cripture is clear; we are to obey God rather than man (Acts 5:29). Paul encourages us to pray for government leaders and respect their authority (Romans 12 and 13). But Paul demanded his rights as a Roman citizen (Acts 25:11) Therefore, Christians, while respecting those in authority, do not owe blind obedience to any human law if it is contrary to the Law (Torah) of God. What does the Bible say?

Isaac and Jacob were also migrants moving continually throughout the land of Canaan. Jacob fled his brother and violence to have a better future. Late in life, through the efforts of his son Joseph, who was now the prime minister of Egypt, Jacob and his entire family moved to Egypt to flee hunger caused by famine in Canaan, a natural disaster.

Centuries later the Hebrews were seen as a threat by the Egyptians who feared their growing numbers. A law was made enslaving them and finally a death decree was made to curb their population. The Hebrew midwives resisted this order. They made excuses for their “illegal actions” to save the baby boys.

Moses’ mother resisted this immoral law by hiding him. She hid him in a basket in the bulrushes of the river where he was found and saved by the daughter of the Pharaoh who wanted to kill him. This Egyptian princess knew he was a Hebrew but adopted him anyway. He was raised by his birth mother for the first years of his life and then went to live in the palace as the adopted grandson of Pharaoh. This same Moses led the Hebrews out of Egypt to return to the land of Canaan.

Another Bible story of migration is that of Ruth. She was a Moabite, a people who were the enemies of Israel. She had married an Israelite while he was a migrant in her country. When he died his mother wanted to return to Israel. Ruth went with her declaring, “your people will be my people and your God, my God.” To eat, Ruth labored in the fields picking up the leftovers after the harvest according to the law of God that demanded the corners of the field be left unharvested for the poor. This included widows and orphans. She married Boaz, the owner of the field she was working in, and became an ancestor of King David and Jesus.

Jesus was a migrant soon after his birth. Joseph and Mary were warned by an angel that their child was in imminent danger of death by Herod’s soldiers who were going to Bethlehem to kill all of the baby boys up to two years of age. Imminent danger forced them to migrate to Egypt where they could be safe.

The first believers in Jesus were forced to migrate from Jerusalem and Judea because of religious persecution. These people fled for their lives. Fear of imprisonment or death was the cause of their migration. The Apostles remind us that we are pilgrims in this earth, wandering. We look for a new heaven and a new Earth where righteousness reigns (1 Peter 2:11; Hebrews 11:13).

As we can see, the Scriptures are full of stories of people who had to migrate because of their faith, natural disasters, violence, death threats, and more. These are many of our Bible heroes. Migration was a key element in the story of their lives.

The division of human beings because of race, national origin, and gender is not God’s plan. In Jesus there is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor free (Galatians 3:28). Satan wants to divide us and cause enmity between people including believers (James 4:1). Jesus calls us to love one another, even those who hate us and persecute us (Matthew 5:44). And, He asks us to go into all the world and preach the gospel to everyone (Mark 16:15-16).

Jesus commands us to love (John 13:34-35, 1 John 4:7; Romans 12:10; 13:8; Ephesians 4:32). But whom should we love? Some have argued that there is an order of love (Ordos Amoris) beginning with those closest to us followed by those like ourselves. And finally, they argue, if there is any leftover love, care and concern, then it can go to others who are not of our family, community, or nation.

This is not the teaching of Jesus. He taught that our neighbor is not necessarily the one closest, nor most like us. In one of His most well-known parables, He seeks to answer the question: Who is my neighbor? In the story of “The Good Samaritan,” it was not those closest to the wounded man who turned out to be his neighbor. It was a man of the hated, demonized “others,” a Samaritan. Jesus taught that “God so loved the world” (John 3:16), not God so loved the Jews or the sons of Abraham.

Migration is an answer to human needs in the Scriptures just as it is in our times: religious persecution, famine hunger, family ties, injustice, and persecution based on race-ethnicity and other circumstances that make people migrate to another country where they hope to find freedom, justice, and safety for themselves and their families. It is sin that separates people into us and them. The fear and hatred of the other is sinful. Resistance to unjust, immoral laws is the duty of believers.

For many in our history, this was and remains a nation with hopes and intentions to fulfill the longing of the human heart for freedom and justice. It is a nation where religious freedom was the motivation for many of our ancestors’ migration. Christians are called to obey God’s commands rather than man’s. We are called to be light in the darkness, teaching Jesus’ gospel of love for one another. This is a love that is universal, not restricted to those who are nearest to us, or the most like ourselves. We follow Christ, not man. We are guided in our lives by the perfect law of liberty!