Does the Bible Promise the Land of Israel to the Jewish People Forever?

Many Christians today assume that God promised the land of Israel to the Jews forever, and that Christians today must therefore support the modern nation of Israel (some say we must support Israel no matter what their government does!). However, that is a new way of reading the Bible among Christians. For most of Christian history, Christians believed the prophecies concerning Israel were fulfilled in Christ, and that God no longer intended to give the land to the Jews and restore the temple and kingdom.

We must carefully consider three questions:

1. What did the promise to Abraham say in its Biblical context? 
2. Was the promise unconditional? Do the promises and prophecies actually say what many Christians now assume they said?
3. Did God actually do what some say he promised to do? What do the facts of history reveal about their fulfillment? 

1. What did the promise to Abraham say in its Biblical context?

The Promise in the Context of the Mission of God

Following the plunge of humanity into sin and wickedness, God chose Abraham to be the father of a people through whom he would work out his plan to save the world. God made a three-part promise: Abraham’s descendants would become a great nation, they would be given the land of Canaan as their inheritance from God (what we call “the Promised Land”), and God would bless all the nations of the world through them (Genesis 12:1-7; 13:14-15; 15:5-21; 17:1-8; 22:15-18; 26:2-5, 24; 28:11-15).

The story of God and his people is, to a great extent, the story of the fulfillment of that promise. Exodus and Deuteronomy tell how Israel became a nation. The stories of Joshua, the judges, Saul, and David tell how they conquer and settle the Promised Land. And the New Testament tells how all nations were blessed through Jesus, the promised offspring of Abraham. The promise to Abraham must be read in the context of that mission. The creation of the nation of Israel and their possession of the land were part of God’s mission to bless all people through them. Once that mission was accomplished in Christ, the New Testament speaks about the promise in different terms.

The idea of the “Chosen People” and the “Promised Land” became key themes in Scripture, but in the New Testament the language of God’s chosen people was expanded to include both Jews and Gentiles as part of the children of Abraham by faith in Christ (Romans 4:9-18; Galatians 3:7-9, 23-29; Ephesians 1:3-14; 1 Peter 2:9-10). The promised inheritance is no longer defined by a land for a particular people; rather, in Christ Gentiles now share in the inheritance of God’s holy people (Ephesians 1:18; 2:11-3:6; Colossians 1:11), and the Holy Spirit and heaven are our promised inheritance (Ephesians 1:13-23; 1 Peter 1:3-5).

The Promise to Aaron in the Same Context

Consider a related promise God made to Israel “forever.” When God established the priesthood of Aaron (part of the priestly tribe of Levi), he promised that Aaron’s descendants would be priests “forever” (Exodus 29:1, 9). That promise was made in the context of the creation of the nation of Israel as a holy nation on their way to the Promised Land. However, despite God’s promise to Aaron and his descendants, their priesthood came to an end in the Jewish revolts against Rome in 70 AD and 135 AD, when the temple was destroyed and the Jewish people were expelled from Jerusalem.

Jesus had predicted that the city and temple would be destroyed, but Jesus said nothing about it ever being rebuilt (Luke 19:41-44; 22:5-24). Jesus also said that worship would no longer be required at the Jerusalem temple, but God would seek those who worship in spirit and truth (John 4:20-23). The author of Hebrews said that the Levitical priesthood was superseded by the better priesthood of Jesus, and that the old covenant with its sacrifices was about to pass away (7:1-10:18). Other New Testament authors viewed all believers in Jesus as priests (1 Peter 2:4-10; Revelation 1:5-6).

The promise to Aaron that his descendants would serve as priests forever was made in the context of the covenant with Israel at Sinai, a covenant that Christians believe was superseded by a new covenant in Christ. The New Testament clearly did not view the priesthood of Aaron’s descendants as continuing into the new covenant. Similarly the promise to Abraham that his descendants would inherit the land forever was made in the context of God’s mission to bless the world through Jesus and must be understood in that context.

2. Was the Promise Unconditional?

Prophecies and Promises Have Conditions

God told Abraham to look as far as he could see in every direction, “for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever” (Genesis 13:14-15; see also Exodus 32:11-13). Many Jews and Christians today use that promise to say that the land still belongs to the Jewish people and the modern nation of Israel. However, it is important to remember (1) that the prophecies in the Old Testament had conditions, even if those conditions were not always made explicit, and (2) that the “forever” promises in the Old Testament were given in the context of a covenant relationship with God which had explicit conditions, even if those conditions weren’t explicitly named in every passage.

God made it very clear to Jeremiah that God could and would change what he had said he would do concerning any nation depending on what that nation did. Prophecies to bless or punish a nation would not be fulfilled if that nation changed its conduct.

If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it. And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it. (Jeremiah 18:7-10)

Implicit conditions are seen in God’s promise concerning David’s kingdom. God promised King David that he would establish David’s kingdom forever (2 Samuel 7:12-16), without mention of any conditions. However, later passages make it clear that the promise depended on whether David’s descendants obeyed God (1 Chronicles 28:6-9; 1 Kings 9:4-9). If David’s son, Solomon, or his heirs turned to idolatry, God would “cut off Israel from the land that I have given them” (1 Kings 9:7). As we will see, the kingdom of David ended in 586 BC, with only a brief revival around 100 BC. Despite the promise to David, his kingdom did not last forever.

“Forever” in such passages clearly does not mean “for all eternity no matter what.”

“Forever” could mean something like “for this age,” meaning until the Messiah comes and inaugurates his spiritual kingdom. When Jesus came as the “Son of David,” he did not expel the Romans and reestablish the earthly kingdom in Jerusalem, as Jews expected the Messiah to do. Rather, Jesus claimed that his kingdom was not of this world (John 18:36). In this sense, David’s kingdom continues, but clearly not in the sense of the original promise that David’s descendants would always rule in Jerusalem over the kingdom of Israel.

More importantly, implicit in such promises is the understood, but sometimes unstated, condition that the people keep their covenant with God. David’s descendants would continue to rule as long as they were faithful to God. We could compare the similar nature of promises made in a marriage covenant. People often make wedding vows to “love forever” or “as long as we both shall live.” No one makes a wedding vow to “love you forever, as long as you don’t run off with someone else or try to kill me to collect the life insurance”—but that is an unstated, though understood, condition of the promise!

The Land Came with a Warning to Israel

The land of Canaan was inhabited by a number of tribal peoples generally called Canaanites or Amorites. God told Abraham that he may not possess the land yet; his descendants must wait 400 years until the inhabitants of the land become so completely wicked that God will act to destroy them (Genesis 15:13-16; Deuteronomy 9:4-5). When God finally did send the Israelites into the land of Canaan, he said that the Canaanites’ wickedness even included child sacrifice, and commands the Israelites not to follow in their ways (Deuteronomy 12:29-31). He warned that if the Israelites followed in their wickedness, the land would vomit out the Israelites as it did the Canaanites before them (Leviticus 18:24-30; 20:22-24).

The promise of the land of Canaan to Israel was in part an act of judgment for the evil of the Canaanites, and the inheritance of the promise by Israel was conditioned on whether or not they followed in the same path.

Moses and the Prophets Predicted that Israel Could and Would Lose the Land

Despite the promises that Israel would inherit the land forever, a number of prophecies in the Bible made it clear that they could lose that inheritance. As they prepared to enter the Promised Land, Moses warned them of the consequences of rebellion against God. They would be given over to their enemies and “be plucked off the land that you are entering” (Deuteronomy 28:48, 63). Then Moses made a remarkable statement, warning that God “will bring you back in ships to Egypt, a journey that I promised that you should never make again” (28:68). Despite the fact that Moses once had promised they would never return to Egypt, he prophesied that it would happen anyway if they turned away from God. Clearly such promises were conditional.

In Jeremiah’s famous sermon in the temple, he warned Jerusalem to look at what God did to Shiloh in the northern kingdom because of their sins. He told the people that if they would practice justice, not oppress the vulnerable, protect the innocent, and not worship other gods, then God would “let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever”; but if not, God would destroy Jerusalem as he did Shiloh (Jeremiah 7:5-15). The promise to live in the land forever was dependent on their faithfulness. When Israel was exiled, the prophets explained that it was because they had not listened to the prophets (Jeremiah 29:15-23; 35:15-17; Daniel 9:3-14). Even though the Israelites had been promised the land forever, they lost it, just as they had been warned.

When reading the prophecies, our focus should be on hearing what they called the people to do, rather than speculating on predictions and fulfillments. The most important message of the prophets for Israel today—and for America and any other nation—is the call to practice justice, mercy, and faith (see Isaiah 1:11-20; Jeremiah 7:1-15; 21:11-22:10; Ezekiel 16:44-52; Amos 2:6-16; 4:1-3; Micah 2:1-4; 3:9-12; 6:6-8). Many of the practices of the modern nation of Israel must be judged in the light of those prophecies.

To use questionable interpretations of predictions and prophecies to justify the modern nation of Israel, but ignore what those prophets actually demanded of God’s people, is to misuse Biblical prophecy.

3. Did God Actually Do What Some Claim He Promised to Do?

The Extent of the Promised Land

Abraham was promised the land of Canaan from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates River (Genesis 15:21). These borders have been the subject of some debate, but most scholars agree that they do not mean from the Nile River in the middle of Egypt across Arabia to the Euphrates in Mesopotamia, encompassing a huge area of the Middle East (territory that never seems to have been under consideration in the rest of the Bible as part of Israel’s land). 

The “river of Egypt” referred either to the Wadi el-Arish, a brook at the border between Canaan and the Sinai; or, it referred to the eastern Pelusiac branch of the Nile that flows into the Mediterranean at the border between Egypt and the Sinai. So the territory may or may not have included the Sinai, but it did not extend into Egypt. The Euphrates River in this context did not refer to the southern portion of the river in the area of Chaldea (later called Babylonia), but to the northern portion of the river above Syria. The territory promised to Abraham extended northward beside the Mediterranean, not eastward across the Arabian Desert.

It is important to note that this promise was never completely fulfilled at any point in history.

From Joshua to the Exile

When Joshua led the Israelites into Canaan (usually dated either about 1400 BC or about 1250 BC), they did not succeed in conquering all the land promised to them (Judges 1:16-3:5). They did not even gain complete control of what might be called the heart of the Promised Land (“from Dan to Beersheba”). Most, though not all, of the land from Dan to Beersheba did come under Israelite control from Joshua until the northern tribes were carried into exile by the Assyrians in 722 BC. So Israel controlled most of the heart of the Promised Land for about 500-600 years, but not the broader territory promised to Abraham.

Under David and Solomon (around 1000 BC), conquests and treaties brought most of the territory promised to Abraham under Israelite control for less than 100 years. This was the only time in history that most—though still not all—of that territory was under Israelite control. (If the promise referred to all of the much larger territory from the Nile River in Egypt across the desert to Mesopotamia, then most of that territory never came under Israelite control at any time in history.)

David’s descendants no longer ruled most of the land after the division of the kingdom in c. 940 BC. The northern kingdom was ruled by various other dynasties and immediately plunged into idolatry, never to return to God. This left only the smaller kingdom of Judah under the rule of David’s descendants for the next 350 years. The northern kingdom was carried into exile in 722 BC by the Assyrians, and in 587 BC, Judah was carried into exile by the Babylonians, ending Israelite control of any of the Promised Land.

From the Exile to 1948 AD

As God had promised according to the prophets, some of the Israelites returned to Jerusalem from exile and rebuilt the temple (516 BC) and the city (444 BC). However, they were under the control of the Persian Empire and did not reestablish the kingdom with a descendant of David on the throne. When Alexander the Great conquered the region (c. 332 BC), the land of Israel came under the control of the Greeks. Around 142 BC, the Jews revolted against Greek rule and established an independent kingdom (known as the Hasmonean dynasty) in part of the Promised Land for a brief period of less than 100 years, until the Romans conquered the land in 63 BC. Unsuccessful Jewish revolts against Rome in 70 AD and 135 AD resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem and the expulsion of the Jews from the land.

From 587 BC to the present, an Israelite kingdom only existed for less than 100 years. Including the modern nation of Israel, the Jewish people have only controlled some of the Promised Land for less than 200 years out of the last 2,600 years.

After the Romans, the land was controlled by various empires, including the Byzantines (who were Christian), various Muslim empires (some Arab, some Turkish), and finally the British. During the period of approximately 2,000 years from Roman to British rule, there was no independent nation in the land (Jewish or Arab), and there was only a relatively small number of Jews living in the land alongside an indigenous population of Muslims and Christians (mostly Arabs and Turks). During most of that period the land was known as Palestine. That was even the term used by the Jews in the late 19th and early 20th centuries who were campaigning to create a homeland for Jews in Palestine.

The modern nation of Israel was created in 1948 AD in part of the Promised Land. But it was established as a modern Western democracy, not a Biblical kingdom, and many of those who founded it were secular, non-religious Jews. Even today about half the Jews in Israel are non-religious. The faith of religious Jews is practiced in synagogues, as it has been for 2000 years, not in a temple with priests and sacrifices. It is difficult to see how the modern nation is a fulfillment of the promises and prophecies of the Old Testament.

Conclusion

Even though God promised that the Israelites would “inherit the land forever,” they clearly did not. If the Jews have to be given a Jewish state in the land today because of the promise to Abraham, why did they not have to be given the land from 586 BC to 1948 AD (a period of over 2,500 years!), and why not the whole territory promised to Abraham?

For the past 2,000 years (until the rise of modern dispensationalism made popular 100 years ago by the Scofield Bible), Christians generally have believed that the promises to Israel concerning the land, the priesthood, and the kingdom were either negated by the coming of Jesus or were brought to fulfillment in Jesus. The idea that God still intends to create an earthly kingdom and temple in the land of Israel does not come from the teachings of Jesus or the apostles—it comes from a new and very questionable reading of the Old Testament.

To say that Jews today must be given the land because of the promise in Genesis ignores much of what is said in the rest of the Bible and ignores the evidence of history that God did not in fact give Israel the land forever.

Everything Is Not Okay in the Holy Land (guest blog)

My brother, David McRay, M.D., is leading a small group of medical students on a month-long visit to Israel and Palestine as part of their medical education. With his permission, I am sharing this as a guest blog. David is a gifted writer with a unique perspective on the problems plaguing the Holy Land. I think you will be stirred, enlightened, intrigued, and troubled.

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“Everything okay?” No, everything was certainly not okay. My immediate reaction to his question was frustration, even anger, followed almost as quickly by a mixture of disbelief, subdued laughter, and then despair. My emotions seem to race across this spectrum many times a day when I travel in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

We were stopped at a checkpoint somewhere in the middle of the West Bank, on the road from Nablus to Ramallah. It was one of the hundreds of such barriers – most
“permanent” (or fixed) and many temporary or mobile (or “on the fly” as people here call them) – scattered across the Palestinian territory that make life so incredibly difficult for the people who must line up and wait, sometimes for hours, to get to their jobs, farms, and family, if they are allowed to pass at all. Life at the checkpoints is challenging – on a good day – and, on a bad day, may end there.

The young Israeli soldier – certainly no more than 25 years old – stood at the window of our van, clearly marked in multiple ways as a mobile medical clinic van operated by the Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS), asking our Palestinian driver where he was going and why. In the usual posture of a soldier in this situation, with his finger on the trigger guard of his semi-automatic weapon, he glanced inside and saw that the passengers of the van were five Americans (our traveling party) and one additional Palestinian (our assistant and translator) – who is also an American citizen. Pausing briefly, apparently to find the correct English words, the soldier then directed his question beyond the driver to the rest of us. He was implying that there might be some reason to be concerned about our safety – a group of Americans in the company of two Palestinian men. I would like to believe he had our best interests in mind and that, if questioned, he might be able to offer a reasonable explanation as to why he made such an inquiry. In light of the many similar experiences I have had in the past (including the day before when another soldier at another checkpoint asked us, “Where are you sleeping?” and then, in reply to our response of “Ramallah” said, with a sly grin, “Ramallah? Why Ramallah? Why not Jerusalem or Tel Aviv?”), I could not easily find any other explanation for the “Everything okay?” question than the prevalent racial/ethnic/religious profiling that is an accepted approach to security considerations, even a way of life, here.

“Everything okay?” No everything was certainly not okay. Actually, nothing besides our safety was “okay”. For the third consecutive day, we had been driving through the ancient, beautiful hills of the West Bank, covered with stone terraces holding rows of old, but still productive, olive trees, admiring their beauty but saddened by what has happened to them over the past 40 years, especially the last 20. I have traveled these same roads many times since my first visit to this land in 1969. Now, in every direction, one can see hilltops covered with “settlements” -communities, towns, even cities composed of Israelis who, with their government’s permission and support, have built permanent homes on Palestinian land - and valleys transformed by new roads built on Palestinian land but open only to the settlers. I spoke today with a friend who owns a travel agency on the east (Arab) side of Jerusalem. His family owns the land on which one of the “settlements” (“colonies” as they are called by some here) was built. The land was confiscated from his father, without compensation, in violation of international and even Israeli law. The Israeli courts ruled in his father’s favor in the lawsuit that followed, but the court’s verdict was never enforced. No, everything was not okay.

We had been to Hebron where the poverty and malnutrition are devastating and where the conflicts created by a small group of hostile settlers who have planted themselves in the middle of this large Arab city are frequent. No, everything was not okay.

We had visited Jiftlik, a small Arab village in the Jordan River valley, in an area of the West Bank still under complete Israeli control. This was my third trip to this community to follow the status of the community’s health care and the continuing efforts of PMRS to address their needs. They have a new clinic, built by funds from USAID, a good staff, and adequate equipment. Yet the effects of extreme poverty, inadequate and unclean water, and severe restrictions on housing repair and construction imposed by the Israeli military authorities present obstacles they cannot hope to overcome. No, everything was not okay.

We had listened to the stories told by our Palestinian traveling companion, assistant, and translator about his experiences since returning to his homeland. Born in the West Bank, he moved to the US a number of years ago and became a citizen. After deciding he preferred life in his native country among his friends and family, he returned, with his American passport. At the border crossing from Jordan, the soldiers ran his name through their computer and discovered that he had been born in the Palestinian territories, therefore, in their eyes, he was Palestinian and not American. His passport was not stamped with a visa like ours when we arrived. Instead, he received a stamp that included his Palestinian ID number. Now, he is treated like any other resident of Palestine and denied the privilege of entering Israel, even to visit Jerusalem, only a few miles down the road from Ramallah where he now lives and works. (We met with a 20 year old student of Palestinian heritage studying at Beir Zeit University, born in the States and carrying a US passport, who, along with her family, experience the same restrictions because they have chosen to live in Ramallah.) No, everything was not okay.

And, we were on our way to Qalqilya, to visit a city of some 40,000 people completely encircled by the separation barrier – in some places a massive, 30-foot high concrete wall and in others a complex, multilayered fence with razor wire. Suhad, my friend and our guide for our visit, told us about the many severe health care problems created by the restrictions on movement throughout the Qalqilya region, including the death of her mother following a stroke when they could not transport her to a tertiary care center in a timely manner and the death of a mother following childbirth at the checkpoint. No, everything was certainly not okay.

Regardless of what one believes about the necessity of such barriers, restrictions, and decisions to insure the safety and security of the citizens of Israel, one cannot but be overwhelmed with the implications for the health, welfare, security, and life of the Palestinian people. This is part of what we came here to see and experience, in addition to learning about the health care delivery system in the nation of Israel, with its excellent national health “insurance” program and universal access to state-of-the-art care for all its citizens – two drastically different health care systems, existing side-by-side separated by only a few kilometers and a Wall, with two strikingly different outcomes.

We have completed the first two weeks of our four-week journey. Our group is small, but still big enough to make squeezing into a little rental car cozy, and into a smaller taxi, quite cozy indeed! Jonathan (my oldest son and a veteran now of Middle Eastern travel, on his fourth trip here and his second extended stay in Ramallah), Dr. Justus Peters and Dr. Deepa Somcio (both third-year family medicine residents working with me in Fort Worth), and I flew from DFW to Frankfurt and met the fifth and final member of our group, Danielle Smith (a third-year medical student at Northwestern University in Chicago), at the gate for our flight to Tel Aviv. We only had one hour between our arrival from DFW and our departure for Tel Aviv, but we made it with a few minutes to spare. Our luggage did as well!

After a rain-soaked Saturday night and Sunday in Jerusalem (water was flowing down the streets of the Old City), we headed south to Beer Sheva, and to drier, warmer weather in the Negev desert. We received a wonderful reception there from the members of the department of family medicine at Ben Gurion University and from the students of the Medical School for International Health at BGU, operated in affiliation with Columbia University in New York. Our week in Israel was filled with visits to clinics, a cancer community support center, a staff meeting of the palliative care group, a meeting with a group of family medicine residents, a formal presentation on the Israeli health care system, and two lectures I gave (one to the Israeli faculty and residents and one to the MSIH students). Our only major disappointment of the week was the cancellation of our scheduled home visits to the Bedouin community due to the absence of the primary physician (he was in Africa on a global health elective with a group of medical students!) and the illness of the driver. We left Beer Sheva much better informed and satisfied with this brief introduction to a national system of health care that has yielded excellent health outcomes for the citizens of Israel.

