Debt, Freedom, and a Life for the Kingdom

Years ago, while my wife and I were both working at a homeless shelter in Kansas City, one of our co-workers anonymously dropped the audio book “The Total Money Makeover” by Dave Ramsey into our employee mailbox. I took it home and put it on my book shelf, and there it sat for a year or so untouched and scarcely remembered until one day when we were about to take a very long drive across the country, and I grabbed the few audiobooks I owned just to help keep me from falling asleep on the road. We weren’t really looking to gain anything from the book except a few hours of distraction, but in fact that little book would change our lives forever. I’ve since made it a habit to taking it a bit more seriously when someone sincerely recommends a book, much less thinks so much of it that they buy a copy for all their co-workers.

Now, I am not here endorsing literally everything Ramsey says. The point of this post is not to promote this particular book or author. But the portion of the book dealing with debt, how it harms, and how to get out of it forever, is what set us on a very valuable path to biblically reorienting our finances and challenging many cultural assumptions about money, lifestyle, and purchasing decisions. If these are things you have never paused to really think about, Dave Ramsey really might not be a bad place for you to start, though maybe balance it by spending some time reading guys like David Platt and Francis Chan, just to help make sure you keep the proper goal in front of you beyond money itself.

Having said all of this, what I really wanted to emphasize is simply this: in a culture where debt has become the only way people know, where credit cards and student loans and mortgages and car financing are simply assumed to be the only ways that normal people can obtain things, and where being “able to afford something” simply means being able to make the payments on it each month, we often don’t even pause to think about debt from a biblical perspective. But if we are going to live as people who believe the gospel, and therefor live in a way that prioritizes eternity over now, a life as a sojourning people in a foreign land not tying ourselves down to this world, a life in which the kingdom is held in priority above all else, than this issue simply cannot be ignored. A man who is debt free could quit his job, sell all he has, and move to the mission field tomorrow. He doesn’t have to, but he is free to. Nothing is stopping him. No one owns him, save his Lord in heaven. But a man in debt is a man who cannot quit his job without first securing another, and only one that pays him well enough to make at least his minimum payments each month. He can only go where such limited and restrictive work requirements allow him, and if his debt is tied to property, he may be unable to sell and move and all! How about monthly giving? How hard is it to give freely when one owes each month on so many other things? These are just a couple simple examples of how being tied to earthly matters by debt can hinder our lives from being fully surrendered to the priorities of the kingdom. A man in debt is necessarily forced back to materialistic concerns to a degree that a debt free man does not have to be. Debt is a binding chain on a kingdom man. On any man, really.

Paul tells us in Romans 13:8 that as Christians we ought to owe nothing to anyone except love. Charles Spurgeon commented on this, “Scripture says, ‘Owe no man anything,’ which does not mean pay your debts, but never have any to pay.” If you do have debt, of course you should pay the debt you already have, but what if Christians decided to live so unlike the world around us that we did not borrow money to have the comfort and convenience of things that we don’t actually have money for? What if we saved and payed the full amount for everything we bought, and only bought things that were worth saving up for? We would certainly become a peculiar people, a people unlike the materialistic world, a people quite strange in their sight. But isn’t that what Scripture tells us we are supposed to be? And would it, perhaps, give weight to our claim to truly believe that our comfort and reward is not in the things of this life anyway, but in things to come, so we are in no hurry to obtain materialistic pleasures now and are fine to do without them entirely if need be? Would it aid our proclaiming of a gospel of eternal life in the kingdom of God to come? It certainly would not hurt!

Now, let me be clear, I am not saying that literally all debt is sin. Some debt is, and the attitude behind borrowing certainly can often be sinful, but all of that we can save for another post. My point here is not to call debt sin, but rather to suggest that it holds us back from fully embracing an eternal focus, a kingdom priority, and biblical generosity. Debt is an anchor, and the Christian life is about setting sail and moving forward, not staying put. Why not stop borrowing right now, responsibly pay off the debt you already have over the next several years, and free yourselves to live out the kingdom life like never before? There is freedom in seeing that last check clear, freedom in a monthly budget without monthly payments, and freedom in an unhindered focus on where God wants you to be rather than where the banks will let you be, and I hope and pray that some of you will find it! I will be forever grateful for the co-worker those years ago who quietly bought me a book so that I could find it!


