Bryan Fischer
Russell Moore mangles Matthew 25
By Bryan Fischer
Follow me on Twitter: @BryanJFischer, on Facebook at "Focal Point"
Host of "Focal Point" on American Family Radio, 1:05 pm CT, M-F www.afr.net
The Evangelical Immigration Table purports to represent America's evangelicals on the issue of immigration (while using George Soros money to do it).
But in reality, the EIT is more socialist than evangelical. The supreme value for socialists is the involuntary redistribution of wealth, while the supreme value to genuine evangelicals is fidelity to the Scriptures. When the EIT has been faced with the choice between the authority of the Word of God and the involuntary redistribution of wealth, they usually land on the side of Karl Marx rather than Martin Luther.
According to Pulpit & Pen, "The purpose of the (Soros-funded) National Immigration Forum is to advance the cause of amnesty for illegal aliens, demolish national sovereign borders, and establish a global government." Russell Moore showed his true colors by serving as a keynote speaker at last November's "Leading the Way" immigration forum.
Evangelicals, on the other hand, in line with the Word of God, recognize national sovereignty marked by borders, and recognize borders as God's idea, based on Acts 17:26. The EIT, on the other hand, is for immigration without restriction regardless of national borders, and regardless of the impact of uncontrolled immigration on the spiritual and moral character of the United States. That's not evangelicalism, that's socialism.
Russell Moore and the EIT bring their socialist interpretation to the biblical passage which is the centerpiece of their propaganda, Matthew 25:31-46. This is the parable in which people are admitted by God into his eternal kingdom based on whether they fed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger, clothed the naked and visited the sick and those in prison.
Socialist evangelicals such as Moore misinterpret and misapply this passage right out of the box, for they treat it as if the parable was spoken to government. It's not. Governments don't go into the eternal kingdom – people do. So the parable in Matthew 25 is spoken to us as individual followers of Jesus Christ. It's not government's job to do any of those things, it's up to us as members of the body of Christ. And in my experience the church and the Christians within it do all these things. Churches I have pastored or belonged to have stocked food banks to help the hungry, collected warm winter coats to help clothe the needy in the winter months, have engaged in prison ministries to visit inmates on the inside, and have consistently visited the sick in the hospital.
The church I pastored in Boise, Idaho had an entire ministry devoted to reaching out to the legal refugees in our community, to help them with food, shelter, clothing, the gospel, and integration into American society.
Government's scriptural role, according to Romans 13, is to uphold the law by punishing those who violate it. That role begins at the border by upholding the laws passed by our elected officials to protect our border and our national security. It's the job of government to stop criminal illegal aliens from bringing crime, drugs, and human trafficking into our country. In doing so, government does its job by protecting the safety, security, peace, and tranquility of our communities. That, in and of itself, is a form of compassion.
We have the most generous, open-handed, and open-hearted immigration policy in the entire world. We welcome legal immigrants to our shores over one million times a year. There is nothing remotely hateful or xenophobic about expecting people to use the legal system our elected officials have designed.
Moore complains about the use of the term "illegal alien" as if it is derogatory. It's not derogatory, it's descriptive. By definition, an illegal alien is a lawbreaker. To give lawbreakers special legal protections and benefits is to laugh at the rule of law, which is hardly a Christian thing to do.
And by the way, contrary to Russell Moore, Jesus was most definitely not an illegal alien when his parents took him to Egypt as a child. Egypt was a province within the Roman Empire from 30 B.C. to 600 A.D. Going from Judea to Egypt was little different than moving from California to Idaho.
Bottom line: George Soros is wrong on immigration. Russell Moore and the Evangelical Immigration Table are wrong on immigration. And Donald Trump is right.
© Bryan Fischer
January 23, 2019
Follow me on Twitter: @BryanJFischer, on Facebook at "Focal Point"
Host of "Focal Point" on American Family Radio, 1:05 pm CT, M-F www.afr.net
The Evangelical Immigration Table purports to represent America's evangelicals on the issue of immigration (while using George Soros money to do it).
But in reality, the EIT is more socialist than evangelical. The supreme value for socialists is the involuntary redistribution of wealth, while the supreme value to genuine evangelicals is fidelity to the Scriptures. When the EIT has been faced with the choice between the authority of the Word of God and the involuntary redistribution of wealth, they usually land on the side of Karl Marx rather than Martin Luther.
According to Pulpit & Pen, "The purpose of the (Soros-funded) National Immigration Forum is to advance the cause of amnesty for illegal aliens, demolish national sovereign borders, and establish a global government." Russell Moore showed his true colors by serving as a keynote speaker at last November's "Leading the Way" immigration forum.
Evangelicals, on the other hand, in line with the Word of God, recognize national sovereignty marked by borders, and recognize borders as God's idea, based on Acts 17:26. The EIT, on the other hand, is for immigration without restriction regardless of national borders, and regardless of the impact of uncontrolled immigration on the spiritual and moral character of the United States. That's not evangelicalism, that's socialism.
Russell Moore and the EIT bring their socialist interpretation to the biblical passage which is the centerpiece of their propaganda, Matthew 25:31-46. This is the parable in which people are admitted by God into his eternal kingdom based on whether they fed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger, clothed the naked and visited the sick and those in prison.
Socialist evangelicals such as Moore misinterpret and misapply this passage right out of the box, for they treat it as if the parable was spoken to government. It's not. Governments don't go into the eternal kingdom – people do. So the parable in Matthew 25 is spoken to us as individual followers of Jesus Christ. It's not government's job to do any of those things, it's up to us as members of the body of Christ. And in my experience the church and the Christians within it do all these things. Churches I have pastored or belonged to have stocked food banks to help the hungry, collected warm winter coats to help clothe the needy in the winter months, have engaged in prison ministries to visit inmates on the inside, and have consistently visited the sick in the hospital.
The church I pastored in Boise, Idaho had an entire ministry devoted to reaching out to the legal refugees in our community, to help them with food, shelter, clothing, the gospel, and integration into American society.
Government's scriptural role, according to Romans 13, is to uphold the law by punishing those who violate it. That role begins at the border by upholding the laws passed by our elected officials to protect our border and our national security. It's the job of government to stop criminal illegal aliens from bringing crime, drugs, and human trafficking into our country. In doing so, government does its job by protecting the safety, security, peace, and tranquility of our communities. That, in and of itself, is a form of compassion.
We have the most generous, open-handed, and open-hearted immigration policy in the entire world. We welcome legal immigrants to our shores over one million times a year. There is nothing remotely hateful or xenophobic about expecting people to use the legal system our elected officials have designed.
Moore complains about the use of the term "illegal alien" as if it is derogatory. It's not derogatory, it's descriptive. By definition, an illegal alien is a lawbreaker. To give lawbreakers special legal protections and benefits is to laugh at the rule of law, which is hardly a Christian thing to do.
And by the way, contrary to Russell Moore, Jesus was most definitely not an illegal alien when his parents took him to Egypt as a child. Egypt was a province within the Roman Empire from 30 B.C. to 600 A.D. Going from Judea to Egypt was little different than moving from California to Idaho.
Bottom line: George Soros is wrong on immigration. Russell Moore and the Evangelical Immigration Table are wrong on immigration. And Donald Trump is right.
© Bryan Fischer
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