Immigration is as controversial as it has ever been in American life, particularly as patterns of migration from Latin America intersect with broader global movement and displacement.
Some cross borders fleeing violence or persecution. Others move primarily in search of economic opportunity and stability. According to the United Nations, an estimated 122 million people, including refugees, internally displaced persons, and asylum seekers, have been forcibly displaced by conflict, violence, persecution, or other crises around the world. This is the highest recorded level of forced displacement, nearly double that of a decade ago.
For Christians, the question is not only whether migration is complex or disruptive, but also how we are to think and live faithfully in the midst of it. Scripture gives us a framework that is both clarifying and demanding. We live as members of two kingdoms. We inhabit an earthly, terrestrial order with real duties and obligations. We are citizens, husbands and wives, parents, neighbors, and church members. These roles are not incidental. They are given by God and ordered for human flourishing. At the same time, we belong to the kingdom of Christ, where our highest allegiance is to the risen Lord who reigns over all things.
These responsibilities do not cancel one another out. As theologians across the centuries have observed, grace does not erase nature. It perfects it. Our obedience to Christ should deepen and mature the way we engage the natural world, not bypass it. Faithful Christian discipleship ought to produce better citizens, not indifferent ones, even as it produces bold witnesses to the gospel.
When we turn to Scripture, we see that God takes nations seriously. In Acts 17, Paul reminds us that God determines the times and boundaries of peoples. The Table of Nations in Genesis 10 shows God ordering humanity into distinct peoples, languages, and cultures, a diversity he declares good. That diversity does not disappear in redemption. In Revelation 5 and 7, redeemed men and women from every tribe and language and nation worship before the throne. Nations endure into eternity.
We live, then, in the in-between. The Bible does not treat borders as meaningless, nor does it treat human movement as morally simple. Governments and individuals make fallible decisions, and civil authority remains a real category in God’s world (Romans 13). Yet Scripture also teaches us that God is never absent from upheaval. What man means for evil, God means for good (Genesis 50:20). He sovereignly advances his purposes even through broken circumstances.
Recently, a missionary working among Afghan refugees shared a striking account. An Afghan believer, once a leader in the underground church, fled Taliban persecution and came legally to the United States. Here, God placed him in ministry among fellow Afghans. Separately, another Afghan man arrived unlawfully, carrying fragments of gospel truth he had once heard. In God’s providence, he walked into a church pastored by that same underground church leader. Through that unlikely convergence, God brought him to saving faith in Christ.
God’s redemptive work is not bound by human institutions. He gathers his people from unexpected places, often through paths we would never choose.
God’s redemptive work is not bound by human institutions. He gathers his people from unexpected places, often through paths we would never choose.
So how should we respond? One step is to properly distinguish between issues of public policy and matters of Christian mission. We can begin by praying intentionally for the nations God has brought near us, asking him to open doors for faithful witness. We can take stock of our callings, seeking to live responsibly as citizens while also embracing our commission as disciple makers. And we can pray regularly for the lost people God has placed in our ordinary lives.
May we labor until the knowledge of the Lord covers the earth as the waters cover the seas, and may the Lord grant that many will see the light of Christ through the quiet, faithful witness of his church (Habakkuk 2:14).
Note: This post originally appeared on ABWE’s website at Read More. Reposted with permission.
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