compassion ministries such as feeding the hungry or visiting those in prison. To serve the least of these is to serve King Jesus and be on his sheep-side on judgment day.

Two often-overlooked details from this passage might help us to another, more specific understanding of Jesus’ apocalyptic teaching. It is the nations, the ἔθνος, the Gentiles, who are standing before the throne. What is the standard by which they are being judged? How they treated “the least of these, my brothers.”

There are speculations as to the identity of these brothers. Most Christians would say that the brothers are anyone oppressed, and indeed we are called to care for anyone in need—no further qualifications are required. Others will say that the brothers are all believers, pointing to the gospel passages that tell of an instance where Jesus’ mother and brothers tried to reach him in a crowd. When Jesus is told that his family is having trouble getting to him, Jesus gestures to those around him, saying, “These are my mother and my brothers, for whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and mother.”21See Mark 3:35; Luke 8:21. Jesus is telling us to take care of our brethren in Christ, they reason.

Still, others make the case that Jesus’ brothers are his natural brothers, the Jewish people. It is the Gentile nations that are being judged in this throne room scene, and it is their treatment of a third party that is being weighed. You only have to glance at the numerous oracles to the nations in the prophets to see that God often issues judgment to different countries specifically in response to their treatment of Israel.

Without diminishing the goodness of serving all the poor wherever they are to be found or looking after Christians in need, I find this final interpretation of the passage most compelling in the way that it incorporates all the details that Jesus gives and broader biblical context. Just as the righteous among the nations extended hospitality to Jewish people fleeing Nazi persecution during the Holocaust, so will sheep nations extend hospitality to Jewish people in the days of trouble preceding the coming of the Messiah.

Times of Refreshing

Though we are not quite at that infinitely consequential Day yet, the apostles joined Jesus in urging that future judgment inform our present life and discipleship. “The end of all things is at hand,” writes Peter in his letter to the diaspora spread across several cities that are now in modern Turkey. “Therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling.”221 Peter 4:7–9 These commands help us steward God’s grace while we wait for the coming kingdom.

When I listened to testimony from the 2023 Asbury Outpouring and prayerfully observed revival services at the college campus from thousands of miles away, the questions, “How can we manage this time of refreshing, this grace so desperately needed? How is this revival different from all other revivals, and in what ways will it minister to this next generation,” turned over and over in my mind. As I pondered these points, my conviction grew that ministry to this next generation will require hospitality from the church on a whole new level.

The numbers look bleak if you research statistics23 The Cigna Group conducted a large-scale national survey in 2020 to research trends and determining factors of loneliness in the United States. You can read about their findings here. surrounding people between the ages of 16–24, also known as GenZ. By far the loneliest and the most depressed generation to come of age since these statistics have been tracked, GenZ lacks the community infrastructure and the embodied (as opposed to digital) life that helped to steward the grace of God and anchored faith in previous generations.

The opportunity to demonstrate the kingdom’s gospel to GenZ through open doors, warm meals, and conversations at the family table is immense. One or two self-identified evangelists are not enough for the task at hand. The call to radical hospitality is to all believers everywhere, from church leadership24See 1 Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:5–8. to every Christian household.

And while hospitality will meet a unique need among young adults, let us also not forget feeding the hungry, visiting prisoners, caring for the sick, and adopting children. The highways and hedges are filled with those in need of hospitality, and more, those in need of an invitation to that feast in the kingdom of God. Such ministry will be rewarded in the resurrection. Indeed, resurrection is the natural sign that follows hospitality!

So let us join in the work of our king, who says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.”25Revelation 3:20 Let us welcome one another as Christ welcomed us, for the glory of God.26See Romans 15:7. In gratitude for our adoption to the family of God despite being strangers, let us “provoke” Israel through warm-hearted and humble hospitality. Let us steward revival not only by worshiping in stadiums but by gathering in thousands of homes over a thousand quiet cups of tea. Let us practice hospitality without grumbling, for the end of all things is at hand.

Thank you for reading this series on “Hospitality & Revival.” If you would like to receive content like this by email, feel free to subscribe to the Oleaster Substack.

Recommended Resources: 
Articles

Be Hospitable by Victor Hugo Costa

Igniting Hope among Gen Z by Billy McMahan

Books

A Call to Compel by Jordan Scott

Footnotes

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