1. Hospitality is fundamental in Biblical teaching, beginning with Abraham in Genesis: the stranger at the door should be welcomed as God. (Genesis 18)
2. Sodom: Failing to welcome a stranger is deeply wrong, and will be punished severely. (Gen 19)
3. The teaching about hospitality is often obscured by arguments about homosexuality, but you can get past it! (Genesis 18-19)
4. The theme of hospitality in the story of Mamre and Sodom illuminates the Last Supper.
5. The theme of hospitality from Genesis to the Gospels can be obscured by a truly weird competition, setting sacrifice against hospitality.
6. Jesus uses Abraham as a symbol of wealth used properly – that is, hospitably – contrasted with Dives, whose abuse of wealth was damnable.
7. Moses did not describe the evil of Egypt as genocide or treachery, but as inhospitality. Welcome strangers, because – remember! – you too once were a stranger in a strange land. (Exodus)
8. Undergirding the 613 rules in the Law of Moses, there are several principles; one foundational principle is hospitality. (Leviticus)
9. The principles that undergird the law have a tone that is different from the rules, a tone of tender care – and hospitality. (Leviticus)
10. God demands equality between native-born and immigrants. Exceptions: a few exceptions favor the native-born (ritual, road kill), but almost all exceptions favor immigrants: “preferential option for the poor.” (Leviticus)
11. The principle of hospitality is, arguably, more fundamental than the Ten Commandments. (Deuteronomy)
12. The story of Gibea clarifies the story of Sodom. It relates the third (of four: Sodom, Egypt, Gibea, Babylon) extraordinarily severe punishments for violating hospitality. (Judges)
13. This delightful story establishes David’s credentials as part-stranger. Abraham, Moses, Elijah, David, and Jesus – Patriarch, Law-Giver, Prophet, King, and Messiah – experienced the life of a stranger. (Ruth)
14. The prophets, including Elijah, demand special care for widows and orphans – and strangers. Throughout Scripture, there is a familiar trio, not just a familiar pair. (1 Kings)
15. Job defends himself, explaining that he was a just man: he was hospitable to strangers. (Job)
16. Here on God’s earth, we all have the status of strangers. (Psalm 39)
17. Abusing strangers is a repulsive evil. Denouncing arrogance, the psalm describes some people as so awful that they abuse widows & orphans & strangers (if you can imagine it!). (Psalm 94)
18. The Babylonian Exile was a punishment for grave evils, a short list of grave evils – including abuse of strangers. The exile was the fourth calamitous response to inhospitality. (Jeremiah)
19. Two major prophets – Jeremiah and Ezekiel – said that the Babylonian Exile was a punishment for inhospitality, among other things. (Ezekiel)
20. After the Exile, the prophets continued to denounce abuse of strangers in a short list of evils committed by people with “diamond-hard hearts.” (Zechariah)
21. The “refiner’s fire” will purge us of evils including inhospitality. (Malachi)