Category: immigration

Acknowledging and Honoring God’s Purposes for People from All Nations

Solomon’s prayer for foreigners who come from distant lands

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King kneeling on a prayer rug in front of an ancient temple altar with rising smoke

When King Solomon completed the Temple for God in Israel that David committed to build, he praised God for being true to His promise, for bringing His people out of Egypt, for choosing them to dwell among, and to have a Temple dedicated to Him in the City of David – Jerusalem. (2 Chronicles 6:1-11) He said,

“Lord God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven or on earth – you who keep your covenant of love with your servants who continue wholeheartedly in your way.”

2 Chronicles 6:14 (NIV)

At the same time, Solomon acknowledged that not even the highest heavens can contain God – much less a temple built by human hands. (v.18) Our God is the Lord over all the earth, and He made a covenant with Abraham to bless all the nations of the earth.

Solomon petitioned God to hear the prayers of the people of Israel (vv.19-21), to remember them when they repent for failing to love their neighbors, to judge those who are guilty and vindicate the innocent are wrongfully accused, and to forgive them when they repent of their sin, to “teach them the right way to live,” and to fear the Lord and walk in obedience. (vv. 22-31) Strikingly, Solomon included foreigners in his prayers:

“As for the foreigner who does not belong to your people Israel but has come from a distant land because of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched arm—when they come and pray toward this temple, then hear from heaven, your dwelling place. Do whatever the foreigner asks of you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your own people Israel, and may know that this house I have built bears your Name.“

2 Chronicles 6:32-33

Solomon was mindful not just of the people of Israel; he was mindful of foreigners “who come from a distant land” because of God – asking God to do for them what they ask. He did this “so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you.” In doing this, Solomon remembered and honored God’s great promise to Abraham to bless all the nations through his descendants.

Let us remember and honor this promise of God today in our own land and in our own lives. God is no respecter of persons – or nations – who do not align themselves with and live out the promises and global purposes of God. Just as God promised judgment and and hardship for the ancient nation of Israel if they failed to live out their own covenant promises to God, He is and will be true to that promise for His people today – wherever they are scattered around the earth.

We are blessed when we are not just hearers of His word, but only if we are doers of His word. (James 1:22-25) God does not describe exactly how we do that. We need the guidance of His Holy Spirit to discern how to live this out in the 21st Century where we live. If we want to blessed by God and faithful to Him, however, we cannot ignore these things.

I pray that we will lean into God’s great covenant promise to all the nations of the world to live out His purposes and intentions to attract all people to Himself. May we learn to follow the prompting of the Holy Spirit in our own lives acknowledge and honor God in this way in our daily lives, individually and corporately, as the people of God.

The Book of Ruth: The Immigrant at the Center of God’s Redemption Story

Ruth pulses with the theme of redemption that includes foreigners in God’s redemptive plans

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Group of people harvesting golden wheat in a field with baskets

After the downward moral spiral of the Book of Judges that ends with a shockingly horrific story about the Levite’s concubine, comes the Book of Ruth. Ruth follows Judges in the Old Testament, but the story takes place during the time of the judges, and Judges ends with a statement that characterizes the trajectory of the entire book:

“In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit.”

Judges 21:25

Despite the suggestion in this statement that kings might turn the people around from their waywardness, it doesn’t happen. The nation of Israel became polarized and divided after only three kings, and the downward moral cycle of a divided Israel continues through many generations of kings until God’s judgment on them leaves them exiled in Babylon.

We are hard pressed to find any judge in the day of the judges who is without blemish. Samson and Gideon are two of the most memorable judges, but Samson is undone by his lust for women, and Gideon progresses from a fearful doubter, to an unlikely hero, to an idolater who turns Israel from God.

Deborah appears in contrast as a strong and morally unyielding judge, though she is a woman, and her importance would have been discounted by patriarchal readers. (Judges 4-5) Ironically perhaps, another woman is the one shining, ray of hope in the time of the book of Judges – Ruth. Her story embodies the central theme of all Scripture – Redemption.

