How does the Bible help us to think about migration?
McKeever / 17 Maggio 2019

How does the Bible help us to think about migration? The relationship between the Bible and morality is notoriously complex (see the document of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Bible and Morality, 2008). Looking to the Scripture for enlightenment and guidance on any moral issue requires prudence, intellectual honesty and humility. All of this is true in a particular way concerning the contemporary question of migration because it is such a sensitive and controversial issue. In this brief reflection we will consider just one biblical text, perhaps the most important verse in the Bible on this question: “The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I the Lord am your God” (Leviticus, 19,34). The verse can be broken down into three parts: a moral obligation concerning the treatment of strangers, the historical fact that the people of Israel were once strangers and the assertion by God of his authority over his people. The key word linking these three parts is the word “for”. Taken literally, this term expresses the idea that one assertion follows logically from another, but…