Luke Wayne is a bi-vocational Baptist missionary in Utah and the chief editor for Perilous Trails. He holds an MDiv from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and an MA in Theological Studies from Midwestern Baptist College. He has served as a church planter in Olathe, KS and a Homeless Shelter Manager in Kansas City, MO. He is also a husband, father, fisher, hiker, security officer, and raiser of livestock

Now and Eternity

“And Peter said, “See, we have left our homes and followed you.” And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.” (Luke 18:28-30)

The gospel is a call to completely forsake the world as it is and live for the radical hope of the world as Christ will one day make it. To give up the comfort and the priorities of this life, trusting that they are temporary and that the promise is true of a permanent future and of resurrection life in the new heavens and earth in the age to come when our bodies are given health and vitality that cannot be taken away and where we live forever as perfected men and women humbly in the presence of our great and glorious God. Truly believing this, truly trusting in this hope purchased for us by the suffering, death, and resurrection of our Lord changes everything. One simply cannot have faith that this is true and yet live as if this life is all there is, drinking in its pleasures because “you only live once,” checking worldly goals off our “bucket list” because you “have to experience this before you die.” No, the way of the world is simply not possible for those who believe in the grace of God in Christ Jesus and the glorious eternal kingdom at His future return. Believing in Jesus changes everything. The gospel is a call to forsake this life, and to live for the promised eternity.

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.” (Matthew 13:44-46)

Christ Himself left his heavenly glory and took on the form a servant, even faced death on the cross, to purchase the kingdom and display its glorious future hope in His bodily resurrection and ascension to the right hand of the Father. In this, Christ is not only our master and savior, but also our model (Philippians 2:4-11) He was born outside in a manger, in his ministry the Son of Man had no place to lay his head, and at His death He was naked, mocked, spat on, beaten, shamed, tortured, and murdered. He could have come as a king, and the crowds often wanted to make Him one. He could have multiplied food and turned water to wine for himself instead of only for the hungry crowds (but He would not even turn a stone to bread for Himself when He was at the brink of starvation). He could have called an army of angels to strike down the crowd who called for His crucifixion. Indeed, with a single word He could have snuffed out the lives of His enemies by His own divine power. He would have had every right, yet He did not. He forsook all to bear our sins and to purchase the sinners redemption, and He has called us to also forsake all to bear our brother’s burden and call the sinner to repentance and to faith in the redemption that Christ alone has purchased. We are to daily take up our own cross and follow Him. This will surely look different for different Christians in different situations. We are not all of the same gifts and ministries, but we are all of the same body and Spirit, and of the same gospel call that is simply not compatible with the pleasures and priorities of this life and of this world’s manner of thinking and living. Indeed, it is like forsaking all other women to take a wife. When we enter into to covenant with God by faith in the sacrificial blood of Jesus, we are giving up the world. To live like we haven’t is a great sin!

“You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” (James 4:4)

Abraham left his home for a promise he would not live to see fulfilled, but he trusted that God would be true to His word. Elisha left his family and his inheritance to live in the travails of a life as a prophet of God amidst a wicked generation, putting his hope in the LORD alone. The apostles left their nets, their parents, their offices, their lives. They lived without financial security and in constant threat of pain, prison, and death for the sake of the gospel and in hope of the kingdom to come. This is faith. This is the Christian life. Suffering now, glory later. A sojourner in a foreign land now, an heir to an eternal homeland in the age to come. 

