Philoxenia
One of the reasons I love my wife (as if there were not enough) is for her hospitality. This summer she’s “adopted” a Vietnamese boy into the family to help him learn English for school this fall. I love it that our kids see her sacrifice her summer to help someone else.
Biblical hospitality has nothing to do with inviting people you like to your house for dinner–not that there’s anything wrong with that. Paul’s injunctions to practice hospitality are firmly rooted in the context of the Old Testament command to love the alien and foreigner. The Greek word which is translated “hospitality” even has this sense embedded in it: philoxenia–a combination of two Greek roots, “love” and “foreigner.”
