On this episode of The Disciple-Making Parent, we welcome Jason Hsieh as we explore thoughts on biblical hospitality. We dive into the biblical foundations of hospitality, discussing passages from Romans, Deuteronomy, and Hebrews that shed light on this often misunderstood practice. Jason and I discuss the common cultural misconceptions about hospitality, emphasizing that it’s not just about fancy meals or social gatherings, but a profound way of showing love to strangers and those in vulnerable positions. We examine how hospitality reflects God’s grace towards us and how we can embody this in our own lives. Join us as we unpack the surprising depth and counter-cultural nature of true biblical hospitality.
Resources From This Podcast
Why Pursue Hospitality?– Sermon by Jason Hsieh
A Portrait of Hospitality– Sermon by Jason Hsieh
Message by Chris McGrady on David’s hospitality to Mephibosheth
Topics Covered In This Week’s Podcast
03:03 What is hospitality?
9:35 Hospitality as an implication of the gospel
13:52 Biblical hospitality vs. the world’s hospitality
16:21 Examples of hospitality in Scripture
20:51 Personal experiences of hospitality
Episode Transcript
Chap: I’m Chap Bettis, and you’re listening to The Disciple-Making Parent, where we seek to equip parents and churches to pass the gospel to their children. What if I told you that there was one activity that would give your children a chance to serve, and a chance to see you serving? A chance to build up the body of Christ, and to get to know others better, even as they are obeying the Lord? It’s an activity that draws the family together. No, I’m not talking about church attendance, as important as that is. And no, I’m not talking about sports. I’m talking about hospitality.
Hi, my name is Chap Bettis, and I’m the author of The Disciple-Making Parent. You know, showing hospitality is a biblical command, and it’s a way to model the Christian faith for our children. It pulls us out of ourselves as a family. It’s a characteristic of biblical love, and is a good practice to both show our children our faith, and also to train them to serve.
I’m hoping to do a two-part series on hospitality. In this first podcast, I’ve talked with Jason Hsieh about a short series he preached in our church. He invited me in to record a podcast for our church and then I ended up turning the tables and said, “Well, I’ll do that if you’ll let me talk to you about hospitality.”
So in this first episode of the series, Jason takes us into some of the theological roots of the teaching, and helps us think of hospitality in ways we may not have thought about it.
Jason is a native of Southern California, and God used the divorce of his parents to bring him to faith in Christ. He is Grace Harbor’s pastor of discipleship and counseling. And before coming to Grace Harbor, Jason worked in healthcare policy and served in various counseling and discipleship ministries at Capitol Hill Baptist Church. He’s also served as the pastor of counseling and discipleship at Trinity Baptist Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He has a Master’s Degree in Biblical Counseling from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and he and his wife, Tracy, love watching British dramas and raising their daughter together.
Well, before we start, I want to remind you that we give away the audiobook of The Disciple-Making Parent absolutely free. We are on a mission to equip parents to pass the gospel to their children. The Disciple-Making Parent book is the centerpiece of our ministry and it’s been endorsed by Al Mohler and Tim Challies, among others. You can have the audiobook for free. Simply visit thedisciplemakingparent.com/freeaudiobook. But for now, let’s listen in on my conversation with Jason Hsieh.
Chap: Well, it’s a joy to have Jason Hsieh on The Disciple-Making Parent podcast. Let me just start by asking, what is hospitality? What were some of the points that you were trying to make in your sermon that you think are relevant for us?
Jason Hsieh: Well, first, let me say Chap and I just taped an episode on the Grace Harbor podcast and I gave him six weeks to think about the questions. And he is giving this to me fresh, live, right now. So please, listeners, don’t compare and contrast. He had an unfair advantage. Plus, he’s 40 years older than me, so he’s already got the advantage of sanctification.
Chap: But you did have two weeks to study for the sermon series.
Jason: I suppose I did, yeah. So the question was, what is hospitality?
Chap: Yeah, what is hospitality? Yeah.
Jason: That’s a great question, and I want to start by maybe saying, and we kind of talked about this in the first sermon, which was on, for our listeners, August 4, 2024. You can find that on the Grace Harbor website. One of the things that we need to be careful about when we think of hospitality and defining it is, so often we allow our culture to define that for us.
