What the Bible Says about Accepting Refugees?

In the past few years wars and famine have brought tremendous ruin to Middle Eastern and African countries which has resulted in hundreds of thousands of people leaving their homes and looking for survival in Western countries.

Their journeys are often fought with peril and death and many are unable to leave their countries because of hardships or blocked avenues.

Several years ago, I worked with African refugees from different countries. They left starvation, death, and human corpses littering the rivers they drank from. One boy in our group was kidnapped from his village and made a slave in another part of his country. After fellow slaves tried unsuccessfully to escape, they were caught and their heels were cut so that the would never be able to walk again. The boy was smarter and waited for a better time, escaped, hugged the top of a box car of a train, and made it to freedom. Shortly after he was shipped to the U.S. as an orphan.

There were many such stories among the Africans, many of which were kept securely within the memories of those who experienced them.

Before Israel became a nation, when they were only a small group of nomads and people who lived outside of their group were not trusted. Because of this distrust, the nomads kept to themselves and usually married within the family. Both Abraham and his son Isaac were so paranoid about outsiders that they told city dwellers that their wives were sisters. They believed that outsiders would kill them for their wives, and rather than facing an imaginary death, they contrived a plan to pass their wives off as sisters. This worked very well for Abraham as he walked away with a load of money, servants, and goods, just to leave Egypt where he humiliated Pharaoh through his trickery.

Years later he duped the king of Gerar who was appalled at Abraham for being so xenophobic in assuming that because he wasn't family to Abraham he was immoral. Abraham assumed that the outsider would be evil and do evil things, but in fact, Abraham's trickery was downright wrong and the king of Gerar who had been tricked let Abraham know it.

As Israel grew into a nation they faced many new challenges with outsiders. They were first welcomed by Egypt, but as they became more numerous, they became Egyptian slaves. Nevertheless, after finding freedom, Israel got its own land and faced a new challenge with outsiders. As different countries faced famine, people came into Israel for survival. And as Israel faced famine, many Israelis left for other countries looking for food. Besides this, intermarriage with outsiders was not uncommon.

While all of this took place, many people were fearful and hateful of outsiders. Xenophobia flooded the land from time to time, and some individuals never let their prejudices go.

Before Israel had their own land, before they developed a strong identity beyond being mere slaves, Moses left them certain laws about how to deal with outsiders. While many of those laws stated that foreigners were to live under the rules of Israel, other laws demanded that the people respect, take care of, and treat foreigners as equals.

Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt (Exodus 22:21).

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 (Leviticus 19:10).

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 19:34).


People don't really change. We have prejudice an hatred today and there was prejudice and hatred in the ancient world. The laws of Israel were written to address issues of xenophobia. The laws of the Bible written years ago fit for today as well.
 

Esther and the Battle with Feminism

The book of Esther tells the readers that being submissive is so powerful that it can save a nation.

THE SETTING

- The King of Persia and Media boasted about his possessions and showed them to everyone in the government for 6 months.
- The King held a week long party for his friends and servants showing off his palace wealth.
- By the King's command everyone was to drink as much as they wanted. They could vomit, pass out, piss in their clothes... as much as they wanted - it was the command.
- The King was very drunk on the seventh day of his party.
- At the height of his pride and showing people his wealth, the King ordered his wife, who was the queen, to come to the party so he could show her off because she was so good looking.
- She refused to come.
- The king got angry.
- All the rulers were afraid this would turn into kind of a woman's liberation movement throughout the kingdom, with women refusing to obey their husbands.
- The king divorced his wife and took all her property away from her.
- The king set up a law for all the land - women must obey their husbands.

Setting Summaries
- The king was a vain man.
- The King partied in extremes, gloated in extremes, showed off in extreme, and had sex in extremes.
- The King was not a good example of a leader, husband, or a man.
- The queen's refusal to submit to the most ridiculous commands was viewed as a threat, not only to the King's authority, but to the authority of men everywhere.
- Men feared losing total control of their wives.
- The best way to deal with a disobedient wife was to send her away without possessions or a home.

CALL FOR A BEAUTY CONTEST

-The King called for young girls to be brought from all over the world to compete in a contest to be queen.
- The judge of the contest was the King.
- The King took each girl into his bedroom for one night of sex.
- After the one night, most of the girls would remain in the castle, have food and a place to stay, but would never again sleep with a man for the rest of their lives. She would be one of the king's many concubines.
- If the King liked a girl, he would call her by name and have another night with her.

Contest Summaries

Names were important to the ancient world. To be given a name was equal to be given recognition and worth. These girls meant nothing until they were called a second time to have sex with the King.

ESTHER

- Esther was orphaned and in her uncle's care.
- Esther was probably very young and won everyone's hearts.
- Esther was probably very good looking.
- Esther is portrayed in the book as obedient to her uncle in all things.
- Only her uncle knew she was Jewish.
- After a night or two with Esther, the King chose her to be queen.

