Biblical Perspectives on the Role of Immigrants in God’s Mission

I believe that when we begin to fully understand the Bible’s missiological and instrumental perspectives with regard to the migrant and stranger, we may possibly gain a better grasp of, and live more fully in, the missionary vision expressed in 1 Peter 2. If the church of Jesus Christ truly saw itself as a pilgrim community whose land and nation are not of this earth, then the Christian church would begin to understand that it is itself a community of migrants—ambassadors, yes (2 Cor 5)—but even so, migrants. This perspective is not a purely managerial or activist viewpoint. Rather this presentation points us to the being, the essential nature of the People of God as a migrant community, pilgrims who know that this world is not their own. They are a migrant community of followers of Jesus on their way to a new reality, seeking the Kingdom of God