The Gospel Comes with a House Key

Practicing Radically Ordinary Hospitality in Our Post-Christian World

By: Rosaria Butterfield

Narrated by: Rosaria Butterfield

Winner of the 2019 Christianity Today Book Award in the Christian Living & Discipleship Category

"This book is going to shake us all up in the most wonderfully destabilizing way."—Ray Ortlund, Lead Pastor, Immanuel Church, Nashville, Tennessee

What did God use to draw a radical, committed unbeliever to himself? Did God take her to an evangelistic rally? Or, since she had her doctorate in literature, did he use something in print? No, God used an invitation to dinner in a modest home, from a humble couple who lived out the gospel daily, simply, and authentically.

With this story of her conversion as a backdrop, Rosaria Butterfield invites us into her home to show us how God can use this same "radical, ordinary hospitality" to bring the gospel to our lost friends and neighbors. Such hospitality sees our homes as not our own, but as God's tools for the furtherance of his kingdom as we welcome those who look, think, believe, and act differently from us into our everyday, sometimes messy lives—helping them see what true Christian faith really looks like.

©2025 Rosaria Butterfield (P)2025 Crossway

Getting her point across

I love this author and this is the 2nd time I’ve listened to it. I will probably listen again in a few months. I love that she reads her own books.

Inspiring

Absolutely inspiring. I’ve never read anything like it. It makes me want to determine how I can be hospitable immediately.

Selfless love by thankful believers who represent Christ well.

The author’s statement was powerful about the impact on the world and the Church by really loving people and by living out the Gospel in front of them. The kindness of what she described should be more normal than unique. She gave the illustrations of the simplicity of sharing life and living with an open hand. She graciously exhibits believers with a thankful heart for God’s grace to them. Well done!

Authentic, candid and gutsy.

Rosario Butterfield shares a life of radical, authentic hospitality that will shake up the world of many, including those Christians she refers to as “conservative Christians“. The model her household presents is both familiar and costly. As Jesus cautioned his disciples and us through his teachings, we must carefully count the cost of how we will spend the time, money and energy that he has given us a store. I hope that this will help Christians to examine their lives, and prayerfully seek to connect with a local neighborhoods.

Great perspective on how hospitality should penetrate every Christian home and how simple it really is.

I loved that the voice you listen to was the actual author reading her own book.