Yesterday we discussed a post from my colleague Mark Mitchell: The Culture of Hospitality | Front Porch Republic. I’d like to focus on one line that he cites from the Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus written in the 2nd century A.D. (or maybe even earlier). It describes how the very earliest Christians lived in the Roman Empire:
“they marry, as do all [others]; they beget children but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed.”
Isn’t this the same thing Christians are called to do today against the same cultural pressures? Get married; back then even the Roman pagans did this, and that might change. But whatever happens, Christians will still practice marriage and cultivate families. Beget children and do not destroy them; that is, don’t get abortions. Don’t have “a common bed”; that is, don’t be sexually promiscuous. But do have “a common table”; that is, be hospitable to all, inviting even non-believers into your home so as to get to know them and so they can get to know you and your faith.
Keeping these simple distinctives, Christians would eventually win over the Roman empire. Maybe if we did the same things, Christians might eventually win over the American empire.
