New Testament.  The Greek word under consideration is xenos, and occurs fourteen

Matt. 25:35,43

`I was a stranger'.

Matt. 25:38,44

`When saw we Thee a stranger?'

Matt. 27:7

`The potter's field to bury strangers in'.

Acts 17:18

`A setter forth of strange gods'.

Acts 17:21

`All the Athenians and strangers which were there'.

Rom. 16:23

`Gaius mine host'.

Eph. 2:12

The passage under consideration.

Eph. 2:19

This passage also goes with Eph. 2:12.

Heb. 11:13

`Strangers and pilgrims'.

Heb. 13:9

`Divers and strange doctrines'.

1 Pet. 4:12

`As though some strange thing happened'.

3 John 5

`To the brethren, and to strangers'.

It is evident that the five references found in Matthew can have no other

meaning than `stranger'; a stranger can only become a `guest' if he is `taken

in'; such a meaning is not resident in the word itself.  The `strange' gods of

Acts 17:18, and the `strange thing' of 1 Peter 4:12 allow of no alteration.  The

believers mentioned in Hebrews 11:13, were most certainly `strangers' and not

`guests'.  The `resident strangers' at Athens are very like the `strangers of

Rome' (Acts 2:10) and cannot be translated `guests'.  In Romans 16:23, we have

the word xenos translated `host'.  This can only be justified if the word is

used figuratively, for no one would suggest using the translation `host' in any

of the other thirteen references given above.

Eustathius says, concerning the usage of xenos:

`Both he who entertained and he who was entertained were called xenos, in

respect of each other'.

Parkhurst says of this word:

`Properly, a person who belonging to one country dwells or sojourns in

another, a stranger, foreigner. ... In a more general sense, a stranger, a

person of another nation or religion. ... As an adjective, strange,

foreign. ... wonderful'.

The transition from the idea of `stranger' to `hospitality' is natural,

and this has taken place; but because this is so, that does not justify the

substitution of `guest' for the translation `stranger' unless the evidence of

the context be overwhelmingly in its favour.

Cremer, in his Biblico-Theological Lexicon does not treat of xenos except

to place it as a synonym with paroikos.  Paroikeo, in Biblical Greek means,

according to Cremer:

`Strangers who dwell anywhere, without citizen rights or home title'.

Paroikia only in Biblical and patristic Greek.

`(a) Dwelling as a sojourner in a foreign land without home or citizen

rights; (b) a foreign country as the dwelling place of him who has no home

rights there'.