The Gospel Comes with a House Key

Gastronomy Class

Chloe Evans

5/17/19

“Hospitality requires daily Bible reading, deep repentance, dark mornings in solitude, and the daily willingness to forgive others whether or not they ask.”

The Gospel Comes with a House Key

In Rosaria Butterfield’s book, The Gospel Comes with a House Key, she talks about radically ordinary hospitality. Radically ordinary hospitality is to be practiced and seen as a gift from God to further His kingdom. Therefore, we are to offer hospitality daily, not just weekly or monthly. We anticipate a Christ-centered table of fellowship to serve the needy. That may sound hard, but the gospel comes with a house key. 

Radically ordinary hospitality takes time to cultivate. It is not easy work, but hard work; it takes times to cultivate a hospitable heart and spirit. But, once we have a cultivated hospitable heart, we look for opportunities to practice hospitality. We look to make the strangers, our neighbors; we look to make our neighbors in the family of God. We long to deepen and strengthen God's family through hospitality. This is the main purpose and goal of radically ordinary hospitality. Radically ordinary hospitality values the time it takes to invest in a good friendship relationship. We build bridges. “Bridge building and remaking friendships cannot be rushed.” We make friendships by repenting and forgiving each other daily. 

“Hospitality requires daily Bible reading, deep repentance, dark mornings in solitude, and the daily willingness to forgive others whether or not they ask.” Through repentance, we cross the threshold to our God. We are forgiven for our sins, why should we not forgive others when they sin against us? The best place to forgive and restore relationships is right here in our own homes. We are to forgive our long time friends, our newly made friends, and the strangers. We are to invite them into our homes. “The gospel comes with a house key. When table fellowship includes those from prison, orphanhood, and poverty in real and abiding ways, permanent bands of care and kinship are the consequence. We belong to each other, and even though we may have just realized it, we always have.” 

Lasty, we are to esteem others higher than ourselves. We should never be too busy to not take the time to hear someone’s problems or story. Rosaria Butterfield admits that she is a classic introvert, but that does not keep her from practicing hospitality. “Knowing your personality and your sensitivities does not excuse you from ministry. It means that you need to prepare for it differently than others might.” God calls us to serve, not retreat. “One reason that too many Christians fail to practice ordinary, radical, Christian hospitality is that we have become so duped and distracted by its counterfeit that we don’t know what we need.”

Cheers!

Chloe Elizabeth