God Loves Vulnerable People

Addressing attendees at the 2018 Theology Conference via video, Dr. Daniel Carroll, Blanchard Professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College, shared fascinating and relevant stories of migrants, immigrants and refugees throughout the Old Testament.

Noting that the history of humanity is a history of migration, his lecture, “Immigration and the People of God: A Biblical Foundation,” spanned the biblical and modern-day history of the topic. Dr. Carroll discussed the call to Christians today to respond with love and compassion toward the most vulnerable people among us.

“If we go back to the Chinese exclusion act in 1882, that’s the very same decade that we put up the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor. That’s our national narrative. So how do Christians respond to this? How do we respond to the foreigner? The motivation the Old Testament has is that God says in Deuteronomy 10:17-19 that you will love the foreigner because I do. I don’t know what greater motivation we need. God loves vulnerable people—vulnerable people, not only because of our hearts, but because of our legal status and because of our economic and social need.” — Dr. Daniel Carroll

Listen to the full lecture in the EFCA Theology Podcast episode, and stay tuned for more podcasts from the conference. If you missed other episodes from the conference, find them in the EFCA Theology Podcast archives.