The Gospel Comes With A House Key Review

Here is my The Gospel Comes With A House Key review for the Crossway Blog Review program:

How can we as Christians reach our neighbors, our communities, and our world with the good news of Jesus Christ?

If you have not, at one point, pondered that question and sought to answer it, I encourage you to do so. Asking this question is the first step to obeying the Great Commission and loving our neighbors.

In The Gospel Comes With A House Key, Rosaria Butterfield, proposes, not one way out of many, but the foundational way we can reach the world: through radically ordinary hospitality.

Mrs. Butterfield defines radically ordinary hospitality as:

“Using your Christian home in a daily way that seeks to make strangers neighbors, and neighbors family of God.” (pg 30).

The Most Challenging Book

This book has been the most challenging book I have read so far as a believer (save the Bible) because it presses on an aspect of my Christian life where I live in fear. I don’t think I’m alone in this fear either. These are some my fears:

• I fear letting people into my life because I fear what they will think of me.
• I fear getting to involved in other peoples’ messy lives.
• I fear I won’t have the time and resources for my own pursuits.

These fears point me to realize my need to grow in Christ-likeness, because Jesus dined with a colorful crowd. His purpose was to bring others into God’s hospitality by offering himself as a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice. Upon trust in Christ, one is given the dinner garments of righteousness and admitted into the banquet honoring the Son (Matt. 22:1-10. He was not afraid to enter into the mess of others’ lives nor did he shut his own life from others’ gaze in order to accomplish this. I should not be either. Which is why I picked up this book: I hoped to be taught and edified by someone who has followed Christ in this way farther than I.

Edifying Stories of Hospitable Saints

And I was. Mrs. Butterfield grounds the principles of hospitality in Scripture and shows their application in life experiences. In fact, her own conversion story can be attributed to the kind of Christian hospitality she espouses from a faithful local pastor and his wife. You can listen to her testimony here in two parts (part 1, part 2). Though they were worlds apart, this Christian home modeled a life that made Mrs. Butterfield curious and eventually desire. Here were some noteworthy aspects of their hospitality:

• The pastor reached out to her respectfully.
• They treated her as a person, not a project.
• They sought to serve her.
• They wouldn’t let her go, but kept reaching out to her.
• They involved her in events with other believers.

I was also deeply impacted by the stories told in this book; glory be to God for them! They portrayed a full of faith, deeply missional, and generously loving religion. It was lively and exciting; a kind I dream for, but know little of. I find most attempts of Christian hospitality to be either too absent of Christ that unbelievers wouldn’t see the difference or too closed that unbelievers wouldn’t feel welcome. However, in her household, neighbors encounter Jesus through not only their love, but their words. Mr. and Mrs. Butterfield help their neighbors process life through Scripture, yet they do it in such a way that builds relationships, not borders. Their faith lived out and the outcomes God produced encouraged me greatly to imitate them. I wish I could come and stay a week!

I Accept the Challenge to Host

This book reinforced my belief that hospitality is a foundational way in which we can love our neighbors. But more importantly, this book has given me a new resolve to reach out and do it. In my experience, neighbors can remain strangers, coworkers can remain acquaintances, and friends can remain distant for decades if they are not intentional in progressing the relationship. Let’s face it, our neighbors won’t come to us. Most of the time, they live behind locked doors, busy schedules, and chit chat. I have no excuse to wait for them. Jesus has given me the call to “GO”.

In conclusion, radically ordinary hospitality seeks to make strangers into neighbors and neighbors into family of God. In The Gospel Comes With A House Key, Rosaria Butterfield teaches us the concept from scripture and shows us ways to apply it to life. This book has challenged me overcome my fears and open my door to more strangers. From this The Gospel Comes With A House Key review, I hope you will pick it up, read it, and join me in partnership for the Gospel.

Do you have to same fears I do? How can you practice hospitality to your neighbors this week? Let us know below!

Also, if you’d like to purchase this book from Amazon click this link!

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