Grace of Hospitality

Announcer: The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals presents the timeless teaching of Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse. Glance through the closing chapter of Romans and read these simple lines of description: servant, helper, fellow workers. And then four people who are called beloved. Two who are called hard workers. Fellow prisoners, men of note among the apostles, approved in Christ, workers in the Lord, eminent, a mother to me, saints. Oh, what epitaphs are these! How much greater than the piles of stone that emperors heaped together to preserve their memory. Over a half a century ago, the late Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, then pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, saw the need to spread God’s word beyond the hearing of his local congregation. He started the radio ministry which has become known as Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible. The application of God’s word as taught by Dr. Barnhouse is as relevant today as when he first taught over the radio airwaves decades ago. The message we'll be featuring on today's edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is entitled "The Grace of Hospitality." God wants His people to always be loving, gracious, and hospitable towards others. Sadly, some Christians have gained more of a reputation for hostility rather than hospitality. How can we learn to exhibit a true Christian spirit of graciousness and hospitality to those around us? The scripture text for this edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible: Romans chapter 16. We're looking at verses one and two. Here again is Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse with a message entitled "The Grace of Hospitality."
Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Through the Lord Jesus Christ, we come unto our Father and our God and in the Holy Spirit. We thank Thee for Thyself and for Thy ways with those who trust in Thee. We thank Thee for Thy church throughout the centuries and the way Thou hast dealt with her in grace, in spite of human weaknesses. Bless us in this hour as we seek to understand a little more of the nature of our relationships one with another. We ask it in the name and for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. In the 16th chapter of Romans, Paul is concluding his epistle and sending personal greetings, and he begins by saying, "I commend to you our sister Phoebe, that you may receive her in the Lord." Now, my exposition in this study runs over the whole of the last chapter of Romans in order that we may see the warm life of the early church and realize a little more what the church was in those days, and perhaps give us a little spiritual nostalgia for such a time, with a desire that our churches should become more like those that existed then. Rome was the capital of the empire. When we consider that transportation was by small boat or by pack animal or literally on foot over the ill-kept roads of that day, we might be led to believe that most people would stay at home. But the fact is that there were tens of thousands of people on the move in all of the spring, the summer, and the autumn months. The flow of riches from the conquered provinces to the capital was very great. The number of army officers and public officials with their retinues of slaves were to be counted in the tens of thousands. The businessmen who went to far provinces to buy cheap merchandise which they could transport to the capital and sell at great profit were very numerous. Slave merchants with their boatloads of captives moved into Italy every day. Among this great throng of people, there were many Christians. Corinth was the transfer point for cargoes, crews, and passengers. And Paul lived at Corinth for some time, and it was from here that he wrote his epistle to the Romans. In his salutations to the believers whom he had known or of whom he had heard, we are given a glimpse of the church life of the city. Now, it's important that we have such knowledge because we thus learn more of how the church should be in our own generation. There are those in our century who try to tell us that the church should be today just as it was in the book of the Acts. I thank God that this is not true. The church of the book of the Acts was a church without a New Testament. The church at the end of the apostolic age was a church that possessed the New Testament, and there's a vast difference between the two. The church of the years following Pentecost was a church of tongues and imitation tongues, of signs and false signs, of movements of the Spirit and of counterfeits of such movement. And this we know from a close study of the letters to Corinth and Thessalonica. The church at the end of Paul's life was a church with an established organization, with elders ordained in every place and with the framework for training school for Christian workers. Paul wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:2: "What you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also." And there was also a suggestion of apostolic authority since Paul's instructions to Timothy and Titus take on the cast of definite orders who were to pass these things on in spiritual continuity. Now, the earliest form of organization after that of the 12 disciples was the choice of men filled with the Holy Spirit who were to take care of the administration of charity to the poor. At that time, seven men were chosen. But by the time of Paul's residence in Corinth, the work had expanded until there was at least one woman who was a deaconess at Cenchrea, a mile or so from Corinth on the Athens side of the isthmus. For the Greek word in our text tells us that Phoebe was a servant of the church. This is the word for deaconess and it is thus correctly translated in the revision. Oh, how much the church of Jesus Christ owes to its faithful women workers! There are two restrictions on women: they shall not teach men or usurp authority over men. But aside from this, there is no service they cannot perform in the church. What we owe to them in the Sunday School, in