NT391 Hospitality in the New Testament
Overview
What does hospitality look like for the authors of the New Testament? Dr. Joshua Jipp presents the biblical concept of hospitality through a thorough examination of the relevant literature in Luke-Acts, the Gospel of John, and the Pauline Letters. The course begins by exploring the ancient background of hospitality as practiced in the Graeco-Roman world and ancient Israel. Dr. Jipp pays particular attention to Jesus because the hospitality that he practiced, as both guest and host, became the exemplar for the apostles and the early church, and should be the model that the church exhibits today. Jipp’s masterful study of a common, yet understudied, theme in the New Testament is highly organized, exegetically sound, and theologically stimulating, thus giving this course great potential for application in the local church and beyond.
Top Highlights
“But in the ancient world, hospitality was a relationship that was initiated between a guest and a host who were typically strangers from one another. So, to bestow hospitality upon someone wasn’t just to invite your friend or your buddy over to your house to have a good time. Rather, hospitality was the initiation of a relationship between two people (or more) that were strangers from one another—that, then, they developed this relationship with each other, they then were able to move it into something that was more familial or more of a fictive-kinship type of relationship.” (source)
“I think it can also be helpful to take a contemporary theologian—a contemporary author on spiritual formation—and look at some of the ways in which this author, Henri Nouwen, speaks of hospitality, before we get into the ancient and biblical content. Henri Nouwen, in his book Reaching Out, speaks of hospitality as a spiritual movement, whereby—and I’m quoting him now—‘our hostilities [can be] converted into hospitality.’ Let me give you another quote along the same lines: He says, ‘Our vocation [is] to convert … the enemy into a guest and to create the free and fearless space where brotherhood and sisterhood can be formed and fully experienced.’” (source)
“So, first step: The stranger approaches the city gate. Second step: The host provides life-giving necessities. The third step: The host then questions the stranger about his identity and his mission but only after they’ve engaged in a shared meal.” (source)
“The fourth step in Book 3 is that the host then takes the stranger into his own home to sleep, if that’s what the guest desires.” (source)
- Title: NT391 Hospitality in the New Testament
- Author: Joshua Jipp
- Series: Logos Mobile Education
- Publisher: Lexham Press
- Print Publication Date: 2017
- Logos Release Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Courseware
- Subjects: Education › Hospitality--Religious aspects--Christianity; Hospitality › Religious aspects--Christianity
- Resource ID: LLS:NT391JIPP
- Resource Type: Courseware Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2019-06-21T17:31:59Z
Dr. Joshua Jipp has taught New Testament in a variety of settings, including as a teaching fellow at TEDS, before joining the faculty at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys baseball, basketball, hiking outdoors, and spending time with his wife, Amber, and their two sons. His most recent scholarly work includes Paul’s Areopagus Speech of Acts 17:16–34 as Both Critique and Propaganda in theJournal of Biblical Literature, and Divine Visitations and Hospitality to Strangers in Luke–Acts: An Interpretation of the Malta Episode in Acts 28:1–10 (Brill). He’s currently working on a book on Pauline Christology for Fortress Press and the Two Horizons Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles for Eerdmans.