From what historians can gather, hospitality — not martyrdom — served as the main motivator for conversions. And early Christians found both spiritual and social power in such acts, for creating inclusive community, a community of radical welcome and love, can put one at odds with ungodly authorities. “It is our care of the helpless, our practice of loving kindness that brands us in the eyes of our many opponents,” claimed the African theologian Tertullian, “’Only look,’ they say, ‘look how they love one another!’”
Would that every faith community was like a swarm of bees, running out to meet the displaced, the lost, and the unexpected strangers with the same delight, zeal, and alacrity as the earliest Christians. Theologian Letty Russell once noted, “The word for hospitality in the Greek New Testament is philoxenia, love of the stranger. Its opposite is xenophobia, hatred of the stranger.” Philoxenia turns strangers into friends.