Greek word · G3580
ξενοδοχέω
xenodocheō
to show hospitality
To receive a xenos (stranger, foreigner, guest, traveller) as a guest: to lodge and feed them. The xenos is anyone from outside the household, often someone from elsewhere.
Appears once in the Greek New Testament. ·
What it means
From G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (1922), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).
In depth
From the study of 1 Timothy 5:10
- Range of meaning
To receive a xenos (stranger, foreigner, guest, traveller) as a guest: to lodge and feed them. The xenos is anyone from outside the household, often someone from elsewhere.
- Against the English
KJV 'lodged strangers', BSB 'entertaining strangers', ESV 'shown hospitality'. 'Entertain' now suggests amusement; in older English it meant 'receive and provide for'. 'Strangers' may suggest random unknowns, but the guests were usually travelling fellow believers.
- How it drifted
'Entertain' has narrowed in modern English from 'receive and maintain a guest' to 'amuse'.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Only here in the NT. Compare philoxenos, 'hospitable', required of overseers (1 Tim 3:2; Titus 1:8), and the commands in Rom 12:13, Heb 13:2, 1 Pet 4:9, 3 John 5-8. The Didache (11-12) gives rules for receiving travelling Christians. Later Christians called their charitable guest-houses and hospitals xenodocheia.
Where it appears
1 Timothy · 1
-
1 Timothy 5:10 ἐξενοδόχησεν, she entertained strangers,
and well known for good deeds such as bringing up children, entertaining strangers, washing the feet of the saints, imparting relief to the afflicted, and devoting herself to every good work.
Here: Literally 'received a xenos', a guest, outsider or traveller, into her home. Only here in the NT. In practice this mainly meant housing and feeding travelling believers and ministers.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.