13 Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.
During the Protestant Reformation, great reformers such as Luther and Calvin weren’t off stuck in ivory towers. They weren’t off forgetting about what the average pastor was up to and forgetting about what the average congregant was up to. They were in the trenches of Christian warfare, and hospitality and their homes stood at the centre of their work. Martin Luther proved that the table is a splendid pulpit to teach God's truths from. Luther and his wife Katharina were legendary for their open home and their hospitality. They bought a monastery. That was their home. They lived in a monastery. And it was constantly in use for hospitality as the church of Jesus Christ was being built up. One historian writes of the Luther home,
For the great house was always full to the brim.Some of you may know the book called Table Talk (1566), which is the works of Martin Luther. Table Talk was not written by Martin Luther, but it was written by his many theological students and visitors that sat around his dining room table. They wrote down both the great spiritual truths that were said at that table as well as some of the wildly inappropriate things that were said at the table! That is Table Talk. But it was the kingdom work being done from that table. The first generation of the Reformation spreading through Europe begins at a dining room table as strategy goes forth for the kingdom.1
Nathan Eshelman
2 Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.