“The earth will soon dissolve like snow, the sun forbear to shine. But God who called me here below will be forever mine” (John Newton, “Amazing Grace”)

So what are we to do? As I said, this looks different for each of us, but for all of us it looks radically different than the people around us. It definitely means that you need to boldly proclaim the gospel and live obediently to biblical standards, even if that costs you your job, your career path, your relationship with family and friends, your financial security, your comfort, even your freedom or your life. It means you might get fired from the job you worked and studied so long to obtain, and could even mean that because you got fired for your stand for biblical truth that you end up working a hard, dirty, lower wage job and just scraping by even though you are qualified for something more. It might never go that way for you, but it means Christ and the gospel being so central in your life and speech that it could go that way.  It means being willing.

But it also means more. A complete shift in priorities. For some of you maybe it means you relocate your business or transfer your work and your family to a place in the world, or even a region in the U.S., where the gospel is not often heard and to devote yourself to reaching the lost and helping the needy there. Maybe you are to stay right where you are, but to downsize your house, cancel your cable, eat out less (or even not at all), live like the poor and give all that money to support missions, or your local homeless shelter, or to fund adoptions, or to support a local pro-life ministry in rescuing children from death. Maybe you would even use some of your hours off work and your vacation days to participate in these things rather than merely pursuing the pleasures of personal leisure. Maybe you are young and married and ought to consider adopting or fostering children to show God’s special compassion to orphans. Maybe you need to quit your work and go into full time mission work, or use your skills in accounting or law or medicine or the like in the service of a ministry that needs such things (even though it will likely mean a pay cut, and even though behind the scenes work like this is not a very “glamorous” side of missions.) Or maybe it means stopping the advance of your career and “settling” for a lower position that will demand less of your time and focus because money and title are not as important as time with church and family and time to share the gospel in the street and to serve the poor. A quiet, simple, modest, hard working life that is devoted to the service of others is a radical thing in this materialistic and self centered world, even if it isn’t the kind of story you read Christian books about (as we previously discussed here). This is not an exhaustive list, only a few possible ideas out of many. Read your Bible, and apply what it says, even if what it says will make you look crazy to others around you. Read your Bible, and apply what it says, even if what it says will make you look mundane and boring to others around you. But in all things:

"Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you" (Matthew 6:33) 


Luke Wayne is a bi-vocational Baptist missionary in Utah and the chief editor for Perilous Trails. He holds an MDiv from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and an MA in Theological Studies from Midwestern Baptist College. He has served as a church planter in Olathe, KS and a Homeless Shelter Manager in Kansas City, MO. He is also a husband, father, fisher, hiker, security officer, and raiser of livestock.   

Walking The Afflicted Road

The classic book “The Pilgrim’s Progress” (the first on my list of “must reads” for 2016) is the story of the Christian life pictured as a treacherous journey from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City on Mount Zion. It is a strait forward allegory that powerfully makes its point. There is a particular scene where a group arrives at a hill called “Difficulty.” The strait way on which they were instructed to follow goes straight up the steep and rocky hill at a horrible and painful incline for a distance that will take a man the greater part of the day to climb. To the right and left, however, there are other roads that go around the hill rather than over it and make for easy traveling. While the faithful Christian follows the instructions and stays to the path, enduring the pains of the Hill Difficulty in obedience to the Lord, the others take the easier ways that lead them to their untimely demise.

Jesus Himself used a very similar image in His famous sermon on the mount. “Enter through the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the road is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who go through it. How narrow is the gate and difficult the road that leads to life, and few find it.”

(Matthew 7:13-14). Consider how often the New Testament pictures life this way. Like Jesus words about the two roads, the whole of the New Testament speaks of two ways of walking. There are those walking according to the flesh, walking in darkness, walking according to their desires, and the like. This is the path of the world. There are also those walking in light, walking in the Spirit, walking in truth. This is the way of Christ. The narrow and afflicted way. The way of life. Indeed, we see often in the Book of Acts that in the days of the early church our faith was often called "The Way." Life is a journey, and we are promised that a Christian life will not be an easy one.