Ruth and Boaz Are Distinguished by Their Character

We might be surprised to note that Ruth is an ordinary woman. She isn’t even an Israelite. She is a Moabite (an immigrant in Israel), who was married to one of the sons of Naomi. We don’t even know which one. The Bible doesn’t tell us.

The men in this story take a back seat to the women. The book opens with the introduction of Elimelek. All we know about Elimelek, though, is that he is from the tribe of Judah and was living in Bethlehem before he leaves with his wife, Naomi, for Moab because of famine in the land.

Naomi’s husband (Elimelek) dies in Moab. Naomi’s two sons marry Moabite women, Ruth and Orpah. Then they die. All of this happens in the first five (5) verses of the book. The rest of the story focuses on the women – and Boaz, who becomes a kinsman redeemer.

Ruth could have gone back to her home and her clan but she chose to remain faithful to Naomi – a widow in her old age. She famously made this covenant with Naomi:

“Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.”

Ruth 1:16-17

There is nothing noteworthy about Ruth other than her tender faithfulness to distinguish her as anything but ordinary.

Boaz, the hero of the story, also has no apparent distinguishing feature – except for the way he carries himself. He is not a leader in Israel. He is not even the leader of his own family group. He is distinguished solely by his faithfulness to the spirit of the law, and his faithfulness as a kinsman redeemer anticipates the Great Redeemer himself – Jesus Christ.

Ruth is an Orphan, a Widow, and a Foreigner

The action in the story begins when Naomi hears that God has provided food in the land of Judah. Naomi had immigrated to Moab. Now that the famine was over and her husband and sons were dead, she decides to go back to home.

Naomi begins to set out for Judah, but she stops to invite her daughters-in-law to go back to their “mother’s home.” (Ruth 1:8) The offer to allow her daughters-in-law to go back to their mother’s home suggests they were fatherless.

Naomi was not rejecting them. She was offering them a way out. They would be foreigners in Israel, and widows, and fatherless – meaning they would have no clan to protect them and provide for them. Yet, Ruth decides to remain faithful to her mother-in-law’s and stick by her side

That Ruth a widow and a foreigner and probably an orphan is significant. God could have used the story of any Israelite orphan and widow to tell this story, but he chose a foreigner – an immigrant.

That point should not be lost on us. Jesus makes the same point in Luke 4:24-27, and the people in his hometown synagogue were so incensed by it that they sought to throw him off cliff. God is serious about blessing all the nations, even if His people are not.

God’s Care and Concern for the Foreigner

If Ruth was fatherless, as the text seems to suggest, she embodied all the categories of vulnerable people most often paired together in Scripture: orphan, widow, and foreigner. (Ex. 22:1-2; Deut. 24:17, 27:19; Jer. 7:6, 22:3; and Zech. 7:10) The poor and the needy are sometimes included in this list, but they are general terms. Orphans, widows, and foreigners were the people most likely to be poor and needy in Ancient Near Eastern communities because they were left on the fringes of patriarchal clans that were the lifeblood, support, and protection of people in that culture.

The Theme of Migration/Immigration in Ruth

The story of Ruth is set in the context of migration. The book opens with Naomi and her two sons migrating from Judah to Moab because of a famine. We might think of the great potato famine in Ireland that caused many Irish people to migrate to the United States. Whether it’s famine, war, oppression, or persecution, people migrate because of hardship. They always have, and they always will.

We might be tempted to judge Naomi and her sons for abandoning their heritage in Israel for greener pastures in Moab. But we don’t know their circumstances other than the famine. It’s easy and natural to judge people, but the Book of Ruth does not provide any sense that judgment is due. And if they have been in any way unfaithful to their own country, their own heritage, and to God, it is clearly forgiven in the context of the story.

