Three Practical Ideas to Learn How to Open Your Home And Let Others’ Homes Be Open to You

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Pastor Foley

Part X of our series on Opening Your Home

We’ve covered a lot of ground these past couple of weeks as we’ve explored how God has opened his home to us and how we should do the same for others.  Perhaps most surprisingly, we learned that sometimes, this Work of Mercy takes a passive role by letting others open their homes to us – and by extension Christ.

So let’s talk today about what it looks like to “do the word” of Opening Your Home. Here are three ideas that you can pray about:

1. Consider undertaking a week long Luke 10-style mission trip. Spend the preceding weeks in prayer, asking the Lord where he wants to send you. Resolve to take only the barest of essentials, as specified by Jesus in the Luke 10 passage.

When we did a Luke 10-style trip several years ago when we lived in Houston, Texas, I and Mrs. Foley and a group of four others took no change of clothes, no wallet, no money—just a cell phone (to enable our frightened families and curious church members to check in on us, and to enable us to report each day on what happened), a car, my driver’s license (to take us to Beaumont, Texas, where we prayerfully felt the Lord was leading us), and a video camera, to record what happened.

In that week, we never missed a meal; we never went without a shower; we never had to wear dirty clothes; and, at the end of the week, God gave us two homes—and a tithe of $638 to bring back to the church in Houston that had sent us out!

2. Every year, increase the amount you are giving away by half a percentage point (i.e., go from giving 10% to giving 10.5% the next year, 11% the year following, and so on).

I learned this from Doc Haggstrom of Billings, MT. When he married his wife, Evvie, as a young man, he found that because she did not grow up in a Christian home, she was completely puzzled by the idea of tithing.

So he said to her, “Well, do you think we should give away any of our money?”

And she said, “Well, of course! I’m not selfish, you know.”

So they agreed to start by giving away 5% of their income, and each year thereafter, they asked, “Was God faithful to meet our needs this year?” If he was (and he always was), they would increase their giving by half a percentage point. By the time Doc died in his late 80’s (Evvie had passed away a few years prior), they were giving away the majority of their income. Doing this causes us to be less reliant on our own resources and more reliant on God’s resources, given through the hospitality of others.

Learning how to be hosted is a real challenge, especially for those of us from rich nations or backgrounds. Here, the opportunity exists for us to learn hospitality from our global neighbors:

3. Rather than going on short-term missions trips to paint houses or teach Vacation Bible Schools, journey humbly as ambassadors-in-training and seek out global Christian neighbors known especially for opening their homes and warmly welcoming strangers.

We can learn how to be guests and hosts at the feet of those whose hospitality hasn’t been infected by Western notions of privacy and the pale imitations of hospitality one encounters in hotels, hospitals, and even Western homes. There’s a former missionary named Michele Hershberger who writes:

One of the things I enjoyed most about Uganda was the opportunity to walk on meandering paths through gardens, up and down hills, and long streams. Walking was almost synonymous with conversing because invariably I would meet someone along the path or at work in their garden and we would talk.

One afternoon I came across my friend Ruth, busy pulling weeds. After chatting a while, she took me to one corner of her garden to see what she had grown. She was excited because she had just planted eggplants for the first time and they were just beginning to bear; two lovely fruits dangled from the step.

Later that evening two unexpected visitors arrived to spend the night at my home. Word soon spread that we had guests, and before long Ruth appeared at the kitchen door. In her hands were the two eggplants. She gave them to me, saying, “Please prepare these for your friends tonight.”

I wanted to say, “No! No! You must keep your eggplant. We have plenty of food, and you have so little.” But I could not do that. I could not deny Ruth the opportunity to give of her literal first fruits. She was giving so joyously.

The height of Western missionary folly and utter disdain for the gospel may be moving into a new environment and seeking to act as a host or self-sufficient guest to the people who live there. As Jesus revealed in his own incarnation, the pinnacle of missionary wisdom—and Christian ambassadorship—is to voluntarily empty ourselves of any provision or capacity to host, or even the capacity to care for ourselves—just like Jesus did—and instead place ourselves entirely in the hands and hospitality of those we visit.

We need to grow our self-identity. We are not only those who do good to our enemies; we are also those who place ourselves in the hands of others in order to permit them to do good to us, and, thus, to our God.

What other ideas would you recommend?

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Let Your Enemies Do Good to You!

Posted on March 19, 2012 by Pastor Foley

Part IX of our series on Opening Your Home

We learned on Friday that Christians who are rich, in no need of hospitality (read: most of us), are robbing others.  We’re robbing them of the opportunity to use their gifts to host Christ and that’s a big deal.

The Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9:14 that “the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.” But like the rich young ruler, we’re too afraid to risk discomfort, so we don’t want to place ourselves in the hands of strangers and “get [our] living by the gospel.”

Quick note here about Paul. He talks in 1 Corinthians 9 and in other places in his letters about how he himself covers his ministry expenses through tentmaking. But even so, two things are important to note: First, Paul agrees that this is the exception, not the rule. The rule is that we “get [our] living by the gospel.” Second, Paul was still profoundly reliant on the hospitality of others as he traveled. He says in Galatians 4:14:

13You know it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first, 14and though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or despise me, but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus.

But for us, the idea of placing ourselves and our living on a daily basis in the hands of strangers—that’s scary stuff!