the work among women, and in all their devotion to the Lord and those whom He has called to direct His work. We remember that a group of women followed the Lord Jesus Christ when He was here on Earth. For we read in Luke 8 that in addition to the twelve, there were "certain women which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary called Magdalene out of whom went seven demons, and Joanna the wife of Chuza Herod's steward, and Susanna and many others which ministered unto Him of their substance." And to this day, our day, the faithful ministration of such women makes possible a vast amount of the missionary activity of the church throughout the world. Phoebe was a deaconess, and some business or other took her to Rome. Early tradition says that she carried the epistle to the Romans from Paul to the church in the capital. Never was there a greater burden carried by such tender hands. The theological history of the church throughout the centuries was in the manuscript which she brought with her. The Reformation was in that baggage. The blessing of multitudes in our day was carried in those parchments. Now, we do not know what business brought Phoebe to Rome. But she brought with her this letter, which included a letter of recommendation for herself. Such letters were necessary because there were imposters who played on the sympathies of credulous Christians. A pagan writer, Lucian, living in the second century, wrote a satire using the theme of the trickery of Christians by a counterfeit believer. And in fact, in our day, within the past week of the writing of this chapter, I have had a letter from a pastor in Los Angeles telling me of a man who was seeking to promote himself and some meetings in California by using my name. And there was something suspicious about the man, so the pastor wrote me. I was forced to say that I had never heard of the man and that he was an imposter. For many years, a close friend of mine in England has exchanged letters with me concerning Britishers who wish to minister in America and Americans who wish to minister in Britain. Curiously, about half have been frauds and the other half well worthy of commendation. So such letters are necessary. I recently had occasion to write 20 or 30 letters to commend a wonderful Japanese Christian woman on her way back to her home islands after four years studying in America. How delighted I was to write, almost in the words of Paul, "I commend to you our sister Toshi Shimada, a servant of the church in Hokkaido, that you may receive her in the Lord as befits the saints and help her on her way home as she visits the mission fields. Do this readily, for she has been a helper of many and of myself as well." You see, the church of Jesus Christ is a family. And all who are in any single congregation should seek in every way to promote the strength and spiritual growth of every other member of the group. There are many churches where people can join and be lost in a crowd. There are other churches where people will join but will still retain their own little circle of friends among the worldlings from whom they have been saved. One of the most beautiful and helpful practices that I have ever witnessed was in a church in Texas that sought to absorb its members and make them really a part of the church. At the close of the morning service, about ten people came forward to unite with that church. Deacons took down the names and pertinent data about the families that were moving into the community. And the pastor, with a keen appraisal of the social status of the families, called out the names of members of similar background and status and had them come forward to sponsor the new members. Here was a Mr. and Mrs. Smith and their 14-year-old daughter, and he was coming as a junior executive in a manufacturing company. Well, the pastor called for a Mr. and Mrs. Jones and their 14-year-old daughter to sponsor them. They were introduced to each other in front of the whole church in a ceremony that took no more than a minute or two. Then a young woman coming to the town as a teacher in the public schools was placed under the sponsorship of another fine-looking young woman of her own age. A young man was called out of the congregation to meet a young man of his age who was joining the church. And the pastor said, "These people will be your sponsors. They will invite you to dinner. They will introduce you to their circle in the church. They will seek to have you absorbed in all of the life and activity of the church." Now, I'm sure that Paul's epistle to the Romans secured many an invitation for Phoebe. Oh, there were no church buildings at this time, nor for well over 200 years after. But there were little groups meeting every first day of the week in houses all over Rome. As soon as there were too many for one place, there would be a swarm that would start in another place. And this was the way the church began and this was the way the church spread. Peter wrote to the early believers, giving himself no greater title than that of an elder, and addressing himself to those who "have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours in the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ." And to the elders among them, Peter gave the exhortation, "Tend the flock of God that is in your charge, not by constraint but willingly, not for shameful gain but eagerly, not as domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock." Now, in this final chapter of the Roman letter, we find mention of a church in the house of Prisca and Aquila. I believe that there are references to several similar groups. In verse 10, it says "those who are of Aristobulus." And in verse 11, "of Narcissus." And later, when we read a list of names of men, we find the addition of the phrase "and the brethren who are with them," while following another group of names, we read "and all the saints who are with them." And then, as though his mind went over the city of Rome, where he had never been, seeing in his imagination the groups of which he had heard and for whom he had prayed, he realized that the situation in the capital was the same as it