Naomi’s sons marry Moabite women and settle down. Before they could have any children, one son dies and then the other son dies. Now, Naomi and her two daughters are all widows and childless – the people most likely to be poor and vulnerable.

Whatever benefits they thought they might have had in Moab, no nation in the ancient Near East had laws like the nation of Israel that protected the poor and the vulnerable like the Mosaic law. God required His people to share the harvest with widows, orphans, and foreigners by allowing them to glean from the edges of the fields. (Deut. 14:28-29; 24:19-21; & 26:12-13) The Jubilee instructions in Leviticus 25 incorporated protections for these vulnerable people groups in God’s instruction on how the Israelites were to live in the land.

Ruth Pulses with the Theme of Redemption

The leaders among the Israelites, as represented by the judges, were increasingly unfaithful to the Law, idolatrous, and unjust. In Ruth, we find ordinary people of God who are faithful to others, obedient to His commands, and living out the story of redemption that characterizes the arc and sweep of Scripture, from beginning to end.

The Book of Ruth pulses with the great theme of redemption and God’s intention to include the nations in God’s redemptive plans. God’s promise to Abraham to bless all the nations of the earth through Abraham’s descendants is repeated many times for emphasis (Gen. 12:2-3; 17:4; 22:17-18; 26:43-4; 28:13-14), and it isn’t forgotten. The drumbeat continued, though faint it may seem, as Israel and Judah wandered from the Law: Psalm 72:17; Isaiah 2:2-3; 49:6; 56-6-7; Micah 4:1-2.

From the the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden (Gen. 2-3) to the gathering of people from every nation, tribe, and tongue before the throne of Jesus (Rev. 7:9), all of Scripture is one great redemption story. Ruth sits in the middle of that story foreshadowing the climactic act of redemption and blessing to all the nations – Christ and him crucified on the cross for our sins and the sins of the world.

Ruth the Moabite – the foreigner and outsider – is embedded by God into Israel’s royal lineage. From her womb flows Obed, the father of Jesse, the father of King David. (Ruth 4:18-22) The Gospel of Mathew traces her royal lineage to Jesus. (Matthew 1:5-6)

Boaz became a “kinsman redeemer” for Ruth when he married her; Jesus became the Great Redeemer of all mankind, marrying all who would believe in him to himself.

The kinsmen redeemer, is an archetype of Christ. Redemption, and the role of the foreigner in God’s redemptive plan for Israel and all the nations, are key themes in the Bible that coalesce in the Book of Ruth.

David Was a Refugee and Asylum Seeker

Lessons from David the refugee and asylum seeker

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Five men dressed in ancient clothing sitting around a campfire with a dog

If you have followed my blog for any length of time, you know that I have written often on the theme of migration (aliens, foreigners, sojourners, and strangers) as it appears in the Bible. Now that I am aware of it, I am amazed at the amount of time devoted to it in God’s revelation to us. It is a rich and deep vein of gold with significant Gospel implications.

I began reading to determine how God views immigrants back in 2014 during the Syrian refugee crisis. I wrote Immigration: The Strangers Among Us in the fall of 2014 to share what I found.

Since then I have noticed how central this thread is to the Gospel and the whole biblical narrative from the beginning (the exile of Adam & Eve from the garden) to the end (the gathering of people from every nation, tribe and tongue before the throne of Jesus in Revelation 7:9). In my daily reading recently, I noticed another segment of that thread involving David before he was king. When you see it, it’s obvious.

David Was a Refugee

David rose quickly to prominence after killing Goliath. He was initially taken in by King Saul because of that success, but Saul became jealous of David as he had more and more success in battle andas a leader of men. God rejected Saul, though he remained King, and David was anointed as his successor.