Although our conversations with the doctors and students in Israel were mostly medical and only rarely political, we did learn something of their experience during the recent assault on Gaza. The rockets fired by Hamas that fell on Beer Sheva did little damage but they disrupted lives in significant ways and caused deep fear and anger. In a nation as small as Israel, where every citizen serves in the military for 2-3 years after high school graduation, everyone, I have often been told, knows someone injured or killed in one of the wars or bombings. And every Palestinian, I have also been frequently told, has a friend or relative who has been injured, killed, or imprisoned by the Israelis. No, it seems in every way, everything is not okay here in the “Holy Land”.

After a weekend of somewhat arduous but enjoyable travel to Jordan to visit the World Heritage site of Petra, we crossed the Qalandia checkpoint into Ramallah and met our hosts for the final three weeks of our trip. This week has afforded us a broad, and exhausting, overview of the work of PMRS, a 20+ year old non-government organization providing primary health care throughout the West Bank and Gaza via an extensive network of clinics, mobile units, and a host of other healthcare related activities. We also enjoyed a detailed tour of the primary government hospital in Hebron, the major referral center for the southern portion of the West Bank and the site of some 8400 births per year. On Monday we will hear presentations on the history of the PMRS and on the status of another public health project in the Palestinian territories and then, on Tuesday, begin seeing patients at the Ramallah Emergency and Trauma Center (both in the emergency department and the operating suite) and with the mobile clinics conducted by PMRS in the villages around Ramallah. We will continue these activities during our final week and add a visit to the Holy Family Hospital in Bethlehem, a private maternity hospital that provides excellent care to thousands of Palestinian women each year.

Everyone is well and safe. We have never felt threatened in any way. We have had many memorable travel experiences and enriching and challenging conversations about life, medicine, justice, security, and health care. I anticipate we will have many more in the days ahead.

David

A People with No Home

Judy and I recently visited a new restaurant whose sign advertised Mediterranean cuisine. The menu included an appetizing mix of Greek, Italian, and Arab dishes. As we were waiting for our food, I overheard the man who appeared to be the manager or owner as he was speaking with one of the staff. I couldn’t hear much, but I could tell he was speaking in Arabic. I speak almost no Arabic ("hi", "goodbye", "how are you?", "God is great", counting to ten, and, sadly, a couple of unprintable phrases I picked up on the soccer field in Jerusalem), but it sounded like he had an Egyptian accent.

The waitress let him know that we’d like to meet him, and pretty soon he had pulled up a chair for a friendly chat. We learned he is a Coptic Christian. The Coptic church is sort of the official Christian denomination of Egypt. It is one of the oldest Christian traditions in the world—part of the broad Eastern Orthodox tradition, though somewhat unique. In recent years, Coptics have been facing increasing persecution from fundamentalist Muslims in Egypt. Many have left their homeland in search of religious freedom.

Our host was the second Coptic person I had met in Nashville (the first was a student in one of my Bible classes at Lipscomb). He told us that there are four Coptic churches in Nashville, with a total of some eight or nine hundred families. I knew Nashville had a growing Arab population, but I had no idea that there were so many Egyptian Christians here.

We also chatted a little about what it has been like in America since 9/11. I doubt I’ll ever forget his reply.

“In Egypt they hate us because we are Christian. In America they hate us because we are Arab.”

The first sentence is an indictment of the world, and a fulfillment of Jesus’ warning to his followers that this world would hate them. (Makes me wonder why I haven’t felt hated by my own country.) The second sentence is a stinging indictment of an America continually plagued by prejudice and racism.

Arab Christians increasingly feel like a people with no home in this world. They often face hostility from fundamentalist Muslims in their own countries, and find they are unwelcome among Americans who often see Arabs as the enemy. They are truly strangers and exiles in this world.

As a post-Christian America becomes increasingly secular and increasingly unfriendly to Christian faith and virtues, we may find that the plight of Coptic Christians will one day be our own. Considering the success of early Christianity under Roman persecution, maybe that won’t be such a bad thing.

In the meantime, perhaps we could all just be a little more sensitive to the very real possibility that the Arab person we meet in town just might be a fellow disciple of Jesus.