The main guide for this research can be found at A Guide to Spiritual Gifts

Sunday, February 11, 2007

The Gift of Hospitality

There is not common agreement over including hospitality as a spiritual gift, and the primary reference for it is the ambiguous wording of I Peter 4:9-10: “Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each one should use whatever gift [charisma] he has been given to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms” (NIV). Peter does not clearly state that hospitality is a charisma; so many authors do not include it. One who does is Leslie Flynn. He offers the following reason:
Though hospitality is not included in any of Paul’s lists of gifts, the context in which hospitality is mentioned seems to earn it consideration as a separate gift. After Peter speaks of hospitality in verse 9, he immediately goes on in the next two verses to say that whatever gift a person has should be faithfully excercised. The link in Peter’s thinking between hospitality and gifts strongly implies that hospitality is a gift.[1]

Dr. Flynn defines the gift of hospitality as the “supernatural ability to provide open house and warm welcome for those in need of food and lodging[2].” Bryant describes the gift as the “extraordinary abililty...to extend caring and sharing to persons (strangers) beyond their intimate circle to demonstrate and to establish the unlimited and inclusive companionship of Christ[3].”

The personality type ESFJ displays hospitality better than any other type. Kroeger and Thuesen summarize ESFJs as the “Hosts and hostesses of the world[4].” Hospitality is most often seen in the day-to-day interactions of the ESFJ: “They are outstanding hosts or hostesses, able to call people by name, usually after one introduction. At a social gathering they can be observed attending to the needs of others, trying to insure that all are comfortable and involved[5].”

ESFJs not only make others feel welcome, but help them become a part of a local church body. They quickly pick up clues about a person’s past, occupation, likes, and dislikes and match those to what they know about everyone in their circle (which is likely to be a large circle). They can then make appropriate introductions.
They remember what’s important for the family, the work group, and the community. It is as if they have a filing cabinet of all the specific details they’ve ever learned about the people they know so they can find that information easily to help others, to connect others, and to make them comfortable.[6]

It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of this task, for how many unbelievers would never return to a fellowship a second time if someone with the gift of hospitality had not made them feel as if they might have a place in the group.

Summary: For each of the sixteen personality types there is a theme or a set of related themes that run through the various descriptions of that type. For the ESFJ the major themes are graciousness, hosting, and providing. As seen in the quotes above, the match of the ESFJ type to the gift of hospitality is one of the easiest to support and should be considered an excellent match.

References

[1]Leslie Flynn, 19 Gifts of the Spirit (Wheaton, Il.: Victor Books, 1994), 122.

[2] Ibid., 123.

[3] Charles V. Bryant, Rediscovering our Spiritual Gifts: Building up the Body of Christ Through Gifts of the Spirit (Nashville: Upper Room Books, 1991), 94.

[4] Kroeger and Thuesen, Type Talk: The 16 Personality Types That Determine How We Live, Love, and Work (New York: Dell Publishing, 1988), back cover.

[5] Keirsey and Bates, Please Understand Me: Character and Temperament Types (Del Mar, CA: Prometheus Nemesis 1978), 192.

[6] Linda Berens and Nario Dardi, The 16 Personality Types: Descriptions for Self-Discovery (Huntington Beach, CA: Telos Publications), 1999), 24.

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