Angels Unawares

The complaint about this verse is that it reads like a raffle. Be hospitable, and there is an outside chance the man at your table has wings. Take the raffle away and you are left telling people with chain locks on their doors to bring strangers indoors, which no responsible person tells anybody.

So be exact about the offer. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Some, and not all. And unawares is the load bearing word: the ones who did it never knew at the time. Abraham lift up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him. He had been sitting in the tent door in the heat of the day, and what he did next was domestic and slightly frantic, running to the herd, hurrying Sarah over three measures of fine meal, standing by them under the tree while they ate. He was not conscious of hosting heaven. Nothing in the sentence promises you will find out, and nothing suggests a stranger who turns out to be only a stranger was a wasted evening.

Look at the company the command keeps. It sits between let brotherly love continue and remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body. Then marriage, then money. Expensive instructions, given to people who had already taken joyfully the spoiling of their goods, which means they knew what an open door can cost.

The funding is four verses down, and it is a promise about money and fear. Be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me. That is what makes a door openable, and it has nothing to do with the odds on the visitor.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 339 is His People, His Sheep (Psalm 100:3).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna, Year Two