Romans 12:13

ταῖς χρείαις τῶν ἁγίων κοινωνοῦντες : “the saints” as in Romans 8:27; 1 Timothy 5:10 are Christians generally. The curious variant ταῖς μνείαις “taking part in the commemorations of the saints” dates from an age at which “the saints” were no longer Christians in general, but a select few, as a rule martyrs or confessors in the technical sense. Weiss asserts that the active sense of κοινωνεῖν, to communicate or impart, is foreign to the N.T., but it is difficult to maintain this if we look to such examples as this and Galatians 6:6, and also to the use of κοινωνία in 2 Corinthians 9:13 (where ἁπλότητι τῆς κοινωνίας εἰς αὐτοὺς means the liberality of your contribution to them), and Hebrews 13:16, where κοινωνία is a synonym of εὐποιία, and certainly active. τὴν φιλοξενίαν διώκοντες : to devote oneself to entertaining them when they were strangers was one chief way of distributing to the needs of the saints. Hospitality, in the sense of the N.T. (Hebrews 13:2; 1 Peter 4:9), is not akin to “keeping company,” or “open house”; it is a form of charity much needed by travelling, exiled, or persecuted Christians. The terms in which it is spoken of in Clem. Rom. (quoted in S. and H.: διὰ πίστιν καὶ φιλοξενίαν ἐδόθη αὐτῷ i.e., Abraham υἱὸς ἐν γήρᾳ : or, διὰ φιλοξενίαν καὶ εὐσέβειαν Λὼτ ἐσώθη) may seem extravagant; but the key to them, and to all the apostolic emphasis on the subject, is to be found in Matthew 25:34-36.