MORDECAI

- Mordecai was Esther's uncle and guardian.
- Mordecai worked at the palace.
- Mordecai overheard a plot to kill the king, reported it, and saved the king's life.

HAMAN

- Haman was made second most powerful man in the kingdom.
- Haman was arrogant and demanded people bow before him.
- Esther's uncle (Mordecai) did not bow before Haman because he was Jewish.
- Haman requested for and received an order from the king to kill Mordecai and the all the Jews.
- Events turned on Haman and he had to honor Mordecai.
- Haman and his friends saw the turn of events as a portent of what is to come.

IN THE PALACE

- Mordecai told Esther to talk to the king on the Jew's behalf.
- Esther was afraid her husband may kill her for entering his presence without being called, but because her uncle refused to back down, she took her life in her hands and asked to see her husband.
- The king welcomed her and she invited him and Haman to a party.
- During the party Esther told the king that she was Jewish and was ordered to die with all the Jews.
- The king had Haman hanged and put Mordecai in his place as 2nd in power.

CONCLUSIONS

The Book of Esther tells a story in extremes and stereotypes. It is anti-Gentile in that Gentile men in the story are powerful, but they are buffoons, sexually permissive, and arrogant. On the other hand the Jewish servant and his Jewish niece are leader worthy and very wise (Esther's wisdom is found in that she listens and obeys her Jewish uncle and in that she is submissive to her Gentile husband).

Gentile women as demonstrated from the first queen in the story are brash and disobedient. On the other hand, Jewish women are very attractive, subservient, and catch the attention of everyone around them.

The book of Esther poses problems in that Esther (who is a fine Jewish girl) is given by her uncle to a pig of a man. Mordecai also protects the Gentile overlord. Esther becomes the wife of a Gentile man who has many concubines and who is recently divorced. These problems troubled the Jewish rabbis who read and discussed the Book of Esther in the ancient world, but learned how to fill in the blanks of the story in order to make Esther look better to them.

Part of reading the Bible is accepting it as it is and not trying to make it fit into our own molds as the ancient rabbis tried to do and as we often do without realizing it. This story poses a lot of problems. It is not a book to celebrate women's independence and individual power, and it is not a book to use as an example in morals. Most Christians would not want their children marrying anybody like this king who was an unbeliever, abusive (Esther feared going near him without being invited), sexually permissive, a glutton, and arrogant.

On the surface this book puts down Gentiles and demeans women; but dig deeper and we find that the Book of Esther celebrates God's deliverance of His own people by using very unconventional and powerless means. It reminds us that God is not limited to independent, take charge type of people. He can use the timid to move the hands of the powerful.

Who Is the Antichrist?

I don't know. Maybe you are.

Is Vladimir Putin the Antichrist?

No.

Is President Obama the Antichrist?

No.

Is Donald Trump the Antichrist?

No.

Bible Scandals

Every human community (nations, churches, religions, schools, and so on) treasures certain stories, values, and morals which are deeply rooted within.  These values and morals may be formally written down or else they are unwritten but understood by most if not all of the members of the group.

As important as they are, most members of every society stray from those rules in private, and occasionally one will stray and get caught publicly either by plan or by accident.  When those people are caught straying in public, the result is what could be called a scandal.  A scandal exposes the one caught to be the center of shame, public ridicule, and disgrace.

Because the Bible was written about real people in the context of a community it has its share of scandals.  Some of those scandals were more scandalous to their own culture than to us.  Likewise there are some things in our own cultures that would not seem so bad in theirs.  The following is a list of the five scandals common to both our culture and theirs that I found in the Bible.

NUMBER FIVE - TAMAR SEDUCES HER FATHER-IN-LAW (GENESIS 38)

Several women in the Bible took chances by risking their reputations in order to obtain something of greater value in their community.  Tamar was one of the best of them for taking that kind of risk.

When her husband died, her brother-in-law was supposed to have sex with her so she could give birth to a son which would help her standing within the community and continue her dead husband's name in the same community.  Having a son and continuing one's name within the community were highly regarded values within Tamar's community; so when after her husband died, her brother-in-law refused to give her children, and her father-in-law failed to let her have sex with the third brother-in-law; so she took a chance with her reputation to get the child she wanted.  She literally sacrificed her good reputation in order to obtain a more important value within the community.

Tamar posed as a prostitute in order to have sex with her father-in-law and thus obtain what was most important within the community - a son to carry on her dead husband's name and to promote her reputation within her community.

By posing as a prostitute, Tamar's father-in-law had the right to have her executed, and that is exactly what he demanded - until he understood that Tamar sacrificed her reputation to obtain a more important value.

NUMBER FOUR - ONAN SPILLS HIS SEED ON THE GROUND (GENESIS 38)

When I first heard Genesis 38 in a sermon, an traveling evangelist was using the story to preach against the evils of masturbation.  Onan was supposed to fulfill a community requirement by having sex with his sister-in-law Tamar, but Onan was not concerned about his brother's wife or his brother, so when he had his moment with her, rather than following through with what he committed to, he spilled his sperm on the ground.

