Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.
I Peter 4:8-10
Peter is writing this letter to Christian communities scattered throughout Asia Minor. These are pretty new communities made up of people who have not been Christians for very long. Peter encourages them and offers them guidance on how to live as Christ-followers. These three verses give a good synopsis of how they, and we, should conduct ourselves.
Love: Peter gets right to it and bundles love and forgiveness/grace in one tidy bow by describing that our love should “cover over…sins.” But Peter is not advocating that we should condone the sin or enable it under the banner of love. He reminds us that Christ calls us to repentance but He calls in love and sacrifice, even to His sacrifice on the cross. As Christians, we extend this love with patience, without envy or thinking of ourselves to our entire Christian community, at all times. In addressing Corinthian believers ( I Corinthians 13), Paul gives a very famous list of how we should love each other - with patience, without envy or thinking of ourselves, without holding grudges, and never failing, among others. As the Jars of Clay song puts it, “they know we are Christians by our love.”
Hospitality: Following closely on from love, Peter calls us to a life of hospitality or “the friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers” without grumbling. Hospitality is not a natural trait of mine and I rarely pull it off with a fully happy heart. And, being honest, sometimes I do grumble about it. The writer of Hebrews opens the final chapter with “Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.” Here he ties love and hospitality closely together. For those of us to whom hospitality does not come easily, let us be sure we are not avoiding opportunities to be hospitable but are working on our heart and attitude in the times we are called to live out this piece of our Christian life.
Serve: Each of us has received gift(s) from God which Peter says are specifically so we can serve others. There are a few lists of “spiritual gifts” throughout the New Testament (Romans 12:6-8, 1 Corinthians 12:8-10; 28-30, and Ephesians 4:11) that cover a wide range of skills from administration to teaching to speaking in tongues, with all sorts in between. These gifts are not for progressing our own agenda, stroking our ego, or showing how holy we are. They are to be used in humility to show others God’s grace. Our gifts are also not the place to compare with someone else and be down on ourselves because we feel our gift is less impressive or useful than others’. God has given each of us what He needs for us to have to serve in the spaces He has placed us.
This passage is one of the places in the Bible where we get a concise, bare-bones list of what we need to be doing as Christians. While following Christ is not always as simple as loving, being hospitable, and serving, these traits give us a strong foundation to start from. Our internal growth and personal times with God are important, but the ways we act and speak outwardly are how we show others - Christian and non-Christian - the love and power of God.
How can you implement one of these traits today?
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