Hospitality

To entertain some people, all you have to do is listen.682

A seminary student drove about thirty miles to church on Sunday mornings and he would frequently pick up hitchhikers. One day he picked up a young man who noticed that he was wearing a suit and asked if he could go to church with him. The student said, “Of course you can.”

The stranger came to church and afterward was invited over to one of the members’ home for lunch and fellowship. While there, he received a hot bath, some clean clothes, and a hot meal. In conversation with the youth, his hosts found that he was a Christian, but he had been out of fellowship with the Lord. His home was in another state and he was just passing through on his way back. Later in the evening, they bought him a bus ticket and sent him on his way.

A week later, the seminary student received a letter from the hitch-hiker. Enclosed with the letter was a newspaper clipping with headlines reading, “Man turns himself in for murder.” This young man had killed a teenage boy in an attempted robbery and had been running away from the law for some time. But the kindness and hospitality of Christians had convicted him. He wanted to be in fellowship with God, and he knew he needed to do the right thing about his crime.

Little did those Christians know that by their faithfulness to show hospitality they had influenced a man to do what was right in God’s eyes and thereby help restore him to fellowship with his Lord.683