was in Corinth. And he joins in his greeting the whole brotherhood of Corinth, meeting in a multitude of houses by saying, "All the churches of Christ greet you." Oh, how much of this unity and fellowship we have lost! Church organizations have grown so large that the family feeling has gone. Multitudes are members of an organization with no sense of union in Christ, even to the point that one wonders if the life of Christ is really present. I remember well an experience that I had the first time I visited what was then Colonial Africa. My introduction in one city was from a high officer of the United States Army who had been there during the war purchasing quantities of material for sale in the post exchanges of Europe. He told me of a wealthy Greek family with whom he had done much business, and he wrote them on my behalf. So there was a car to meet us at the airport and a guest house with servants at our disposal. We were taken to their home for dinner, surrounded by all the luxury imaginable in such a place. The conversation began as a purely social amenity, but soon we were on spiritual matters, and they hung on every word as we turned in the Bible for the source of our teaching. They were so blessed as they were brought to a personal knowledge of what Christ could be to them that they urged us to dine again the next night so that we might meet some of their friends. And that next evening, we sat down at table with our hosts, and among the fellow guests were the Governor General of the colony, the judge of the highest court, the head of the largest bank, all with their wives. Our host said, "Dr. Barnhouse, I'm going to request that you ask the blessing." I prayed, thanked God for the food, and the wife of the Governor General said, "How quaint! It's the first time that I remember a blessing since I was in the nursery." Then the questions began coming thick and fast, and I tried to change the subject as I had agreed with my traveling companion that we should not force a religious conversation upon the guests of our host unless the Lord overruled. Well, each time I tried to change the subject, someone would come back to the question of religion, which for me, of course, was bringing the conversation back to man's need and Christ's fulfillment of that need. And finally, I said, "Now listen to me. I have tried to steer the conversation away from religion three or four times because I did not want to be socially offensive at my host's table. But if you really want to talk about this, I assure you that there will be no other conversation until you leave, for you're going to become involved in things that you've tried to push out of your lives and God will not let you do it." Well, we were there until 2:00 in the morning. All of them were pillars of the established church organization. All of them were leading utterly superficial lives that were without any true Christian fellowship. The church as they knew it was not the church as it was in the days of the apostles. It was not a fellowship of believers gathered around the name of the Lord. The family feeling of the first century was not there. Oh, how much we have lost through the centuries! I took this example off in Africa on purpose because if I had taken an example in America, I might have hit one social group and a lot of the rest of you would have said, "Well, that didn't fit me." But when I took this example off in Africa, I can bring it right back to you and ask: is your church membership merely a place of formality where you go as a sort of a public trust to do something in this day of communism to show that you're on the other side and that you believe in the church and that the family that prays together stays together and go to the church of your own choice and all the rest of these advertising slogans that make the church more or less of a business adjunct, not much different from the PTA? Well, let the word of God's exhortation come to your heart. And let me address this word to each one who hears these words. If you are a committed believer, knowing the Lord Jesus Christ in reality, seek out someone whom you do not know socially and invite him to be with you on some occasion in order to discuss with him the joys and blessedness of salvation in Christ. And if you are a stranger to such fellowship, perhaps not sure of your spiritual standing, seek to meet someone who really knows Christ. I often think of those two nights in Africa in that time, for after the dignitaries had gone, the young Greek couple turned to us with tears, thanking us for the most wonderful night in their lives, they said. And then they turned to each other and they spoke in Arabic, for the wife was an Egyptian Greek. I did not understand what they said, but suddenly they went to their grand piano and they took from it a beautiful lamp, carved out of the ivory of an elephant tusk. And they told me that they wanted me to have something in my home which had been in their home, which they had chosen with care and which they loved. Well, I took that lamp. I brought it home. I see it every time I come down the stairs in my home. I see that lamp near the bottom of the stairs. The young Greek merchant died shortly thereafter, but not before we had exchanged letters and he had thanked me for the Bibles I had sent to him at his request: Bibles in English, French, and Greek. Oh, do you have any memory in your life that is distinctly related to some encounter with a person or a family of believers in which you suddenly found yourself in a wonderful oneness because of Jesus Christ? Seek such contacts. To know another person because he belongs to the same trade or profession or college alumni may be interesting, but it can never be as rewarding as meeting some soul in whom Jesus Christ is being formed as He is being formed in you. Finally, let us look through this chapter in order to see the designations of these shadowy figures who walk against the gray stones of ancient Rome. Phoebe is called a servant of the church, a helper of many. What an epitaph! How much can be said in a single sentence. Some months ago, I began to think of single sentences that described a