In a previous post, we looked at the biblical reality that in this present age of sin and corruption as we await the triumphant return of our King, we are to see ourselves as temporary residents in a hostile foreign land, as sojourners and pilgrims of a distinct and peculiar people. Similarly, Jesus also wants us to picture our lives as a difficult road, as a treacherous and narrow mountain pass which we must rely on Him to cross safely to the other side. God delivered his people out of Egypt and brought them by way of a deadly wilderness on a journey to the Promised Land. Even when they reached their destination, God desired them to maintain a sense of their identity as desperate traveler’s dependent on Him. Every year they were to eat the Passover feast loins girded, their sandals on their feet, and their staff in their hand as if ready to fly in the wilderness anew joyfully following their deliverer. They were never to forget. It is directly from this imagery that we

were given the communion meal, our feast of remembrance by which we keep before us our great deliverance and remember that we have not yet arrived in our promised land, but still trust Him in this wilderness while we await His return. 

They were also to celebrate the feast of booths, where they were to leave their homes and sleep in tents and temporary shelters and remember those days in the wilderness when God fed them with manna from heaven and water from the rock. We are reminded, too, that Jesus is our manna from heaven (John 6:30-33) and is our living water giving rock (John 4:13-14). In fact, Paul warns us in 1 Corinthians 10:1-13 tells us that Israel’s wandering in the wilderness with all their struggles and all their failures was written down as a warning and reminder to us! We must remain faithful amidst this perilous path, letting this vision of our lives reshape our priorities and letting the inherent struggles drive ever back to our dependence on Him.

This should reshape our priorities. When you are traveling a difficult road, luxuries become a burden. You carry only what you need. You sleep in modest shelters easy to carry rather than comfortable ones more suited for longer stays. You share what you have equally and bare one another’s burdens, lest keeping to much in your own hands you wear yourself out and stumble off the mountain to your demise, or else leaving all the work to another he should fall under the weight, taking all the precious supplies with him, and your ruin is as great as his! You keep focused on the destination, and don’t let the things on the way deter you. If this life is a journey to the kingdom of God, all your priorities change. You live differently, not because comfort and abundance is of itself wrong, but because it is not appropriate for such a journey. You will enjoy it later at the destination. As Jesus said:

“Don’t keep striving for what you should eat, what you should drink, and what you should wear, and don’t be anxious. For the nations eagerly seek all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. But seek His kingdom, and these things will be provided for you. Don’t be afraid, little flock, because your Father delights to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Make money-bags for yourselves that won’t grow old, an inexhaustible treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Luke 12:29-34)

Luke Wayne is a bi-vocational Baptist missionary in Utah and the chief editor for Perilous Trails. He holds an MDiv from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and an MA in Theological Studies from Midwestern Baptist College. He has served as a church planter in Olathe, KS and a Homeless Shelter Manager in Kansas City, MO. He is also a husband, father, fisher, hiker, security officer, and raiser of livestock. 

Unashamed workman

God grant me a disciplined mind, an awestruck heart, calloused hands, and a tamed tongue, for it is with such that men are to praise you!

I often hear Christians talking about careers, and it usually sounds something like, “We need more Christian politicians!” or “we need more Christian professors in our universities!” or “We need more Christian film makers!” or “We need more Christians in entertainment/media,” or “Christians need to  really need to take back the arts!” The reasoning always seems to be that these are the things that shape culture, and so if Christians are going to shape the culture we need to actively seek out places in the fields of influence so we can reach the culture and change the world.

These are all fine trades, and I am all for having more Christians in these trades, especially if it happens by us sharing the gospel with those already working in these fields and them coming to Christ! With certain moral boundaries, I would generally say that all work is good work and so these fields are no worse than any others and it would be great for people working in those fields to repent and believe in Christ and remain in those fields! That would be awesome! But biblically, I can’t find anywhere that says it’s more and more of our children to actively pursue positions in these fields. Heck, historically I can’t even find any evidence that it’s an especially good strategy! The world certainly honors and loves these fields, and God has seen fit from time to time to powerfully use His people in such roles, but by in large God has chosen to do things different than the world expects to draw attention to Himself rather than to the men.

