Hospitality

 DEVOTION

JUDGES

HOSPITALITY

Judges 19:1-10

19:1 In those days Israel had no king.

Now a Levite who lived in a remote area in the hill country of Ephraim took a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah. 2 But she was unfaithful to him. She left him and went back to her father's house in Bethlehem, Judah. After she had been there four months, 3 her husband went to her to persuade her to return. He had with him his servant and two donkeys. She took him into her father's house, and when her father saw him, he gladly welcomed him. 4 His father-in-law, the girl's father, prevailed upon him to stay; so he remained with him three days, eating and drinking, and sleeping there. 5 On the fourth day they got up early and he prepared to leave, but the girl's father said to his son-in-law, "Refresh yourself with something to eat; then you can go." 6 So the two of them sat down to eat and drink together. Afterward the girl's father said, "Please stay tonight and enjoy yourself." 7 And when the man got up to go, his father-in-law persuaded him, so he stayed there that night. 8 On the morning of the fifth day, when he rose to go, the girl's father said, "Refresh yourself. Wait till afternoon!" So the two of them ate together. 9 Then when the man, with his concubine and his servant, got up to leave, his father-in-law, the girl's father, said, "Now look, it's almost evening. Spend the night here; the day is nearly over. Stay and enjoy yourself. Early tomorrow morning you can get up and be on your way home." 10 But, unwilling to stay another night, the man left and went toward Jebus (that is, Jerusalem), with his two saddled donkeys and his concubine.

NIV

This is the beginning of a horrific story that somehow reminds us of Sodom and Gomorrah. This Levite who took a concubine or paramour, which is defined in some sense as an illicit partner of a married man, or for a man to simply have sexual relationships with someone who is not his wife. That may have been customary during that time in history, for we know many of the men, even those considered men of faith, had relationships with more than one woman. Some had two wives, and others had a wife and a concubine. Certainly, today we would consider a man having a paramour would be committing adultery if he were married. Nevertheless, she was unfaithful to him, so we are not sure exactly how this relationship between them existed. It does seem rather strange that her back from her father's house, where she spent four months, and then he attempted to persuade her to come with him. It is also strange how her father, this Levite’s father-in-law, did not want him to leave and kept trying to persuade him to stay one more night. Was this just being hospitable? Did the father-in-law have some other agenda?  What can we learn from this that we can apply to our lives? We would think in our culture, when someone comes to visit, it would be very unusual for us to try to persuade them to spend the night and have something to eat and drink and enjoy themselves and refresh themselves. On the other hand, we would want to be good hosts, providing our guests with something to eat and drink. It could also be outside of the norm for someone to just show up unannounced to spend the night, or for that matter, expect to be given food and drink. Perhaps this father-in-law had the gift of hospitality, although we would think everyone would demonstrate hospitality when a guest showed up. Still, it is difficult to find any spiritual application from this narrative; however, just the fact of being hospitable, not just in our homes, but also in the church, when someone just shows up, might be our lesson. That can be one of the downsides of the mega church. A new person can show up, and no one even knows they were there. This might even happen in a non-mega church where no one is really interested in either introducing themselves to a guest or finding out anything about that guest. We think, as a general rule, from our past experiences, most people are more interested in talking about themselves than being hospitable and finding out about the guest’s life. Maybe there is a lesson to learn about hospitality in the church, by the church. How would that look in the church? Maybe, we might persuade them to just stay an hour or so after church so that we might take them out for breakfast or lunch to have something to eat and drink. It does come down to hospitality.