Love of the Stranger
Summary
The New Testament is full of instructions for how the church should treat itself — unity, love, humility. But in 1 Peter 4, written during one of the bloodiest periods in church history, Peter reaches for a word that isn't about the church at all. Not philadelphia — love of brothers and sisters — but philoxenos: love of the stranger. Working through 1 Peter 4:7–11, Dominic Jackson traces what hospitality actually means in its biblical sense, why Peter's call to extend it without grumbling puts our own excuses in sharp relief, and what it might look like for a church to function less like a members’ club and more like a hospital.
Questions for reflection
Peter writes to a church being actively persecuted and still calls them to show hospitality to outsiders — without grumbling. What does that context do to the excuses you typically reach for when it comes to serving or welcoming others?
Henry Nouwen defines hospitality as the creation of a free space where a stranger can become a friend rather than an enemy — not a project to fix, but a person to receive. How does that definition challenge the way you typically think about outreach or evangelism?
Dominic distinguishes between philadelphia (love of brothers and sisters) and philoxenos (love of the stranger). Which comes more naturally to you, and why?
The sermon suggests that Gateway is pretty good at Philadelphia — breaking bread, hanging out, being a friendly community. Where is there room to grow in philoxenos?
Dominic offers three practical challenges: pray daily asking God what he wants you to do, meet someone new each week, and share a meal with someone new each month. Which of those feels most accessible — and which feels most stretching?
Jesus, doing the most important work in human history, was incredibly interruptible. Where in your life are you hardest to interrupt — and what might you be missing because of it?
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In the New Testament, there is a recurring phrase you will find over and over — the words one another. Instructions, plain and simple, for how we are to live together. Somebody counted: 59 times. The phrase appears 59 times.
About a third of those one-another commands deal with unity in the church — be at peace with one another (Mark 9), do not grumble among yourselves (John 6). Nearly 30% are instructions on how to love one another — through love serve one another (Galatians 5:13), tolerate one another in love (Ephesians 4). About 15% stress humility among believers. And then there are around 13 miscellaneous verses — which is where today's passage lives: offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.
Now, I started this year with a sermon on hospitality. Don't worry — this won't be a copy-paste. Chances are you don't remember it. I barely remember it, and I preached it. But we're going to do something different today. I want to take that earlier sermon and flip it upside down. Because instead of looking at hospitality as it applies to brothers and sisters — to everyone in this room — I want to look at the other meaning of it: hospitality extended to everyone outside of it.
The rest of this series will mostly focus on our life together as a church family. Today, I want to talk about what I'll call extended family. Everybody else.
[Prayer]
The Context: The Bloodiest Season
Turn with me to 1 Peter 4. A little background as you find it, since we're jumping into the middle of the letter.
1 Peter is written during one of the bloodiest periods in church history. Rome had burned, and Nero blamed the Christians. They weren't responsible — many historians believe Nero either ordered it himself or seized on it as an opportunity to blame the early church, reclaim control, and reset the nation. Regardless, it was not a good time to be a Christian. Peter, Paul, and thousands of others would lose their lives during this period. If you read through the New Testament and encounter a named Christian, there is a very strong chance that person did not survive this era.
So it should be no surprise that our passage opens: "The end of all things is near. Therefore be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray."
Peter will later explain that this nearness can't be put on a timetable — a day is like a year, a year is like a day. He isn't talking about the world ending. He's talking about his world ending. He knows he is going to die soon. And so, more than likely, do the people reading this letter.
When people face that kind of reality, they tend to respond in very different ways. In the first century, there were several distinct approaches.
The Pharisees — the religious elite — removed themselves from what they viewed as a corrupt culture, separating themselves completely in the hope of getting God's attention and perhaps his favor. Avoid the world.
The Sadducees didn't believe in the afterlife or resurrection, so since they knew they were running out of time, they decided to live it up as much as possible. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. They had other appetites too — not just for food and drink.
The Essenes believed the end was near and wanted to take political control to try and swing things in their favor. Change the system from within.
And the Zealots didn't want political solutions. They wanted violence — political assassination, anarchy, revolution. Fight fire with fire.