And so maybe we think it’s about big fancy meals. Maybe we think it’s about just for the sociable people, the social butterflies who like to talk and carry on conversations. Maybe we think it’s a certain thing like at a hotel or something like that. You know, we have Johnson and Wales here in Providence, and so there’s a lot of that. Some of us maybe are influenced by a certain aspect of American culture that thinks that hospitality is just for women to do, that somehow it’s beneath men. And again, I think certain segments of our culture can think that. You think of like a June Cleaver or something like that, and that period in history and things like that.
And so when we define hospitality, we’ve got to make sure that we’re not allowing our culture to bias us. And so, if we look at it biblically the, the word itself means love for strangers. Meaning people that you may not know, people who maybe you know who they are, but I think we can even be thinking maybe they have experiences and hardships that we don’t have, and we are nevertheless to love them anyway.
And so, when we look at that, we see in the New Testament, the word hospitality is spoken of in so many different ways. In Romans 12, it’s there, in terms of “pursue hospitality” or “practice hospitality,” depending on what version you have. And it almost is shocking to see in Romans chapter 12, this hospitality included in there, because of course, chapter 12 is the implications of the gospel. In Romans 1 through 11 is all the meaty and weighty and intellectually satisfying doctrine of God, man, sin, and how to be right with God. And of course, chapters 12 and on are Well, if you believe this, here’s how you’re going to live. And of course, you see all these things like keep your spiritual fervor, persevere in suffering, hate evil, cling to what’s good. And all these really kind of seemingly really, really big, heavy-hitting items. And then it seems almost, wow, oh, there’s “pursue hospitality.” It almost seems too easy. And you’re like, Paul, wait a minute, I just have people over and that’s an implication for the gospel?
And it’s not until you really recognize what it is. Of course, in the context of the New Testament, it was usually about having people who are gospel workers stay at your place. You may or may not have known them, but they needed places because there wasn’t safe lodging the way you can just get a hotel or even an Airbnb these days. And so it was so important for the spread of the gospel.
But that’s looking at in the New Testament, right? You look at the Old Testament and you have other passages that maybe don’t use the word “hospitality.” But you have the same implication and ethic there. And so one of the other passages that I preached on was in Deuteronomy chapter 10. And that was looking at how Moses is saying to Israel, Hey, we’re about to enter promised land. Let’s get it right. Let’s serve God. Here’s a reminder of who God is. Here’s how he’s treated us despite our waywardness. Here’s how we should respond. And by the way, that’s actually very similar to Romans 12 then, right? Here’s who God is, 1 through 11. Here’s how we should respond. And of course in chapter 10 of Deuteronomy, the ethic of how one is to worship God. One example is, love the foreigner among you, love the fatherless, love the widow. Really saying, love those who are maybe in a socially vulnerable position. There’s echoes obviously of James 2 there.
And the idea there was that, well, this would be hard. You wonder if Israel could even talk with these foreigners in terms of the language, and they’d have different customs. But the point there is that, Wait a minute, you know how you were treated in Egypt and how God showed loving kindness towards you? Well, then, now go and do likewise.
And so this hospitality ethic or spirit, again, it’s not about having fancy meals or big houses or sociable personality, those can help. It’s really saying, Hey, we understand that we have been socially or even morally bankrupt, spiritually bankrupt. And God has been gracious towards us. He has sought us out. He has pursued us. He has extended that olive branch to us. And so in reciprocation, one of the implications, it’s not the only implication, is we do the same for others. And so when we think of the who of hospitality, certainly the love for strangers, right? People we don’t know. But I’d also say, based on Deuteronomy 10 and other passages, it’s also looking at Well, who is in a socially vulnerable position who needs to be encouraged with this kind of ministry? Whether that’s people on the fringes of a church, certainly the widows. It’s socially vulnerable situation maybe, and really, really reaching out to them in love.
Chap: That’s great. I appreciated a number of things. So first of all, going back to say this is not just for women, a quality that an elder is to have is to be hospitable. And so that’s, that’s definitely a guy’s quality. So I appreciated that. And then the aspect that you brought out that I hadn’t really thought about was the issue of moving towards people who are more vulnerable. And that could be everything from socially vulnerable to someone who’s come to a church for the very first time. And if you’ve ever been to a party where you don’t know anybody, you’re like, this, This is horrible. This is so hard.