Jealousy drove Saul to want to kill David. His first attempt is chronicled in 1 Samuel 18:10-11. Saul tried to pin David to the wall with his spear twice, David dodged him and escaped. Saul tried a different tactic – to send David into battle after battle, hoping he would be killed by enemy forces. (1 Samuel 18:17, 25) When those efforts failed, Saul ordered his son, Jonathan, and his attendants to kill David, but Jonathan would not do it. (1 Samuel 19:1-2)

With Jonathan’s help, David fled into the wilderness to preserve his life, but Saul pursued David with an army of men. David was on the run from Saul from 1 Samuel 19 through 1 Samuel 26 until Saul died in battle with the Philistines.

Today, we would call David a refugee because he was displaced due to violence. Over 123 million people have been displaced today because of war, armed conflict, persecution, human rights abuses, and generalized violence, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). About 60-70 million refugees are displaced inside their own countries. The other 40+ million refugees have crossed country borders to escape the violence that threatens them.

In 1 Samuel 21:10-15, David fled across the border to the Philistine city of Gath, which ironically was the hometown of Goliath, the giant that David killed. The Philistines were obviously enemies of the nation of Israel, but David was desperate.

Not surprisingly, the Philistines recognized David and were suspicious. David feigned insanity to save himself from potential hostility (1 Samuel 21:10-15), and he returned to hiding in the wilderness of Israel.

Being a refugee is a desperate circumstance. Like David, many people are caught up in local, regional, or national violence and do not have safe places to go in their home country. They face danger at home and abroad. People in David’s position are vulnerable. They look for safety, protection, and welcome wherever they can find it.

The things David experienced as a refugee and asylum seeker play out for millions of people in our world today. In fact, more people are displaced today because of violence than ever before, according to the UNHCR Global Trends Report published in 2024. That number doubled in the last decade, leaving 1 out of every 67 people in the world displaced today!

This is obviously a sad state of affairs, but I am more interested in what God has to say about these things. There was a time when I didn’t know. Since 2014, I have become increasingly aware of the way scripture views people in refugee status, and today I will trace what can be found in the life of David when he became a refugee and asylum seeker.

Continue reading “David Was a Refugee and Asylum Seeker” →

Foreigners, Neighbors, and Citizens of God’s Kingdom in the United States of America Today

Immigration is one of the most polarizing issues for American Christians today

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“You are to have the same law for the foreigner and the native-born.”

Leviticus 24:22

That single line, given by the Lord to Moses, is often read narrowly: foreigners are subject to the same penalties as citizens. True—but incomplete. Law is not merely punitive; it is protective. If the same law binds the foreigner, the same law also shields the foreigner. Justice, in the biblical sense, is reciprocal.

The rules that apply to foreigners are embedded in the sacred Law God gave to Moses for His people. The Law even applied specific protections to foreigners:

  • Leviticus 19:9–10 — Leave gleanings for the poor and the foreigner.
  • Leviticus 23:22 — Harvest leftovers belong to the foreigner and poor.
  • Deuteronomy 24:19–21 — Leave grain, olives, and grapes for foreigners.
  • Deuteronomy 26:12 — Tithes every third year support foreigners.

The Reciprocity Built into God’s Law

Leviticus develops this principle further. In Leviticus 25, the Lord instructs Israel that if a native-born Israelite loses his land and falls into poverty, he is to be treated as a foreigner among them. Why? Because the law already required Israel to provide for foreigners in their midst. By placing impoverished Israelites into the same category as foreigners, God establishes a profound reciprocity:

The protections of the law given to the Israelites apply to the foreigners living among them. The protections given to outsiders become the safety net for insiders when they fall.

This is not accidental. It reveals something essential about God’s character: His justice is inseparable from His mercy.

Other passages reinforce the pattern of concern for foreigners:

  • Leviticus 19:34 — “The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself.”
  • Deuteronomy 1:16–17 — Judges must hear cases fairly, whether involving Israelites or foreigners.
  • Deuteronomy 10:18–19 — God “loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing.”
  • Deuteronomy 24:17 — Do not deprive foreigners of justice.

