Saved by Faith and Hospitality

Abstract

Joshua Jipp offers exegetically defensible support for the idea that hospitality should be a key identity marker for Christians today. Jipp’s argument is clear, concise, and straightforward: God is found to be hospitable in Scripture, and this calls forth a pattern of embodiment among believers that similarly reflects an ethos of hospitality. Jipp defines hospitality as “the act or process whereby the identity of the stranger is transformed into that of a guest” (p. 2). This others-oriented perspective is a much-needed corrective to current NT ethical scholarship and reflects the narratives found in Luke–Acts, John, and Paul. Jipp’s approach ends up offering a fine example of what narrative theology might produce when exegetical and ethical reflection are combined.Part one begins with an initial focus on Luke–Acts, the texts Jipp has previously written about. As mentioned, here the divine-human experience finds its strongest exegetical grounding. Of particular interest is the way he brings to the fore Israel’s experience as a model of the pattern of life and table-fellowship God desires. The messianic impulse is particularly helpful as a means of grounding the social implications of Jesus’s meal practices (p. 20). On this issue, one might place Jipp’s approach in conversation with that of Greg Carey in his Sinners: Jesus and His Earliest Followers (Baylor University Press, 2009). The place of the sinner’s identity, especially in Luke 7:36–50, is particularly probative in light of the call to table fellowship with those with whom one does not have shared group norms. Jipp’s sensitivity to Paul’s development of a superordinate identity for in-Christ Gentiles “as recipients of divine hospitality” in a way that does not call for the obliteration of existing social identities is a much needed corrective to the dominant reading of Paul’s approach to identity formation, especially in light of 1 Cor 7:17–24 (pp. 51, 74). In regards to John’s Gospel, Jipp sees a subversive element that contributes to a call to mission in the world through identification with Jesus by inviting others to experience his hospitality (p. 93).Part two brings the ancient discourses uncovered in part one into the contemporary setting. Jipp offers three set pieces of ethical reflection designed to overcome tribalism, xenophobia, and greed. Together, these highlight the disparate social implications of the Gospel and, if applied in the way Jipp suggests, would transform much of the contemporary Evangelical political and religious landscape. Making the bridge from the first century to the 21st is always challenging, but Jipp does offer a heuristic framework for the bridge via the divine to human patterns of hospitality. However, the appeal for normalcy here might need further substantiation in the form of an ethical decision-making framework. It seems that Scott Rae’s seven-step model for making moral decisions would provide helpful support for those seeking to apply Jipp’s project fully to areas such as immigration, mass incarceration, racism, and various sexual identity issues (Moral Choices, Zondervan, 2018).The theme of human flourishing as detailed in Jipp’s work is a much-needed corrective since all too much theological reflection on contemporary cultural issues occurs without the benefit of a unifying center that is exegetically defensible. He has provided a way forward by reminding us that divine and human hospitality should be at the center of a salient Christian identity. This book is highly recommended and is accessible to church groups while having the academic awareness to serve as a support book for seminary courses as well.

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