Jason: Yeah. One of the things that was covered in the sermon too, it’s not just even new people. It’s sometimes you have people who’ve been there for a long time and they’ve had wonderful relationships, but relationships have transitions. People move out of town, people get married. So they’re just in a different stage of life. And those folks can almost fall through the cracks even more because most of us know to reach out to a newcomer, but what about those who’ve been around for a while? That takes a little more elbow grease and effort and initiative to be asking, who is that, and to reach out to them as well.
Chap: Well, you touched on it there, but expand more, thinking about how is being a hospitable person and implication from the gospel. So you mentioned that, but just maybe cover that again, because I think that’s worth thinking about, as opposed to an ethic that’s disconnected from the gospel.
Jason: Well, that’s why I appreciate the Deuteronomy 10 passage so much. You know, Deuteronomy 10 verses 17 to 18, you know, you were once foreigners in Egypt, and God has loved you and so go and love the foreigner. In other words, you know what this is like. So maybe to summarize and think about your question, be hospitable towards others as God has been hospitable towards you. You know, when we think of people who are new or who are different than us or have had different struggles than us, that can be really hard. Because it’s foreign, it’s alien. It’s a strange experience. How strange and alien do you think it was for the Son of God to become man? I mean, here is someone who was for all of eternity right by the Father’s side in lockstep with the Father, coming, by the way, in a period of history where there was no air conditioning. And he goes to the Middle East where it’s so hot, and he has to do- how foreign do you think that was?
And so we, we can show the love of God that when we were willing to cross those kinds of boundaries and say, Yeah, I don’t know this person or this person is in a socially vulnerable stage of life that right now I’m not in. And yet what was Christ willing to do for us? And so in many ways, and this is one of the points of the sermons, we practice hospitality, we pursue hospitality as one way- emphasis on just one way- that we understand the gospel. Do we understand?
It’s always easier when someone else sacrifices for us than for us to have to make the sacrifice. And so I think sometimes that’s the barrier. You know, it’s, Yeah, of course Jesus died for me. Well, then we do the same for others.
Chap: Yeah, that’s great. That’s great. Anything surprise you in your study as you got into it where you’re like, Oh, I didn’t see this coming?
Jason: So, you know, the main passages in that first sermon on August 4th were in Romans 12 as well as Deuteronomy 10. But Hebrews 13 is a passage that was touched on as well. And Hebrews 13 is about don’t neglect to show hospitality to strangers for an entertaining or hosting. You never know if you’ve served an angel. And that word host or entertain there, , depending on what version you have, that means to love and be hospitable and to host in a way that is so overwhelmingly unexpected in a positive way. In a way that shocks and captivates the person that you are serving. It’s compelling, I should say. It is thought-provoking.
And one of the things that we talked about in the sermon was, the gospel itself is compelling and thought-provoking. In Hebrews 13 that word entertainer, host, when you break down the Greek with it, it really subverts social convention, what you would expect normally. And the gospel itself subverts that well. Why would a sinless being in Christ have to die for sinful people? And of course Paul himself wrestles with that in the book of Romans: “For a holy person- a righteous person- someone might be willing to die.” But for sinful people, God showed his love for us and despite the fact that we were so distant from God, he sent his own son to die for us.
And so it really caught my attention that, using that word entertain, and you’ll see that in different versions, that is not what the culture would define as entertainment, right? This is a service that is so countercultural, that breaks across social barriers or just whatever it may be. And that was surprising to me because it adds so much more of a dimension and depth to what hospitality is. This isn’t just hanging out with your best buddies. This isn’t just finding your friends already. That’s a wonderful thing to do. That’s called friendship. That’s called maybe discipleship.
If we want to use the word hospitality, let’s be clear about what that is and isn’t. And that took it to another level where, again, I think you can make connections with the gospel even more so because of how much of the subversion of social expectation there is.
Chap: That’s good. Well, one of the takeaways was the tie-in to the gospel. As we’re talking, I’m thinking about Psalm 23, you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, you anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows. So here’s David picturing God’s blessing, really in a sense of preparing food, making sure he’s blessed. And so yes, when we do that, we are. . .
Jason: Yeah, and I think it’s important to tie it to the gospel because so often when people talk about hospitality, I’m thinking specifically elders or pastors, you know, the men, hospitality, if it is even talked about can be viewed as such a lightweight. As though it was something that does not have much depth to it.