God’s intentions are reinforced over and over:

  • Exodus 22:21 — “Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt.”
  • Exodus 23:9 — Do not oppress a foreigner; you know their experience
  • Leviticus 19:33–34 — Do not mistreat; love them as yourself
  • Deuteronomy 10:19 — Love the foreigner, for you were foreigners

Israel’s memory of its own foreignness was meant to inform Israel’s identity and to shape its ethics. Their past vulnerability became the foundation of their present compassion. They were never to forget who they were and to treat people as they would want to be treated.

Set Apart—But Not Set Against

God was forming a people set apart—a light to the nations (Isaiah 49:6). Yet their distinctiveness was never meant to become isolation or superiority. From the beginning, God’s promise to Abraham was expansive:

“All peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

Genesis 12:3

Election was never exclusion. The chosen people existed for the sake of the unchosen. We are the benefactors of God’s expansive purpose today.

Jubilee and Land Ownership

Leviticus 25 also introduces the Year of Jubilee – a system of Law that reinforces the design and purpose of God. Under this system, land could not be owned permanently:

“The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you reside in my land as foreigners and strangers.”

Leviticus 25:23

Even in the Promised Land, Israel was reminded: you are tenants, not owners.

This theme echoes throughout Scripture. Humanity has lived in exile since Eden. Abraham lived in tents (Hebrews 11:9–10), because he was waiting for a city “whose architect and builder is God.” The saints of old lived as “foreigners and strangers on earth.” (Hebrews 11:13) This is the hallmark of God’s people – their ingrained identity.

The New Testament continues the theme:

  • Philippians 3:20 — “Our citizenship is in heaven.”
  • 1 Peter 2:11 — “I urge you, as foreigners and exiles…”

The Apostle John saw in vivid detail what Abraham and the saints of old only saw from afar:

“Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth,’ for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.”

Revelation 21:1-2

Our true home is the New Jerusalem – where Jesus has prepared rooms for all of his people. The Kingdom of God is not of this world. The biblical story reframes our identity: no matter where we are born, God’s people live as resident aliens awaiting a better country and a City the architect and builder of which is God.

The American Tension

The United States is not ancient Israel, and the Mosaic Law is not our civil code. Yet the heart of God revealed in Scripture has not changed. The law written on stone has given way to the law written on hearts (Jeremiah 31:33), but its moral trajectory remains.

Continue reading “Foreigners, Neighbors, and Citizens of God’s Kingdom in the United States of America Today” →

The Importance of Our Identity as Citizens of Heaven: Moses, Aliens, and Strangers

Our identity as Christians informs (or should inform) how we see the world

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The importance of identity is not just a 21st Century trend. The significance of a person’s identity dates back to the Ancient Near Eastern culture preserved in the Bible.

Parents commonly named their children based on prominent identity markers. For instance, Isaac and Rebekah named their second born, Jacob, who was born clinging to his two brother’s ankle. Jacob (Ya’aqov in Hebrew) meant “supplanter,” “heel-catcher,” or “he who follows on the heels of.” The name became part of his identity not just literally; it corresponded with actions to acquire his older brother’s birthright from his father by manipulation and deception. (Gen. 25:26; 27:36; and Hos. 12:2-4)

God often gave people new names to go with their identity in relation to God. After a personal encounter with the Lord, God gave Jacob a new name: Israel, which meant “struggles with God,” “wrestlers with /God,” or “God prevails.” (Gen. 32)

The naming of children and God renaming people according to some key characteristic associated with their personal identity, or a new identity God gave them, is a common theme in the Bible. Groups of people were known by ancestral names, like Israelites, Amalekites, Hittites, etc. Thus, I find significance in the name Moses gave his first born child: Gershom.

Moses was the son of Hebrew parents, but he was placed in a basket in the Nile when Pharaoh ordered the killing of all male Hebrew babies. The Pharaoh’s own daughter found Moses and adopted him, though she allowed him to be nursed by a Hebrew woman who turned out to be Moses’s mother.