I'd imagine that if followers of Jesus today found themselves in a similar situation — actively hunted for their faith — many of us would be tempted toward one of these same responses. Avoid the world entirely. Party it up. Reclaim political power. Or fight back. These aren't hypothetical impulses. They show up in the church all the time, even without the extreme circumstances.
But Peter was in those circumstances. And he points toward another way.
Above All, Love
Verse 8: "Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins."
The sins referenced here are both the sins of the one doing the loving and the sins of the one being loved. One commentator puts it this way: where love abounds, many small offenses and even some large ones are readily overlooked and forgotten. But where love is lacking, every word is viewed with suspicion, every action is liable to misunderstanding, and conflicts abound — to the enemy's delight.
And then, immediately after, we get our central text.
"Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling."
I used to think hospitality just meant being good at throwing parties. Keeping a clean house. Remembering to write thank-you cards. In some ways, sure — but according to Scripture, hospitality is so much more than what we do. It's who we are and how we see others.
Here's something worth noting about the Greek. There are actually two words in the New Testament that deal with this kind of love. The first is one we already know: philadelphia — from which the city of Philadelphia takes its name. The city of brotherly love. It means treating your church family like family.
But Peter could have used that word and didn't. Instead, he uses philoxenos.
Philo — love of, love for. And xenos — stranger, alien, foreigner. You might know the word xenophobia — fear of the outsider. This is its opposite. Philo-xenos. Love of the stranger. Treating an outsider as if they were a brother or sister.
Now hold that against the context. The church is being persecuted. Peter will later describe followers of Jesus in this letter as exiles in a foreign land. And then he gives them instructions on how to treat the actual foreigners — including, implicitly, the ones who are persecuting them. He says: show them hospitality. Treat them like family.
That was his plan for how to respond to what they were facing.
And as I read this, I have to be honest — I felt convicted. Not just because of the context, but because of that small addition: without grumbling.
Let me compare excuses for a second, and I'm preaching to myself here.
My excuse for not showing hospitality: It's been a busy week. I just want to go home and watch Netflix. I'm not really in the mood. That's just not my personality.
Peter's excuse for not showing hospitality: The government thinks I burned Rome. If I invite that person over, it might literally cost me my life.
Out of the two, I think Peter has the stronger case for opting out. And yet he still calls the church to open their doors, open their homes, open their hearts.
Stewards of Grace
Verse 10: "Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms."
Every single person in this room — even if I don't know you — has been given unique, specific gifts from God, for God. And somehow, those gifts are connected to reaching and serving others, especially those outside the church.
Speaking of gifts — in sixth grade, I went out for choir. There was a girl I was trying to impress. It did not work. But I showed up and thought: it's just singing, how hard can it be?
Our director, Mrs. Hodge, had us all sing a Brian McKnight song — that's a 90s throwback for you. As we sang, she started narrowing it down. Half the room. Then just this row. Then just this group of boys. And then — me.
"Dominic, go ahead and sing that one more time."
So I did. And she stopped me and said, in a thick southern accent I won't attempt to recreate: "Dominic, you sound like a coyote with a mouthful of rocks on a hot gravel road."
I didn't fully know what that meant. But I knew I should be offended.
That was the day I found out I cannot sing. You might notice I always stand in the front row. Now you know why — nobody is in front of me to hear how bad it is.
All that to say: I'm probably not bringing many people to the Lord through my vocal gifts. But we all have gifts. Every single one of us. And Peter tells us what those gifts are for.
Can you sing? Use it. Are you an artist? Do it. Are you good at throwing a party? We need parties — do it. Do you work well with kids? Let us know, and use that. Are you a good listener — has someone ever told you that? Use it. Good with technology, with building things, whatever it is — use it for the grace of God.
Verse 11: "If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides — so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and power forever and ever. Amen."
Philadelphia and Philoxenos
So back to where we started. Peter is writing to the church about those outside the church. This letter is instruction on what following Jesus looks like in a world that does not look like Jesus.
And what I've been asking myself this week is: at Gateway, we're pretty good at philadelphia. We break bread together. We share meals. We go to trivia nights. We watched the Super Bowl together. We go to album release parties. Some of us played spike ball recently — and some of us woke up the next morning genuinely surprised by how sore we were and suddenly aware of how old we are. But we like each other. We enjoy spending time together. And if you ask someone in this room to hang out, there's a strong chance they'll say absolutely, when and where.
