Daily Verse | Psalm 18:30
As for God, his way is perfect;
the word of the Lord is flawless;
He is a shield for all who take refuge in him.
Monday’s Reading: Psalms 19-24
It’s Monday and occasionally I hear a weekend message at my church that provokes some thought and I work through it here. That happened this weekend with the fifth in a series called “Kingdom Over Politics.” Over the past five weeks we’ve covered Civility, Sexuality, Life, Racial Justice, and yesterday, Immigration.
The series has been very well done. Apart from “civility,” which was about how we speak to and listen to each other, our lead pastor said that, generally speaking, sexuality and life are thought of as “red” political issues in our society, while racial justice and immigration are considered “blue” political issues. His overarching point is that they are neither “red” nor “blue” issues, but biblical issues. As believers, we need to start not with our political point of view, but with what the scriptures say about each issue.
I not only agree with that but would argue that starting with what the scriptures say about anything is the right place to start.
However.
We had guest speaker yesterday who led off with what I think is one of the most irresponsibly used arguments in support of welcoming the refugee, the legal immigrant, or the illegal alien. In its simplest form, it’s “Jesus was a refugee.”
The reference, of course, is to when Joseph and Mary fled with Jesus to Egypt while king Herod was committing infanticide in an effort to kill the child who would one day become the King of kings.
There was a real threat to the life of the child, Jesus. They had to escape, and they did, to Egypt.
The argument then, is that because Jesus was a refugee, we must welcome the refugee into our country.
Here’s the relevant passage (courtesy The Bible Gateway, linked):
The kind of arguments I hear that use this passage come from a variety of sources, including one of my former professors at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Scot McKnight.
In this post, McKnight reflects on M. Daniel Carroll R.’s take on Jesus in his book, The Bible and Borders: Hearing God’s Word on Immigration. McKnight’s summary of Carroll’s writing is typical of Christian progressives who advocate for taking in and caring for foreigners, legal or not.
Call it what you want, but the holy family’s experience is one of flight, hiding, refuge and seeking asylum in a foreign country where they could be surrounded by and welcomed by fellow Jews. Only after it was safe did they return, and even then they went to Nazareth to escape the eyes of the powerful.
Here we find elements to consider for immigration. If Jesus was an immigrant, I wonder to myself, are we not to see Jesus in all those seeking asylum in the USA?
Well, first of all, I don’t call it “seeking asylum in a foreign country.” More on that below.
As with others who use this argument, his conclusions are limited by what I think is a superficial inference in an otherwise multi-dimensional story that has nothing to do with immigration.
It’s clear what he’s focusing on: Jesus as an immigrant. From that he extrapolates seeing “Jesus in all those seeking asylum in the USA.”
I reject his premise outright.
To be clear, I do not reject seeing Jesus in another person, citizen or foreigner. None of us has ever locked eyes with anyone who didn’t matter to God or to Jesus. As Matthew also makes clear (chapter 25), when we minister to the marginalized, we minister to Jesus: “‘I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'”
Having said that, there are at least five reasons why I reject McKnight’s — and our guest speaker’s — reasoning.
This event was uniquely about Jesus. Jesus was the target, not Joseph and Mary. “Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” Jesus was the only person being sought by the authorities in an ill-advised attempt to snuff out his life before it really got started.
It’s true that Joseph and Mary might have been in danger as collateral damage, since Herod’s soldiers had their orders and wouldn’t let a mother’s or father’s attempts to resist stop them. They also didn’t let boys who weren’t Jesus stand in their way. That’s why this event is referred to as the Massacre of the Innocents.
Please note that God did not tell the other families with two-year-old boys to flee to Egypt. Why not? Didn’t they suffer a horrific loss because of Herod’s wickedness?
The reason is that this moment was specific to who Jesus was — the Son of God — and what he came here to do. It was a limited action by Herod, with a specific goal — to eliminate one toddler who threatened his power.
Divine revelation was involved. Jesus was taken to Egypt by his parents because his father received a special revelation from God, telling him what Herod was going to do. Joseph did not know that Jesus would be targeted. He did not, of his own accord, decide to flee Bethlehem for Egypt because he was being oppressed or persecuted.
But those who advocate for liberal immigration policies move from the one specialized case of Jesus to justify the millions of refugees, immigrants and illegal aliens pouring into our nation. We’re talking about one family of three people. There was no mass exodus of Jewish people to Egypt when they fled. The idea that there is any parallel to our modern-day illegal immigration or refugee crisis, especially in the U.S., is completely unfounded.
Egypt was part of the Roman empire. The idea of Jesus fleeing to another country as a parallel to what we’re experiencing today also doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. While Egypt was a different country, Jesus and his family never left the Roman empire. Egypt was under Roman rule, just as Israel was.
As near an analogy I can make is if someone in Ohio fled to Indiana to escape a stalker. While it’s true they crossed a border, we wouldn’t consider them a refugee because they never left the United States. Similarly, it’s possible (but unprovable) that the family wound up in Alexandria, Egypt, which had a large Jewish community at the time.
Jesus returned to Israel. I reject the use of Jesus’ journey to Egypt to justify “welcoming the refugee” because Jesus didn’t stay in Egypt. The young family returned home to Israel. I find it curious that those who use this argument never seem to get around to that part of the story. If we’re going to use this as a case study for immigration, then we need to use all of it.
Again, we find that this event is unique to who Jesus is. God directs Joseph through another revelation to go back to Israel because “those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.” The majority of refugees, immigrants or illegal aliens here in this country are making a great effort to stay here permanently.
The story is a proof of Jesus’ identity. We also need to consider why Matthew wrote his gospel. In the Life Application Study Bible’s introduction to his gospel we read, “Matthew wrote this Gospel to his fellow Jews to prove that Jesus is the Messiah and to explain God’s kingdom.” He seems to have been writing to a smaller Jewish-Christian community in conflict with a larger unbelieving Jewish community.
As a result, one of thematic features of the whole Gospel of Matthew is his constant referrals to prophecy in the Jewish scriptures being fulfilled in Jesus. That promise-fulfillment theme is meant to confirm the identity of Jesus to his Jewish readers, to give them confidence in whom they have put their trust, and to help those who don’t believe to reconsider their rejection of the Messiah.
Matthew makes clear why he includes this story in his gospel: “So was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘Out of Egypt I called my Son.'” The story was decidedly not included as a proof-text for policy or attitude on immigration. In fact, those who use it (as McKnight or our guest speaker did) are performing eisogesis, which simply means interpreting the bible by reading into it one’s own ideas.
Progressives use the “Jesus was a refugee” argument, based on this passage in Matthew, to advocate for anyone and everyone who comes to our country to be let in, and to accuse those who disagree as being “unChristian” or “unloving” or “denying Jesus.” You wouldn’t turn away Jesus, would you? But this passage is irresponsibly pressed into service when it comes to the debate on welcoming the refugee, the immigrant or the illegal alien.
Having said that, we are to love the foreigner, yes, no matter how they got here, no matter their immigration status, no matter their tribe, tongue or theology.
So why does this discussion matter? If we are going to use scripture to justify or advocate for a specific position on an issue, then it must be used accurately. In this case, I don’t believe it is.
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A Personal Note
I write five days a week on personal time because it’s one way I can contribute to strengthening the resolve of Christians, conservatives and other like-minded compatriots in the face of unprecedented division in our country. I would like to eventually do more. If you like what you’re reading and think others would benefit from it, please consider regularly sharing and commenting on my posts. Also invite your friends to subscribe. They can do that right on the home page. Thanks for reading! — Dave