Peter Leithart writes of hospitality:

Feasting and care for the poor have been polarized in contemporary culture. If you’re a “conservative,” you’re in favor of free trade, consumption without guilt, festivity without concern for those who can’t join you, who probably deserve their poverty anyway. If you’re a “liberal,” you renounce festivity because other people are hungry and how dare you eat when someone else isn’t.

The Biblical prophets combine a promise of festivity with severe denunciation of greed, luxury, and oppression. But they combine the two seamlessly by emphasizing hospitality. The promise is a feast like the feasts of the Pentateuch, where the widow, stranger, and Levite are not forgotten but included as welcome guests.

Against both “conservative” indifference and liberal asceticism, the Bible presents the ideal of the hospitable society.

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When in distress or confusion, literate medieval Christians would sometimes let the Bible drop open, and took guidance and comfort the first passage their eye alighted on.

This could be superstitious, of course. But it could also come from a deeply genuine faith.

Sometimes, we don’t need to hear specific, or even relevant, instructions. Sometimes, in distress, it’s enough if we can hear our Husband’s voice.

– Peter Leithart, His Voice

I often find after reading the Bible that, even if there is no really obvious way I have been directly edified or encouraged, I am still in better spirits. Peter Leithart has articulated one reason why this is true.

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