Moses grew up in the privilege of the Pharaoh’s house. He was educated in all the ways of Egypt, learned to read and write, and was familiar with Egyptian history, culture, religion, and philosophy. He was Hebrew by birth, but he was Egyptian by upbringing.

Moses must have known that he was Hebrew. It was probably obvious by his facial features, and he might have even been circumcised. He was schooled in Egyptian ways and thinking, but he was probably painfully aware that he was not Egyptian by birth.

One day as he observed an Egyptian beating a Hebrew man, Moses stepped in and killed the Egyptian. I believe Moses identified with the Hebrew man because of his Hebrew ethnicity. He fled into the desert in Midian for fear of punishment from the Egyptians for the murder.

In Midian, he was accepted into the family of a Midianite, married a Midian woman, and settled down there. When his wife, Zipporah, gave birth to a son, “Moses named him Gershom, saying, ‘I have become a foreigner in a foreign land.’” Exodus 2:21-22

Moses named his first son Foreigner because he identified as a foreigner himself. Despite being raised as an Egyptian in Pharaoh’s family with all the privilege associated with the royal household, Moses could not escape the fact of his Hebrew heritage. That knowledge influenced his personal identity.  That identify as an outsider – a foreigner – was reinforced in his persona when he settled in Midian to the extent that he extended that identity to his firstborn son.

I find significance in that story and in the realization that Moses identified so poignantly with being a foreigner. That same identity – of being foreign – defined the Hebrew people enslaved in Egypt. It remained with them as they wandered 40 years in the Levant wilderness, and, God sanctified that identity for the Israelites in the Mosaic Law:

“When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the Lord your God….

“When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.“

Leviticus 19:9-10, 33-34

The Israelites lived 430 years in Egypt by the time Moses led them out of that land. Their memories of the promised land were ancient history. Their memories would be like modern Native Americans recalling the history of the United States in 1596. European settlers at that time comprised a few thousand people at most in precarious settlements in the New World inhabited by millions of indigenous people.

The Roanoke Colony had already failed, and no English settlements remained. Some Spanish missionary and military expeditions existed in the south and west, and French and Portuguese fishing camps existed in Newfoundland. Jamestown (1607), Quebec City (1608), Plymouth (1620), and New Amsterdam (New York, 1624) were not yet established.

Some 430 years later, the Native Americans may identify as outcasts in their own country, like Israelites identified as foreigners in their “home” country of Egypt. The Israelites lived there, but they were not assimilated into Egyptian culture, and they lived there without all the benefits Egyptian privileges.

Though Moses was raised with Egyptian privileges in the royal family, he never lost his Hebrew identity. In that sense, Moses identified similarly to the way Christians are taught to identify themselves in the New Testament: as people of God who are foreigners and exiles (1 Peter 2:10-11), “foreigners and strangers on earth” (Hebrews 11:13), who are now “fellow citizens with God’s people.” (Ephesians 2:19)

For Moses, though, he probably didn’t even feel at home with his own, Hebrew people because of his upbringing. He was raised separately from them. His Hebrew features (and perhaps circumcision) reminded him of his heritage. He could not escape it, but his personal connection to those Hebrew roots was not yet intimate.

Even so, the sense of foreign identify was profound enough that Moses was compelled to come to the aid of a Hebrew stranger. Moses identified with the plight of the Israelites who lived as vulnerable foreigners in a land they could not call their own.

I and my fellow Christians should have the same profound sense of living as strangers in a foreign land in this world – if, indeed, we are citizens of heaven. This realization hits home today as I watch what is happening in the streets of American cities.

Do we identify with the aliens and strangers in our country? Or do we identify with the government that has recently adopted more oppressive and strong handed tactics to deal with immigrants in this country who are not wanted here? If you are not sure these connections belong together, bear with me awhile longer.

Continue reading “The Importance of Our Identity as Citizens of Heaven: Moses, Aliens, and Strangers” →