How different that attitude is from the Lord Jesus. He had all the riches of heaven, and yet—as we read in Philippians 2:7—he “made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.” He daily was subject to our hospitality—or lack thereof. But even when we responded by making room for him only on a cross, he forgave us and made that cross the means of reconciliation between heaven and earth.

So that means we have a discipleship skill to learn; namely, how to permit ourselves to be hosted by others as messengers of the living God so that in hosting us they welcome the living God and thus the gospel of the living God.

Note that this is something other than us just wandering around like nameless beggars looking for “three hots and a cot” (i.e., three hot meals and a bed to sleep in). We travel as ambassadors, in the name of the living God and of his Christ. In Matthew 10:41, Jesus says,

41He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward; and he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward. (KJV, emphasis mine)

But we are ambassadors of a peculiar kingdom, aren’t we? Our God holds all things, but he sends us out with nothing, so that those who receive us will also with him receive all things when he comes into his kingdom.

So here we run into the mirror image of doing good to our enemies: letting our enemies do good to us! That is, letting people who are strangers to us and our God host us as we come openly in the name of the Lord, and, in so hosting us, host the Lord and welcome the gospel (which is the announcement that the one who sent us is in now in charge and rules over all things).

So how do we learn to be hosted by strangers and enemies in this way? According to Luke 10, we let them practice on us! And Jesus gives us specific instructions on what to do when they welcome us, and what to do when they don’t.

But how can we, with integrity, still be rich (compared to the rest of the world) and yet go out with nothing?

Here, Christ is our exemplar. Remember, we are mirroring into the world what he did: Though he possessed all things, he left all things and came with nothing except the message and love of his father, which he mirrored into the world.

In the same way, we who possess a lot can still leave it all—for an hour, for a day, or, ultimately, for a lifetime—as we go with nothing except the message and love of Christ, which we mirror into the world.

“Sell all you have, give it to the poor, and come and follow me” can happen either in a single moment in time or as a path we on which we progress through our whole lifetime.

In our next post, we’ll cover three ideas for how to do this.  Don’t miss it.

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Rich Christians Are Robbing Others

Posted on March 16, 2012 by Pastor Foley

Part VIII of our series on Opening Your Home

We concluded our last post by talking about why Jesus sent his disciples out empty-handed.  To receive one of Christ’s messengers is to receive not just the message, but Christ himself. And to the extent that we do so, Christ will receive us into his kingdom.

But the reverse is also true – by refusing him, we can expect to be refused in return:

10“But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its streets and say, 11‘Even the dust of your town that sticks to our feet we wipe off against you. Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God is near.’ 12I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town.

13“Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. 14But it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you. 15And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths.

16“He who listens to you listens to me; he who rejects you rejects me; but he who rejects me rejects him who sent me.” (Luke 10:10-16)

When we understand this principle (that Jesus arranges things so that the reception of the messenger and the reception of the message are one in the same), we can see the story of the rich young ruler in a new light.

This story is usually (and wrongly) read as being primarily about Jesus’ feelings toward wealth. It makes a whole lot more sense when we read it in this context of Jesus’ sending out messengers with nothing so that they must rely completely on those they meet for hospitality; Jesus will be able to see who is willing to receive him and who is not.

If the rich young ruler goes out with money, of course everyone will receive him! They will receive him because by his very appearance they  expect to receive some personal benefit. And that means the gospel message and the gospel messenger stop being identical.  Instead, the messenger (whether he wants to or intends to or not) now becomes a messenger of wealth and power, not of the gospel.

Worse yet, when we as messengers bring our own provisions, we rob people of the opportunity to exercise their gifts of hospitality, which—since we’re messengers of Jesus—means we rob them of the opportunity to host Christ.

Not good. Ryken puts it like this:

The biblical guest in receiving hospitality allows the host to use his or her gifts. The guest takes on a humble state allowing others to serve him or her. Being a guest is one way that we are taught humility and reminded that we need each other. The guest in the biblical world would receive the evaluation, the welcome rituals, and the sending away as a friend. The guest would show honor to the host by not overstaying their welcome – generally no more than two nights stay. Their ultimate goal was to come into a new strange place and leave as a honored righteous friend who did not disrupt the harmony of the home or community. (Ryken et al. 1998)[1]

We see these problems due to “hospitality inversion.”

We are supposed to be the stranger, and the person who does not yet know Christ is supposed to be given the opportunity to be our host. But because we’re too prideful—we don’t want to place ourselves in the hands of someone we don’t know, or trust—we treat them like the stranger, and we assume the role of the host…even in their own villages and homes.

Western missionaries, for example, come into a poor area, and they are well received by the people there not because the people are responding to the gospel message but rather because the people are responding to a different message: becoming a Christian will benefit you materially! They see the nice clothes and car and home that the missionaries move into (because, like the rich young ruler, missionaries can’t quite seem to leave their money behind and risk discomfort).

Churches do this, too. They spend money to reach out to “strangers” in the community, trying to get them to come to the church. And when they come, they give gifts to the strangers.

Christian ministries hold huge evangelistic rallies, with bands and balloons and burgers—and, of course, no admission fees.

Time and time again, in nearly every way the gospel is shared, Christians are the hosts…and those that don’t know Christ are the strangers to whom the Christians are offering hospitality.

And this is the strange challenge that we face today: Christians have too much money to need to be hosted by anyone! 

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[1] William Guice, “Hospitality, Part 1,” What if…, August 17, 2010.

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