Tag: Immigrants

Digging in Deeper: Exodus 22:21

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“You must not exploit a resident alien or oppress him, since you were resident aliens in the land of Egypt.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Immigration and border security are two of the hottest political topics in our nation right now. The reasons for this are pretty obvious too, especially if you live in a community near the southern border or one of the major cities were thousands of the immigrants who have crossed the border illegally in the last year are being sent. Having an enormous influx of new residents who don’t speak the language, don’t know the culture, don’t have much in the way of means of supporting themselves, and who may likely owe debts to the criminal cartels who facilitated their getting here in the first place is a recipe for a social and economic disaster. How we should solve this problem as a nation is far beyond the scope of what we could possibly tackle here. How we as followers of Jesus should think about and act toward these folks, on the other hand, is a fair bit clearer. Let’s talk about what we see here, and what it reveals about the character of God.

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Morning Musing: Genesis 1:27-28

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“So God created man in his own image; he created him in the image of God; he created them male and female. God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Last week I told you that I would be pursuing three different occasional series through the beginning of this year. The first I introduced you to was a walkthrough the prophetic record of Amos. The third will be focused on managing the resources God has put within our sphere of influence well. Today, I want to introduce you to the second one. For the next several weeks, we are going to be taking a look at several different places in the Scriptures to get a better sense of God’s heart for the weak, vulnerable, oppressed, and rejected members of society. These folks come in many different forms, but every culture has them. Very often they are the ones who weren’t born there, but have arrived later in life for a variety of reasons. We are going to examine several passages throughout the Scriptures that help us better understand God’s passion for them. For this first part, we are going to look at the passage that ultimately grounds God’s compassion and love for all people. We’ve seen this one before, of course, but never from quite this angle. Let’s take a look.

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Digging in Deeper: Mark 9:36-37

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“He took a child, had him stand among them, and taking him in his arms, he said to them, ‘Whoever welcomes one little child such as this in my name welcomes me. And whoever welcomes me does not welcome me, but him who sent me.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Are you a humble person? That’s kind of a tough question to answer honestly. I mean, on the one hand, you don’t want to say, “No,” to it because you’ll be outing yourself as prideful. No one wants that. On the other hand, if you say, “Yes,” you’re also outing yourself as prideful because surely no one who was really humble would claim such a mantle for themselves. But, if you say, “No,” and you really are a pretty humble person, you’re lying about it and humble people are fundamentally honest about themselves and so you’re either humblebragging or being dishonest which are neither one marks of true humility. Next question please? Well, how about this one: How can you spot a humble person? That seems like it should be an easier one to answer, but sometimes people who act the most humble in public are the least humble in private. Thankfully, Jesus gives us a pretty good litmus test here.

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You’re Not Like Me

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Last week in our new series, Answers to Tough Questions, we tackled the maze of LGBT issues. The outcome was a simple principle which, while not necessarily answering every question people ask about it, did give us a clear path forward. This week, we tackled the immigration debate. Like last week, you won’t find clear and concise answers or policy prescriptions here. Rather, we clarify yet another foundational principle that should guide all of our thinking about it as followers of Jesus. Read on to find out what this is.

One more thing: I will be in class all this week learning about law enforcement chaplaincy. While I am most excited about this opportunity, it means this will be the only blog post for this week. Stay tuned. I’ll be back in a week with your regularly scheduled program. Thanks for your faithful readership.

You’re Not Like Me

Moving into a new place for the first time is always just a bit scary…especially when it’s in a new town. When Lisa and I moved from Denver, Colorado to Church Road, VA in 2008, we were living somewhere neither of us had any connections at all. We had a house—the parsonage—but we didn’t know anyone. We had a wonderful church family, but that was the extent of our local support network. Specifically, we didn’t know if we could trust our neighbors. Fortunately, one man in the church we had come to trust gave us the assurance that we could and so began a relationship with Bobby and Frances Wilson. They were wonderful. They took us—and our boys as they arrived into the world—on as simply an extension of their own family. We adopted them as a set of grand and great-grandparents who were living next door instead of several states away. They were the best neighbors—and friends—we could have possibly hoped to have.

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Digging in Deeper: Judges 19:22

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“As they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city, worthless fellows, surrounded the house, beating on the door.  And they said to the old man, the master of the house, ‘Bring out the man who came into your house, that we may know him.'”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

For Israelites who were later being told this story as part of their people’s dark past, these words would have been chilling even before the narrative of what comes next.  This whole situation would have left them shuddering in terror.  This would have been a story you didn’t tell your children, but waited until they were a bit older and could handle it.  Even now, this isn’t somewhere I’d point my boys to read just yet. Read the rest…