complete life of a person. For many weeks, I glanced at the obituary columns of the New York Times and the Times of London. It was not long before I had quite a list. "A writer on food and wines" is the sentence left behind by one man. "Developer of trotting races" summed up the life of another. And still another obituary "introduced modern conditions for bottling beer." And then Aly Khan met death on the curve of a road outside of Paris. The report of his death in Time magazine listed his wives and mistresses, the variety of wild animals he had shot. But when it described the car that came around the bend on the wrong side of the road, the final sentence of the obituary was, "He was killed almost instantly by a broken neck. Bettina and the chauffeur were unhurt." Aly died as he would probably have wanted to, at the wheel of a low-slung car with a beautiful woman beside him. What an obituary! Oh, how it clashes with what we read here in the scripture and how wonderful what we find here. And contrasting with this story, glance through the closing chapter of Romans and read these simple lines of description: servant, helper, fellow workers. And then four people who are called beloved. Two who are called hard workers. Fellow prisoners, men of note among the apostles, approved in Christ, workers in the Lord, eminent, a mother to me, saints. Oh, what epitaphs are these! How much greater than the piles of stone that emperors heaped together to preserve their memory. The Coliseum and the Pantheon are great buildings built by two of the emperors, but who knows their names? And if I tell you that one of them was built by Hadrian and the other by Vespasian, who but a few history teachers knows which was which? But when all the stones have turned to sand, and when the elements melt in fervent heat and Rome, supposedly eternal, is seen to be the quintessence of that which is temporal, these humble people, beloved, hard workers, saints, will burst forth in the brilliance of the truly eternal city which has foundations whose builder and maker is God. Now, we do not pray to these saints. They cannot hear us, nor can any who have gone on before. But feeling our oneness with them, we know the true communion of saints and we wait for that day when we with them shall be caught up together to meet our Lord when He comes. And our God and Father, we pray Thee that Thou wilt bless these great truths to our hearts. How we thank Thee for the oneness of the church throughout all the ages. We recognize that there are millions of Christians whom we have never met living in our day, and millions and millions more who have lived in other days, but we feel our oneness with them. We were sinners as they were sinners. Thou didst love us and Thou didst love them. Thou didst die for all of us. Thou didst save us. Thou didst give us life. And our hearts glow with joy as we remember that all of the glory goes to Thee, our God, through the Lord Jesus Christ. Make us one with all believers in a special way. We ask it in the name and for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Announcer: The knowledge of God's love for us in Christ Jesus enables us to be genuinely gracious and hospitable to fellow Christians and unbelievers alike. We hope you have benefited from today's message entitled "The Grace of Hospitality." To listen to additional Bible teachings by Dr. Barnhouse, visit us online at alliancenet.org. An audio copy of today's teaching is available by calling us toll-free: 1-800-488-1888. Today's message again is entitled "The Grace of Hospitality" or simply request message number R16-1. We would also like to make available to you a free copy of our booklet entitled "Walking by God's Word." If you try to walk in the dark, you may hurt yourself or become lost. The same will happen if we try to make it through life without the light of God's word. The Bible declares "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path." And this free booklet will help you apply the wisdom and light of the scriptures to every area of daily living. Ask for your free copy of "Walking by God's Word" when you call or write. Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is a radio ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We seek to provide contemporary Christian teaching which will equip believers to understand and meet the challenges and opportunities of our time and place. We also produce the radio broadcast "The Bible Study Hour" featuring the teachings of the late Dr. James Montgomery Boice, and "Every Last Word" featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Philip Graham Ryken. For a complete list of radio stations carrying our programs, visit our website: alliancenet.org. If you would like to build your own audio library of Dr. Barnhouse's timeless messages so you can listen to them anytime, anywhere, then you will be interested in our Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible audio commentary series. Visit our website at alliancenet.org or call us at 1-800-488-1888. Find out how you can sign up for the Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible audio commentary series. Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible comes to you through the generous gifts of listeners. If you have benefited from the broadcast and would like it to continue, please prayerfully consider a donation to help us keep this ministry on the air. For more information or to make a contribution to help further our work, contact us by calling toll-free: 1-800-488-1888. That's 1-800-488-1888. Visit us online at alliancenet.org or write: Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, Box 2000, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103. Be sure to ask for a free resource catalog featuring books, audio teachings, commentaries, booklets, videos, and a wealth of other materials from outstanding reformed teachers and theologians, including Doctors Donald Grey Barnhouse, James Montgomery Boice, Martin Lloyd-Jones, and Philip Graham Ryken. Thank you for listening. Join us again next time for more classic teaching on Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible.