What does the Bible say about xenophobia?

Jonah, alas, was not well pleased to be sent to preach to Gentiles. He had been God's willing mouthpiece to proclaim good things to his own nation; but a foreign nation, a power withal dangerously hostile to Israel, that was a different matter! Even after the Holy Spirit came from heaven consequent upon the exaltation of the Lord Jesus, Peter had scruples about carrying the Gospel to the Roman garrison in Caesarea! Acts 10:1. These lines are written while many powers are engaged in the most terrible war the world has ever known. National feelings are running high; and even Christians although divinely separated by grace from the world and united to Christ in heaven, are sometimes influenced by what is being said and done around them. How slow are we to learn the blessed meaning of God's "whosoever"! The heart of God most assuredly goes out equally to men of every country and colour, and He desires that they may "be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. 2:4). Do we desire [this] also?

All this disclosure of the hidden springs of the prophet's disobedience is very significant. He had fled from the presence of the Lord, but enmity to the Gentiles was the real cause of it all. And thus we may say, Like prophet, like people. Jonah's sin is Israel's sin. Israel has always refused the thought, that the Gentiles could stand in the favour of God; and in delineating their sin, "forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles" is noticed by the apostle as the last great feature in the full form of their sin (1 Thess. 2:16). Then the wrath came upon them to the uttermost, as now upon the prophet. He refuses to go to Nineveh, believing that God would turn the curse into a blessing; but turning his back upon the Lord, goes down to Joppa, and there takes a ship to Tarshish. The wrath, however, comes upon him to the uttermost. Vengeance suffers him not to live. A wind from the Lord lies heavily upon him, and upon those who sail with him, and the ship was like to be broken.

They were to be separate from the nations around them. These nations were steeped in idolatry and all the evils that went along with it. Israel was to be a witness that JEHOVAH was the true God. The sad story is that Israel became like the other nations, worshipping idols also. They did not bear a faithful witness for God. It was because of this that Israel was eventually taken into captivity to Babylon. It should be said, however, that God never intended that Israel should look down on the Gentiles. They should have brought the knowledge of God to them.

Then not only is the eating of anything with the blood forbidden, but enchantments and auguries, and heathenish ways in trimming of heads and beards, cutting of the flesh and tattooing, as opposed to Jehovah. So too the devoting of a daughter to whoredom, as not immoral only but "profane." So as His sabbaths were to be kept, and His sanctuary reverenced, they were to shun necromancers and soothsayers as polluting (vers. 26-31). The same authority of Jehovah, which proscribed those heathen enormities, calls for honour to the hoary head and the face of the old man, coupling them with the fear of "thy God" (32). And what strikingly cuts off by anticipation the narrow and base pride of the Talmud, "a stranger" that might sojourn in their land was not only to be allowed there unmolested, but to be loved as one born among them. "Thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I [am] Jehovah your God" (33, 34). How touching to remember their oppression in Egypt, not for resentment but for compassion!

This great God of Israel who shows no partiality nor takes a bribe, is shown rather to administer justice for the fatherless and widow and shows love toward strangers (v.18). How totally in contrast to this are the great majority of rulers in the world today! Law courts too frequently show sad disregard for justice. The poor will commonly suffer gross injustice while the wealthy use their money to pervert judicial action in their own favor. Believers may well be deeply thankful for a God who is perfectly just and faithful.

Because God loves strangers as well as Israel, then Israel is told to love the stranger, for they were at one time strangers in the land of Egypt (v.19). They should therefore understand the feelings of a stranger. Showing kindness to strangers would be consistent with their fearing the Lord and serving Him, as well as taking oaths in His name (v.20). Taking oaths was consistent with their being under law, but the Lord Jesus changed this in saying, "But I say to you, do not swear at all, neither by heaven, for it is God's throne; nor by the earth, for it is His footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. No shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black" (Mt.5:34-36).

Although Israel, as a nation, had a special place in the ways of God, being loved by Him, and separated from the nations, He desired them to know His attitude to the strangers who happened to dwell with them. In the chapter in which Moses said, “The Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and He chose their seed after them he also said, “He…loves the stranger, in giving him food and raiment. Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Deut. 10:15, 18-19).

And how touching is the plea of the 19th verse,which reminds us not so much (as it is usually taken) of man's transience on earth, as the divine care for the stranger-guest in Israel, as the provisions of the law manifest it. We are apt to judge things rather by the narrow and sectarian spirit actually manifested by the nation in its later history than by the precepts of the inspired lawgiver. Yet, separated as they were by the law itself from the abominations to which the nations in their departure from God had given themselves up, He had placed them upon the very lines of intercourse between these nations, and at the throbbing centre of the world's traffic. Here was their mountain fastness in which the Word that was entrusted to them was to be maintained for the blessing of the whole human race; and here, in the presence of all the powers of the world, so frank an asylum was offered to the one who sought it, that a mere fugitive slave escaping there was sheltered and free to find his home under the protection of the Lord God of Israel, and no man might deliver him up. (Deut. 23:15-16.)

Israel themselves had known the "the heart of a stranger" by bitter experience, and God declared Himself to them as One that "loveth the stranger in giving Him food and raiment." They are exhorted, "Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." (Deut. 10:18-19.) Nay, they were taught still to account themselves as strangers, even in their land, and to prove to themselves that love of His to strangers of which He speaks: "The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is Mine: for ye are strangers and sojourners with Me." (Lev. 25:23.)

The aged among the people were to be held in honor and respect. In eastern countries today people are more careful about this than in the west. Also, when a stranger came to reside in Israel he was to be treated with respect and courtesy, in fact, Israel was told to “love him as yourself” (v. 34). If this was true in Israel under law, how much more emphatic it should be for Christians who are “under grace.”

Had Israel circumcised their hearts, a second thing would have marked them. They would have shown love to the stranger, who might be in their midst. We are to display the love that has reached us by seeking others with the Gospel of the grace of God.

It is, at once, interesting and edifying to notice the way in which Moses sets the divine example before the people as their model. Jehovah "loves the stranger, in giving him food and raiment. Love ye therefore the stranger; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." This is very touching. They were not only to keep before their eyes the divine model, but also to remember their own past history and experience, in order that their hearts might be drawn out in sympathy and compassion toward the poor homeless stranger. It was the bounden duty and high privilege of the Israel of God to place themselves in the circumstances and enter into the feelings of others. They were to be the moral representatives of that blessed One whose people they were, and whose Name was called upon them. They were to imitate Him in meeting the wants and gladdening the hearts of the fatherless, the widow, and the stranger. And if God's earthly people were called to this lovely course of action, how much more are we who are "blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus." May we abide more in His presence, and drink more into His Spirit, that so we may more faithfully reflect His moral glories upon all with whom we come in contact!