“For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:26-29)

“Not many of you” of course means that some indeed were, and it is okay to be a Christian Governor, Senator, Professor, Scientist, Comedian, Musician, or CEO. If you are serving there while remaining faithful to God, to His commands, and to His people, that is great and there is no shame in that, and I pray He uses you there mightily to do great things! But generally speaking, more often than not, that isn’t how God has chosen to work in the new covenant kingdom of Jesus Christ. He chose to found it with a group of fisherman and tax collectors, house wives and healed beggars and shepherds who live in the fields with their sheep. The opposing authorities were amazed at the disciples boldness and clear biblical teaching, not because they were formally trained scholars, but because they weren’t! The early documents we have from shortly after the time of the New Testament show that the great scandal of early Christianity was that Christians were taught by butchers and tanners and weavers, and that many were coming to Christ on the bold testimony of common women. Sure, even in the early years Christians had their philosophical scholars like Justin and had politically influential converts even in the very household of Caesar, but by and large the faith was made up of people who “aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.” (1 Thessalonians 4:11-12) and who “do their work quietly and to earn their own living.” (2 Thessalonians 3:12b). The picture is simple, honest daily work, often at manual labor, paired with virtuous, humble, and generous lives. In fact, the simple generosity was key, as Paul elsewhere wrote:

“He who steals must steal no longer; but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with one who has need." Ephesians 4:28

It is interesting that we are not only commanded NOT to steal, and instead to work for what we need. That much we might expect. But the command says something different than that. Instead of just the absence of stealing, it commands quite the opposite from stealing, actually. Even our honest work is not for ourselves, but SO THAT we will have something to freely give to others in need! Our labor is not for our own gain, but for the purpose of our brothers. Industry, simplicity, and generosity. It is the pattern to which all who are in Christ are called. Brothers and sisters, let's show the world this better way!

The purpose of our work then is not first and foremost to gain audience and influence and change the world through the greatness of our reach, but to work hard, live simple, give extravagantly. God blesses with the increase. It is for us to honor needful labor that the world does not honor, to do it with commitment and integrity, and love our neighbor enough to meet his needs, be they physical or spiritual. Be about some every day trade, but with a godly diligence and character. As one of my favorite figures in American history, George Washington Carver, once put it “Learn to do common things uncommonly well; we must always keep in mind that anything that helps fill the dinner pail is valuable.” Jesus taught us that one who wishes to be great in the kingdom must be his neighbors servant, and that the first shall be last and the last first. It is the common tradesman and worker, who the world sees at the bottom, who often has the greatest potential for virtue and Christian greatness. Normally such greatness goes unseen by the eyes of men, but often God sees fit to draw from exactly such a pool some fisherman or tent maker to be a world renounced preacher of his word. John Bunyan was a man of little formal education who made his living mending pots and pans in 17th century England. He was also a devoted Christian pastor, evangelist & author who, though writing from prison for preaching without a government license, penned one of the most influential written works of all time. "The Pilgrim's Progress" has been translated in over 200 languages and has aided in the transformation of lives the world over for hundreds of years, including my own! God doesn’t work the way we would, and He does mighty things through simple means. 

I have known cattle ranchers who travel the world in their slow seasons strengthening missionaries and preaching the gospel. I have known water treatment plant managers who quietly reach and disciple their coworkers and support local outreach with their wages for decades whose impact the world may not see, but through whom untold lives are forever changed. I have known UPS drivers who open their homes to college students and teach them the bible while their wives prepare them meals, who freely work on people’s cars and in their homes just to be of help and to display and have opportunity to share and proclaim the word of God. I have seen programmers work out arrangements with their companies so they can work remotely while moving to Africa to help orphans, delivery men spending their time on street corners giving our tracts and bibles, concrete layers pastoring churches, and countless others whose hard work at common jobs coupled lives devoted to God, to their families, to the church, and to reaching the lost have had a greater cumulative impact than could possibly be fathomed. When we realize that it’s not about us, but about what God is doing through His people as a whole, a quiet life of diligent labor, generous giving, and sacrificial devotion to a local church community becomes an awesome thing that is sadly becoming all too rare as we far too often barrow the values of the world to calculate how we can “have the greatest impact” and with the best of intentions avoid being united together as the kind of radically different people that God desires to glorify His own name in using to make Himself and His gospel known