Well, when you tie it to the gospel as an implication of it, that just removes that. And then when you really understand that this isn’t just about having friends that you already know over, as good as that is. No, this is service.
And here’s something I wish I said in either of the two sermons I did on this: How do you distinguish hospitality from just having people over, your friends over? There’s more of a service aspect to this. When you have your friends over, I guess you could be serving them, but it’s a little different. You already know how the night’s going to go. You probably know how the jokes are going to land or not land. With someone you don’t know, or someone whose experience is different than yours, you don’t know how the conversation will go. And so there is more of that service element that takes it to a level of depth that, again, if we allow the culture to dictate to us. . .
I said in a sermon that I was looking at a seminary’s course catalog to see if there was a class on hospitality, because seminaries are all about training future pastors. And as you mentioned, hospitality is a qualification for an elder, and the only class I could find in this otherwise really good seminary on hospitality was in the Seminary Wives’ Institute, and so much of the curriculum was about, like, folding napkins to look like swans. And I’m not going to say the name of the school, but that’s disappointing. I mean, the swan is one thing, because that’s confusing what this really is about. But rather, if this is a seminary training future pastors and people in ministry, what is that communicating about what hospitality is or who is supposed to do it?
And so we need to connect it to the gospel, to give it even that credibility. That’s what Paul does, because that’s why he adds that in Romans 12. Or that’s what Moses does in Deuteronomy 10 of, hey, here’s who God is. Here’s an implication of how now we’re going to respond to who he is.
Chap: Well, your second sermon, you talked about the big O. I’m stumbling.
Jason: Not Oscar Robertson, for those who are listening.
Chap: I’m stumbling over the name.
Jason: I believe it’s Onesiphorus, but don’t quote me on that. It’s Greek. It’s five syllables. Who knows?
Chap: Second Timothy one.
Jason: Not to be confused with Onesimus in the book of Philemon.
Chap: Right. Exactly. I think that’s why I’m stumbling over it. So what were some of your points? This is not something that you would say is about hospitality, but I thought it was very, it was very helpful. Interesting.
Jason: So, so Chap’s talking about the second sermon that was on August the 11th, for those who want to look it up, maybe listen to it on the Grace Harbor website.
And backing up, first, when I talked about this with the other pastors here at Grace Harbor, we really were thinking about doing a series on hospitality because we recognized that the church was getting bigger and bigger numerically. And we talked about how tragic it would be that even if we grew numerically, what if we didn’t grow relationally? And so we talked about maybe the idea of hospitality as being one way that we can think about continuing to grow in relationships. And with that in mind, I wanted the first sermon to be about why do we do this? And hence connecting to the gospel and the implications there. And then, of course, that was a little about, well, who are we to be hospitable towards, with some ideas of how we do it.
Well, what I wanted to follow up with then were some portraits of hospitality, with the idea that sometimes we know all the biblical answers, but we don’t do it anyway. And that’s where examples can be helpful.
And so we had Chris McGrady, who’s a lay member of our church and wnted to be in the ministry, did a wonderful job in preaching through 2 Samuel 9, where we saw a portrait of how King David was hospitable and caring for a cripple named Mephibosheth. And I’d asked Chris to do that with King David. And one reason I chose Onesiphorus was a few things.
One, again, countering the stereotype that somehow hospitality is only for women. Well, here we have two examples in the Bible of men. And these are two very successful men, if we understand Onesiphorus to have been a successful businessman, which some people think he was. And of course King David is King David, that right away gets a weight of that right there.
And so we went there. One of the things that I was hoping we took away from Onesiphorus there was more on the, how does this get done? And you’re right, and I just said in the sermon that, hey, at first glance, is this about hospitality? Well, you can have a passage about evangelism that doesn’t use the word evangelism, all right? And so, of course, not everything has to have the word hospitality. But if you look at what he does for Paul- it says that he traveled far and wide to serve him. He went all the way from Ephesus to Rome, which is very far, and he often met with him. And it says that he refreshed Paul, that the Greek word there being anapsuchō, which means to bring encouragement amidst discouragement in the highest way you could practically or spiritually.
