Immigration and the Bible

          I really hate to say this, but this time John Piper got it right.

          I might describe Piper as a hyper-Calvinist, or maybe just an irritating theological and social “conservative.”

          I once read a book of his titled Don’t Waste Your Life. Great title! Terrible book.

          Usually when I’m done with a book, I pass it on one way or another. Not this time. It went straight into the recycling bin. I did not want to expose another human being to Piper’s toxicity.

          One thing about him: he tends to ground his awful ideas in scripture. Yeah, he usually reads scripture very wrongly, but at least he reads scripture.

          Would that some of his critics might as well.

          A week or so ago, Piper posted this on X:

          “You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.” Leviticus 19:34 Christians know the miserable bondage we were all in.

          It would appear that you just can’t quote the Bible to expose contemporary hypocrisy. Piper was inundated in mostly vituperative replies to his post.

          It also would appear that most people yelled at him because they did not want a biblical voice of any kind in today’s immigration debate.

          But at least one commentator twisted scripture around to fit his vision of the immigration problem. According to this guy, the “strangers” in question were converts to Judaism and were to be accepted because of that.

          Yep, they were no longer strangers at all. Now they were just good Jews – former immigrant foreigners, yes, but now Jews in good standing.

          There is no way you can read Leviticus 19:34 that way – or any of the hundreds of other similar passages in the Old Testament. No way at all.

          Here’s another translation of Leviticus 19:34 that makes it pretty plain: “The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”

          John Piper, once a “conservative” darling, is now denounced as “woke.”

          You know what “woke” means. It means you are awake and alert and trying to follow Jesus.

          On this one, Pastor Piper, you are wide awake, while so many of your critics snore loudly in ignorance.