It’s not easy, and it simply can’t be a life lived in our own comforts and given to our own amusements. Theodore Roosevelt put it well when he said, “I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil" The world won’t get it. The world shouldn’t get it. As Francis Chan says, "Something is wrong when our lives make sense to unbelievers." But in fact, God blesses such a people. God blesses such a life, and so such a life lived for Him is used by Him and accomplishes His goals, reaping great reward in the age to come, and THAT is where our rest is! Remember, we are people here in sojourn, as if resident aliens in a foreign land until our Lord comes again to consummate His kingdom, and only then does our Sabbath rest and our time of greatness come, for then we will reign with Him!

If you're still prior to the "deciding on a career" point in your life, you've got two good options. 1.) Find something productive that you particularly like doing and through sacrifice, hard work, discipline, and a willingness to put other things aside for it, get good enough at it that someone is willing to pay you to do it. 2.) Find something that people need and will pay for and through sacrifice, hard work, discipline, and a willingness to put other things aside for it, get good enough at it that you don't hate doing it anymore, can take a certain pride in it, and as a result will get paid a premium for doing it. The former sounds more pleasant than the latter, but is actually the harder road. Either way though, it requires hard work and sacrifice for something to finally "come naturally to you." Don’t spend your life trying to find some one special thing you’re great it, but rather pick some needful thing and get great enough at it to make an honest living, then live on less than make and give plenty away, and make sure to guard your time for family and the community of faith. 

If you’re already in a career, be content with it! Unless it is driving you to sin or harming your responsibilities to family or your connection to your church, work hard at it and start thinking about how to simplify your life and maximize you’re giving. Come up with ways for you and your family to serve your church family and reach out in local ministry. Maybe volunteer regularly at a homeless mission or pregnancy resource center, or go down town and hand out tracts, or mow the lawns and clean the yards of the elderly families near your home who can’t do it themselves any more. Use some of your vacation days to go on mission trips or join a disaster relief team. Read the bible to your kids daily and talk about what it means so they carry it with them when they get older. Realize that in so doing, you are joining the ranks of countless great saints of old, some whose names we know, many whom we never will, who did such things and through whom God changed the world, and is changing it still. Let’s show the world a better way.

Luke Wayne is a bi-vocational Baptist missionary in Utah and the chief editor for Perilous Trails. He holds an MDiv from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and an MA in Theological Studies from Midwestern Baptist College. He has served as a church planter in Olathe, KS and a Homeless Shelter Manager in Kansas City, MO. He is also a husband, father, fisher, hiker, security officer, and raiser of livestock.  

On Christian Hospitality

I’m a little late on this week’s post because my wife and I have been hosting a friend from out of town in our home this week. I honestly love it when my wife’s family and friends come to visit, as it always feels like a friendly competition to, as the ESV renders Romans 12:10, “outdo one another in showing honor.” I hope that we are able to keep up in being at least as much a blessing to such visitors as we are blessed by them. God is so good to us through His people!

I have often myself been the one welcomed into another's home, especially in times of need. Back in college, I remember there being weeks between where my lease at one apartment would end and my lease at the next was scheduled to begin, and every time there was some Christian brother more than willing to take me into his home for as long as I needed. When we first moved to Utah, a Christian family here let us sleep in their home the first night as we could not move into our apartment until the next day, and then when they found out that the truck with our belongings was delayed and would not arrive until the next week, they and others in their church family lent us a bed to sleep on and filled our fridge with food to make our new apartment livable until our truck got in. As recently as a last month, a Christian family in Bulgaria that we had never met took us into their home for the bulk of the week we were there for our first adoption visit. They would have hosted us the entire time if we had not needed to leave the city part of the week. They fed us, and even insisted on giving up their bed and room to us, all for no other reason than that we were family in Christ and that we were travelers in need. These are only a few of many examples I could give. When Romans 12:13 says “Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality,” I have tasted of what this means, and it is good!