Because he was so callous toward his brother and brother's wife, God killed him.  God killed him, not because he was masturbating, but because he purposely failed to do his community duty.  His story became a lesson to future generations about the importance and warnings involved in fulfilling community duties.

NUMBER THREE - FATHERS AND SONS HAVE SEX WITH THE SAME TEMPLE PROSTITUTES  LYING ON TOP OF GARMENTS TAKEN BY PLEDGE (AMOS 2:7)

The prophet Amos was appalled at the behavior of people around him.  He saw creditors take all that was valuable from those who could not pay their bills (in that day people who could not pay their debts lost their clothes, their houses, and those worse off would lose their children, then their wives, and last of all they would be sold into slavery to pay off their creditors).

The creditors were business men who had money and could afford to lend out at money to those who were in need.  Today if you don't pay your bills, your car or house will be taken by the banks; in those days the clothes off your back were taken before your children, you and your wife / husband would be taken.  The prophet Amos saw creditors use the cloaks they took from those who owed money, and carefully lay them on the ground in some shrine built to honor another god so the debtors could have sex with the sacred prostitutes who worked at the shrine.

While the higher class of society accepted this picture as normal, Amos spoke for God and for the poor, calling it scandalous.

NUMBER TWO - SAMSON AND DELILAH (JUDGES 16)

One would expect that a child miraculously born after the proclamation of an angel would turn out to be a dedicated man of God; but this is not the case with Samson.  Samson was a miracle baby who grew up without much common sense.  He had no real friends around him that we know of, and his own people were probably more annoyed than impressed by his behavior.

Samson was part of a small group of Hebrews who was a Nazirite, which meant that he could not touch dead bodies, shave his hair, drink wine, or eat grapes.  The Nazirites made a vow to avoid such things and live for God.  Samson was a Nazirite from the day he was born and his parents made the vow for him.

The Bible paints a clear picture that Samson cared very little for his Nazirite vow.  He took honey from the carcass of a lion, he partied with and felt more comfortable with the Philistines than with his own people (it is not stated, but he could have been drinking wine with his friends), and he told a woman that his long hair which had never been cut gave him supernatural strength.

He didn't tell just any woman his secret; he told Delilah who was a Philistine.  Delilah - who gave Samson every signal possible that she would ruin him if he let her know.  Delilah was the Philistine's tool to find the secret behind Samson's strength; and with his secret discovered, the Philistines cut Samson's hair, took out his eyes, and put him into slavery.

Samson turned his back on his own nation by ignoring them in attempts to befriend the Philistines and his Philistine girlfriends; and that became his downfall.  Samson's parents warned him of going out with women who were not of his people, but Samson ignored them because even though no one knew it at the time, his desire for foreign women"was from the LORD, who was seeking an occasion to confront the Philistines; for at that time they were ruling over Israel  (Judges 14:4)."

NUMBER ONE - ANANIAS AND SAPPHIRA (ACTS 5:1-14)

For a short period of time the early church tried to live as directed by the teachings of Jesus (as they understood it).  Many sold all they had and gave to the Apostles for distribution and the Apostles distributed to the community as people had need.  As a result the church had all things in common.

Barnabas was a rather wealthy man who owned land, sold it, gave the money to the Apostles for distribution, and through this act of giving, and for whatever other reasons not mentioned, he won a high position among the inner circle of leadership of the early church which was centered in Jerusalem at the time.

Ananias and Sapphira saw this and decided together that they would likewise sell land and give it to the Apostles for distribution.  But Ananias and Sapphira decided to keep back some of the money for their own distribution to themselves - which was not a bad idea in and of itself.  Their problem was that they wanted the Apostles and the other Christians to think they were giving all their money to the community.  They didn't want anyone to know that they were keeping back some for themselves.  For that deception, they died while people looked on.

Their story in Acts 5 concludes with these words:  No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people.  Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number (Acts 5:13-14).


Many would think the lesson of this story is that one should not try to deceive the church leadership.  But the lesson the early church received was not about lying as much as it was about holding back from the attempt to get into the inner circles of the Apostles.  In Acts 5:13-14 we read that while Christians were growing in number, no one dared to join "them."  "Them" does not refer to the Christians, but rather "them" refers to the Apostles' inner circle.  After Ananias and Sapphira failed to reach the inner circles of leadership through deceptionr, no one else dared to try in any way to enter the inner circle.

Barnabas sold land, gave to the disciples, and for whatever other reasons he joined the Apostles in leading the church.  He did not plan to become a co-leader, but it happened.   Seeing his success, Ananias and Sapphira concluded that they could likewise join the inner circles of leadership by copying Barnabas; but their plan backfired.  Just as Miriam and Aaron tried to be equal with Moses and were punished by God for doing so, the early church saw the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira as a warning to avoid attempts to become equal with the Apostles.