Talk to Strangers

Hebrews 13:2
"Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it."

I don't know about you, but I was always instructed NOT to talk to strangers, let alone invite them into my house. This verse has a lot of wonder connected to it. First of all I should not FORGET to entertain strangers. As if this is something on my list of "to do" things. Thanks for the reminder, because I might absent-mindedly skip inviting strangers into my home while attending my daily chores. Then, the author casually tosses out the reason we might want to talk to strangers. Oh yeah, they might be ANGELS. ANGELS!? How do we know that they are angels? Do they act any differently than regular people? Are they believers in Jesus Christ their brother? Do I set out the good china for them or offer them a glass of wine? So many questions and so little to go on for answers.

Now before you leave comments, I got the Bible verse from Heartlight's Today's Verse that I receive everyday. Love it as I do, the devotional did not give me a lot of answers. In fact it was the same old, "Greet the visitors that come to your church" speech. Yes, of course I agree with that, but I don't say hello because I'm looking for celestial wings. I do that to be friendly. Still, I don't automatically invite them to my house. If only they could give me some angelic clue. A slight sparkle to their smiling eyes or perhaps a hint of angel dust still resting on their shoulders would help to clue me in as to their heavenly identity.

Well, apparently I have not seen any angels because none of the strangers I've met lately have given off any heavenly vibes. Except maybe a few of those guys in that inner-city church we visited last Sunday. They weren't very cleaned up, but they sure liked the food our church brought to them. Then, there are those people downtown that don't have a home and sleep on the sidewalks. You know the ones that we pass on our walk to the baseball park? There was that one guy though. He was sitting near the place where we parked our car for one of the games. He was certainly homeless and he spoke real friendly as he advised us that our car might get hit if we didn't pull in a bit more. I wonder about him. He had nothing to gain by talking to us. He asked for nothing in return and he even assured us that he would be there all evening to watch over our car. Now even though he was gone by the end of the game, our car was sitting untouched right where we had left it. Maybe the people like that man and the people we fed are the strangers. Come to think about it, the guy that "watched" our car really did have a sparkle in his voice. I wonder?