The scriptures take this idea of hospitality quite seriously, actually. In Matthew 25, in the famous parable where Jesus is pronouncing judgment and reward based on treatment he received, and both crowds are confused and asking when they did such things, and Jesus famously remarks “that which you did to the least of these my brothers, you did also to me,” we often remember ones like, “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat,” or “I was naked and you clothed me,” but may not pay as close attention to, “ I was a stranger and you welcomed me in.” It is a lot easier to show charity outside our home than it is to welcome people in. Even our relatives we sometimes prefer to stay at a hotel nearby, but a stranger? That truly takes a selfless surrender of our personal comfort. But 1 peter 4:9 commands us to “Be hospitable to one another without complaining.” Hebrews 13:2 calls to mind a few remarkable Old Testament accounts, such as that of Lot, when it declares, “Don’t neglect to show hospitality, for by doing this some have welcomed angels as guests without knowing it.” Paul’s letters to Titus and Timothy even teach that being hospitable is one of the basic qualifications for being appointed to leadership in the local church! It is a necessary sign of Christian maturity that one be compassionate, sacrificial, serving, and welcoming to others in need with regard to one’s home, especially when it comes to the needs of other believers. And as Jesus Himself taught:

“Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me. 41 The one who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet's reward, and the one who receives a righteous person because he is a righteous person will receive a righteous person's reward. 42 And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.” (Matthew 10:40-42)

Jesus elsewhere teaches that this does extend beyond the fellowship to the hurting in general as well:

“When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” (Luke 14:12-14)

There is reward in opening our home to those in need, especially when we can’t get anything out of it ourselves. We do it to honor God alone, and trust Him for our reward. There are many ways to apply this truth today, and I by no means write this to make you feel guilty, but rather to encourage you! Most of the language we have looked at is not that of judgment but that of blessing, reward, growth, maturity, and pleasing God! This is the kind of people God has remade us to be, and in this we make Him smile and bless those He loves. It’s a lot of hard work, and kind be as much a duty as a pleasure in many cases, but it truly is a joy to open our homes and be about the Lord’s business, providing care for brothers and sisters whose homes have been damaged in disasters, or helping families temporarily out of work, or housing short term missionaries working in our area, our homes can be a haven for the needy, a blessing to the kingdom, and an expression of the love of God!

I will briefly here at the end offer one specific application we can make in our modern, western context. Hospitality can be wonderfully lived out by Christian’s opening their homes to children and teens in need as foster parents. Whether the child be an orphan awaiting adoption or whether they are still pursuing reconciliation with and return to their parents, these hurting boys and girls are in need not only of food and clothing and shelter, but along with those things of love, patience, structure, compassion, and in many instances the gospel itself! Some of these children are already our brothers in sisters in need of our help, and some are the hurting and poor of this world in need of redemption through God’s compassion, expressed in our own compassion. In either case we please our God and advance His kingdom when we open our homes in this way. I have been blessed and challenged by the self sacrifice of families I know who have taken up this ministry within their homes, and their examples send ripples throughout the church beyond what they probably even realize. This is, of course, only one possible expression of biblically hospitality, and it is a hard one. But it is also a good an needed one, and one a pray many of you may seriously consider now or in the future.

Luke Wayne is a bi-vocational Baptist missionary in Utah and the chief editor for Perilous Trails. He holds an MDiv from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and an MA in Theological Studies from Midwestern Baptist College. He has served as a church planter in Olathe, KS and a Homeless Shelter Manager in Kansas City, MO. He is also a husband, father, fisher, hiker, security officer, and raiser of livestock.