Page
The Third Love Command
Completion requirements
In this first lesson, Pastor Zach Szmara points out that there is a third love command tucked into Deuteronomy that is often overlooked. We know that we are to “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (Deut. 6:5). We know that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves (Lev. 19:18). Jesus told the crowds and his disciples that the whole of Old Testament Law hangs on these two commands (Matt. 7:12; 22:40).
What many have not noticed is the focus in the Law on one specific kind of neighbor that we are to love, namely, the foreigner. Deuteronomy 10:17-19 say:
“For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.”
Deut. 10:17-19
Far from being silent about immigrants – foreigners who lived among the Israelites – the Old Testament refers to them often. Here in Deuteronomy, it says to give them food and clothing. Pastor Szmara indicates that this value of caring for the non-native, the person from a different group from the more permanent residents of a location, was distinctive in Israel among the cultures of the day. It might be considered normal to care for the poor, the orphan, and the widow of your own people. It was not normal to treat the foreigner in your midst with loving care.
This is a major dimension of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19, as well as the story of the Levite and the concubine in Judges 19. These cities were not only unwelcoming. They were outright violent toward the strangers in their midst. We often miss this key dimension to the story because it isn’t as significant a part of our cultural understanding.
As Deuteronomy 10 suggests, Israel was called to remember that they had once been “out of place” in the land of Egypt. God called them never to forget. They must never treat the immigrants among them like the Egyptians had once treated them. Boaz shows this “hospitality” to Ruth when he cares for her, a Moabitess who might otherwise have been shunned.
Leviticus 19, the chapter in which the Israelites are told to love their neighbors, has the same basic instructions in the way they are to treat foreigners. 19:33-34 say:
“When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.”
Lev. 19:33-34
Sometimes, an individual will try to wiggle out of the plain meaning of these Scriptures. Maybe “foreigner” means something different than the immigrant in my world. The fact that some versions translate the word as “stranger” might lead you to think it is a reference just to people you don’t know (but who are nevertheless like you).
But that is not what the Hebrew word gar means. It regularly refers to individuals who are not from Israel, who are not Israelites. The closest parallel today is the foreigner, the immigrant. The Bible knows no distinction between whether such a person is “legal” or “illegal.” Those are modern categories rather than biblical ones, and they tend to dehumanize and devalue immigrants.
These commands are about people. There are all sorts of complicated issues surrounding immigration. But as one person has put it, “Immigration is an issue; immigrants are people.” The consistent biblical command is to care for such individuals, to love them. And when the Bible talks about love, it is talking about action.
For a position paper by the Wesleyan Church on immigration, see here: “A Wesleyan View of Immigration” (2013).