Nancy and I were blessed to know a New Testament scholar during our season at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary who was both good and great. He was under-published for a seminary professor, however, but he was overly-loved by his students. He was very bright but spent his scholarly time refining and constantly re-editing one article in particular (about which more will be said later). The remainder of his time he spent “working the halls,” as he called it. By this he meant being pastor or chaplain to the seminary!

Why was he so great? Well, he knew the New Testament so well he was always on top of the meanings of passages, Old Testament allusions, and he could talk knowingly and wisely about all the synoptic-gospel issues. Why was he so good? He was, like Christy Wilson at Gordon-Conwell, the one faculty member most remembered and appreciated by alumni!

I am speaking of Bob Kelly (d.2013).

The one article he continued working on but never published was about Jesus and “table fellowship.” Jesus was not just a prophet, the son of the living God, but he also was a host and guest at many meals. I heard Dr. Kelly preach on this in chapel and share about it more than once at lunch “table fellowship” at our Evangelical Student Fellowship lunches.

This comes to mind especially during the season of Thanksgiving, a time to disengage from worries, fears, and responsibilities and turn to God in gratitude. It is also an important time to enjoy table fellowship.

All of our Thanksgiving celebrations revolve around the signature special meal: memorable, inclusive, and celebrative table fellowship. I say inclusive because my family (as I’m sure is true of many others) always tries to include not only family members but also extended family members (“Kids! Uncle Ralph and Aunt Gladys will be joining us on Thanksgiving!”).

Even more than family, Thanksgiving is a time to invite in those with no family or with family who are far away. When we lived in Singapore, we would celebrate the American Thanksgiving by inviting others to our table: even as we were guests in a foreign country, we invited in other “expats” who were likewise far from home.

When we returned to the States, our children naturally invited some of their international college student friends. We hosted around the table Irish, Jamaican, Chinese, Korean, and friends from many other nationalities. I remember well the Thanksgiving when, after the death of my mother, my father joined us, along with others, including three men named Frank: one from the Caribbean, one from China and the other from the U.S. Of course, we all had good laugh when we pulled out “Franks Red Hot” sauce. It was a most memorable Thanksgiving.

Table fellowship. Hospitality. Thanksgiving. All of these are features that mark and befit the Christian witness.

Scholars of the early church know well that the growth of the early church was as much, or more, about behavior as it was about verbal message. Specifically, Christians were patient and hospitable. These characteristics were countercultural in the ancient world, but extremely winsome and set the early Christians apart from the surrounding culture.[1] I believe the same is true today.

This Thanksgiving as Nancy and I will be with family and possibly others, we will be praying that the church in the United States will reaffirm, with gratitude and great joy, the gift of hospitality for family and for the stranger. We have been richly blessed in this country. In imitation of Christ, let’s celebrate these blessings and invite others to “table fellowship.”

“Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.”      (Hebrews 13:2)

[1] See Alan Kreider’s Patient Ferment of the Early Church: the Improbable Rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire (2016) and Christine Phol’s Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition (1999).

Dr. Scott W. Sunquist, president of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, is author of the “Attentiveness” blog. He welcomes comments, responses, and good ideas.