And it says he ministered to me so much in Ephesus when he was there. And so the idea of Paul being there, that here you have a social outcast in Paul, right? And that right away gets at, we think of the people in Deuteronomy 10 who are maybe on the fringes of society and he would have been someone that no one wanted to reach out to. And here’s this guy being willing to travel so far to go see him. And he doesn’t just see him to hang out with him, right? He serves him spiritually and practically. The only way that Paul would have been able to eat in a Roman prison would be from people bringing him food. Well, who’s going to do that in Rome there when nobody wants to see him and be associated with him?
And so in that sense, when you peel back the layers of everything he was doing, and if you spend some time reading it and understanding it, wow, that is certainly consistent with that ethic of hospitality, of being willing to love those on the fringes of society. And of course it’s consistent with how the New Testament portrays hospitality, where you’re loving some gospel worker. And again, it’s consistent with the idea that hospitality is not always going to be this glamorous thing, like when Onesiphorus is going into some Roman prison cell. I’m not saying it can’t ever be glamorous. There’s just a lot there when you add it all up.
And I’d encourage our listeners, go listen to what Chris talked about with 2 Samuel and how King David subverted social expectation by loving someone from the previous political administration. King David willingly had someone who was crippled at his table. That would not have happened, right? And so here’s a way that if King David is someone who’s a man after God’s own heart, wow, he’s showing that there. And again, Onesiphorus subverting that social expectation too, and you’re thinking about Hebrews 13, of a love that’s so overwhelming that Paul says, man, bless this guy. I hope he receives mercy on that day. Not because he’s doubting whether Onesiphorus is saved or not, but rather he wants the highest blessing you could give to somebody, that you’re going to be with God in all of eternity. And it just shows how much that Onesiphorus cared for him.
Chap: Thanks. That’s really good. Last thing. Any specific examples you can think of that have impacted your life, of people where you’re like, I want to be this way, I want Tracy and I to imitate this?
Jason: Yeah, I think there’s, three examples I’m thinking of right now. There’s probably a lot more. When I was in college, I was a Christian for only about a year or two. I didn’t grow up in a Christian family and my parents divorced. That’s actually how I became a Christian, though. And so when I was in college, I was part of this church where I was invited all the time to family’s homes. And I got to see, hey, how does a Christian man talk to his wife? I didn’t see that as a good example in my home. Or how does a Christian man talk to his kids when his kids are misbehaving? What does that look like there? And so that was huge for me. Cause I think sometimes we can talk or teach till we’re blue in the face, but sometimes what we just need is to see it. We need examples. Hence the two messages on portraits of hospitality.
The other is when I was in grad school and I had this roommate named Kelby Kaiser. Kelby was one of the most outward-focused, considerate, godly men I’d ever known, he’s getting a doctorate in chemistry or something I think at Chapel Hill in North Carolina. And he started this tradition that I would continue on after moving to Washington, where on Valentine’s Day he encouraged us to get together as single guys to cook meals for the single women in the church. And so we did that, and then when I moved to Washington, I think for another 10 years or so, I’d continue that, having learned that from Kelby. And that was a way not only to spend time with the girls, but also in all seriousness, to serve, to have that outward focus of being considerate. of hey, what would a day like this be like? And we can get into worldliness about Valentine’s Day or what have you, but you know, it may be a day that some single women are thinking about not being married. And Kelby’s thought was, let’s serve them in that way. And so that’s another thing.
The other is something I learned from a guy in my previous church who disciples me to this day. His kids are teenagers to adults now, and he’s saying that when his kids were younger, he would intentionally stay after the church and talk with people, specifically people that might not even look like he would normally hang out with, because he wanted his kids to see that. And that was his way to show a hospitable spirit to his children. And the beauty is, it’s not like he was adding that much to the calendar. I mean, we want to be respectful, we understand that a family’s really busy with logistics and all that. And he’s like, We’re going to be here already. And so kid, you’re going to learn not only to stay after church, to talk to people, but I want you to see me doing it. And so he’s hoping that his kids are then going to do that when they’re older. And so those are three examples that I’ve seen that are just very, very helpful to me.
Chap: Well, thanks. Those are really good. It serves as a foundation for us to think about hospitality, which I think is showing the gospel and it brings blessings at all ages. So you gave an example of, as a single guy, Kelby serving that way, and then parents for young kids, older as well. So thanks.
Jason: Absolutely. Well, Chap, thanks so much for having me on here today.
