From this morning’s reading.
For YHWH your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the sojourners, providing them food and clothing.
You shall also love the sojourner1, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.
You shall fear YHWH your God;
Him alone you shall worship;
to Him you shall hold fast,
and by His name you shall swear.He is your praise;
He is your God,
who has done for you these great and awesome things that your own eyes have seen.Deuteronomy 10:17–21Several characteristics of YHWH, the covenant name for the God of the Bible, is given above.
- Not partial.
- Takes no bribe.
- Executes justice for the orphan and widow.
- Loves the sojourners, providing them food and clothing.
The passage explicitly says we are to emulate God with respect to the sojourner, and the Bible says elsewhere we are to emulate Him with respect to the other things as well.
When you talk to people about God, especially those that don’t believe in Him, how do they describe Him? Do they use any of the above phrases? I’m guessing not. Why not, do you think?
I suspect it’s for the same reason Gandhi allegedly2 rejected Christianity — because Jesus' followers don’t look very much like Jesus.
How do we look more like Him?
The above list is a good start.
The word “sojourner” is translated in a number of different ways: alien, sojourner, foreigner, resident foreigner, stranger. The idea is one living in a place he/she was not born and where they are not a citizen. ↩
Like so many things on the interwebs, this has lots of attribution but little real evidence. ↩