‘Let Your Peace Return to You’: Inhospitality and Judgment in Biblical Theology

In Scripture, inhospitality is often associated with divine judgment, though the association is seemingly inconsistent. Inhospitality in the Bible (1) incurs judgment when an outsider rejects the people of God (e.g., Matt 10:5-15), (2) brings judgment on the people of God when they overlook the sojourner (e.g., Deut 27:19), and (3) becomes the means of judgment toward the disobedient within the people of God (e.g., 1 Cor 5:9-13). This paper will analyze biblical texts that associate inhospitality and judgment and then synthesize their biblical-theological teaching. The result of this study will be a biblical theology of judgment and its connection to inhospitality. God judges his people when they are inhospitable toward others, and he judges others when they are inhospitable toward his people. Within the context of God’s people, however, inhospitality is a part of God’s refining, disciplinary judgment of his people. Because this study intersects with biblical social setting and ethics, the proposed biblical-theological approach will interact with scholarship in social and ethical studies. The paper will conclude by discerning implications for understanding hospitality and inhospitality in Christian missions, social justice, and church discipline.