We're a friendly group. That's a wonderful thing — hallelujah for it.
But the question I've been sitting with is: how do we treat the outsider? The stranger? The marginalized? The person outside these walls? What does philoxenos look like from here, especially into a hurting world?
Henry Nouwen, one of my favorite writers, defines hospitality this way: "Hospitality means primarily the creation of a free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by divided lines."
People are not projects.
How are we doing with that? And I say this not to shame anyone — this is a genuinely welcoming community, and this isn't a passive-aggressive way of saying we're blowing it. I'm asking genuinely: how might we grow? As we hope to serve our community better and point more people toward the love of Jesus, it's worth pausing to assess.
A Hospital
The root of the word hospitality is also where we get the word hospital. I've been thinking a lot about hospitals this week.
Megan's grandfather passed away this week at 91. Just a week before, he had been driving around, eating at his favorite restaurants, going to mass, living fully. And then suddenly he was in a hospital bed, surrounded by family saying goodbyes — really more like see-you-laters — to an amazing man. And in a couple of months, our family will be back in a hospital when my sister-in-law's first baby is born.
A hospital is a place of healing, hope, and prayer. Sometimes it's new life. Sometimes it's moving on to the next. Tears of both kinds. And I'd imagine that more prayers have been prayed in hospital lobbies than in any cathedral.
So the Bible calls us to be hospitable — which means we're also called to function something like a hospital. A place of healing and hope. Of walking alongside friends and strangers in their difficult times and new chapters. A safe space for people to wrestle with questions and doubts. A place where when we don't have words, we simply sit with someone so they don't feel so alone.
But also — and this is my favorite part — a hospital is where you take your first steps after a successful surgery. It's hearing the words cancer free for the first time. It's getting the cast off right before school starts. It's holding your child for the very first time.
May we be a place of hospitality for people's best days and their lowest moments.
Heard, Healed, Held
Before we can meet people where they are, we first need to know where they are. We need to know their story.
One of the best examples of this I've ever seen didn't come from a theologian or a pastor or a bestselling author. It came from teachers. When I worked in a public school, I learned quickly from those more experienced than me — which was everyone — that when a student has a need, a good teacher has to quickly assess whether that student needs to be heard, needs to be healed, or needs to be held.
If you think about it, this is often exactly how Jesus responded to the people he met. He heard the silent ones — the woman at the well, the woman caught in adultery. He embraced the untouchable — the leper, the outcast, the people society avoided. He moved toward them. And then he healed. Every time someone reached out to him, he stopped. Jesus, doing the most important work in all of human history, was incredibly interruptible. Have you ever noticed that? Most of the miracles we read about happen when he's on his way somewhere else and someone stops him. He heals them — their bodies, but always their souls.
That is the invitation I believe we're all given to the people we meet. But we have to know them first.
The Assignment
Here's the homework I'm giving myself — and since you're here, I'll offer it to all of us.
One: Pray each day. Lord, what would you have me do today? Fair warning — it's a dangerous prayer. God will take you up on it. He will open doors. I've prayed that and found myself in conversations and situations where I stop and think: this is where God brought me. And I wonder — would I have even noticed if I hadn't asked?
Two: Meet someone new each week. I know — sorry, introverts. But it doesn't have to be elaborate. Someone behind you in line at the grocery store. Your barista. Someone at the park. Just meet someone new each week.
Three: Share a meal with someone new each month. In your home or at a local restaurant. Jesus, for the record, never said no to a free meal — so that's a good place to start. Find someone you don't normally spend time with, or someone brand new, and sit down together. Some of the most impactful spiritual formation I have ever experienced hasn't been in a pew or a prayer circle. It's been around a dinner table.
That's the assignment. A prayer. A conversation. A meal. Simple things that have the power to change everything.
Closing
May we be a place of healing — like that hospital. May we be a place of hope. May we continue to open our doors wider and wider to more and more people, blessing them with no strings attached.
And may all who enter here experience — not just from the verses we read or the songs we sing, but from the people connected to them — the radical and tender love of Jesus.