Open Table - Week 1
The Bay Area, sociologists tell us, and indeed the modern world is defined by a growing sense of isolation. Lost in this is the ability - and even the willingness - of people to move toward those they don’t know. But the Bible records that the early church, modeling itself after the life and teachings of Jesus, were a people marked by a peculiar Greek word: philoxenia. Love of the Stranger. This was a core element of what the early church thought it meant to truly follow and reflect Jesus. We’ll examine what it looks like - and why it’s vitally important to those who want to follow Jesus that we be people who willingly move to turn strangers into neighbors, and neighbors into friends.
