An Apostle Out of Context vs. the Words of Christ: Romans 13, Matthew 25, and the Stranger at Our Door

Here's what happened this week. A reporter asked Speaker Mike Johnson about Pope Leo XIV's citation of Matthew 25:35—"I was a stranger and you welcomed me"—to critique the administration's mass deportation agenda. Johnson responded by citing Romans 13, declaring that "sovereign borders are biblical and good and right" and that civil government is ordained by God to "faithfully uphold and enforce the law so that order can be maintained."^[1]

Let's be clear about what just happened. The head of the Catholic Church quoted Jesus Christ describing the Final Judgment—the scene where the eternal destiny of every human soul is determined by how they treated the hungry, the naked, the sick, and the stranger. The Speaker of the House responded by quoting a pastoral letter from Paul of Tarsus to a small community of persecuted Christians in Rome, ripping seven verses out of a sixteen-chapter argument and wielding them like a rubber stamp on state power.

These are not equivalent texts. They are not equally authoritative. And the way Johnson uses Romans 13 isn't just bad politics. It's bad theology. Catastrophically bad theology with a body count that stretches across centuries.

The Words of Jesus vs. the Words of Paul

Christianity has a hierarchy of authority. This isn't controversial. The words of Christ hold a unique and supreme place in Christian revelation. The Gospels record what Jesus said and did. The epistles—Paul's letters, Peter's letters, James, John—are inspired commentary, pastoral guidance, theological reflection. They are Scripture. They are authoritative. But they are not the words of the Son of God describing what will happen when he returns in glory to judge the living and the dead.

Here is what Jesus says:

"For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me... Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."
—Matthew 25:35-36, 40

And here is what Jesus says to those who didn't:

"Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, a stranger and you gave me no welcome..."
—Matthew 25:41-43

This is Christ himself. Not an apostle. Not a disciple writing a letter decades later. Christ. Speaking about the Final Judgment. Identifying himself—personally, ontologically—with the stranger. The Greek word is xenos: foreigner, alien, someone not from here. Jesus says: that person is me. What you do to them, you do to me.

Now here is what Johnson cited in response:

"Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God."
—Romans 13:1

This is Paul. Writing a letter. To a specific community. In a specific historical moment. And Johnson is using it to override the direct words of Christ about the Final Judgment. Sit with that.

What Romans 13 Actually Says (and What It Doesn't)

Johnson told reporters that "Romans 13 says that the civil authorities are God's agents of wrath to bring punishment upon the wrongdoer" and that government exists to "maintain order in this fallen world." He separated the biblical obligations neatly: individuals should show kindness and hospitality to strangers, but governments should enforce borders. The personal and the political, hermetically sealed from one another.

This reading has three problems. The first is that it rips Romans 13 out of the argument Paul is actually making. The second is that it ignores the conditions Paul places on government authority. The third is that it has been used to justify virtually every atrocity in Western history committed by a state claiming Christian legitimacy.

Let's start with context. Romans 13 doesn't begin at Romans 13. The original letter had no chapter breaks—those were added by Stephen Langton in the thirteenth century. There was, as one scholar put it, "only a dip of Paul's writing quill" between what we call Romans 12:21 and Romans 13:1.^[4]

Here is what comes immediately before the passage Johnson quoted:

"Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them... Do not repay anyone evil for evil... If your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink... Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."
—Romans 12:14, 17, 20-21

And here is what comes immediately after:

"Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law... Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law."
—Romans 13:8, 10

Romans 13:1-7 is sandwiched between "overcome evil with good" and "love is the fulfilling of the law." Paul is applying the principle of non-retaliation and enemy-love to the specific question of how a persecuted Christian minority should relate to Roman imperial authority. He's telling them: don't start a revolution. Pay your taxes. Don't give Nero an excuse to destroy you. This is pastoral survival advice for a powerless community under an empire that would, within a decade, be burning them alive as human torches.

It is not a universal theology of state power. It is not a blank check for governments. And it is emphatically not a trump card that overrides Christ's own words about how nations will be judged.

The Conditions Paul Places on Authority

Even within the seven verses Johnson cherry-picked, Paul places a crucial condition on governing authority that Johnson conveniently omitted. Paul says rulers are "God's servants for your good" (Romans 13:4). They are described as agents who "hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong" (Romans 13:3).

This is not a description of unlimited power. It is a description of legitimate authority—authority that serves the good, punishes actual wrongdoing, and protects the innocent. The moment a government terrorizes the innocent, separates families, drags workers from their jobs, shoots unarmed civilians—it has ceased to function as what Paul describes. It has become what Paul calls it elsewhere: a principality, a power, a ruler of this present darkness (Ephesians 6:12).

As biblical scholars John Barton and John Muddiman note: "Few if any passages in the Pauline corpus have been more subject to abuse than verses 1-7." Paul does not indicate that one is required to obey public officials under all circumstances. No particular government is authorized. No universal autarchy is legitimated.^[5]

John Calvin—not exactly a radical leftist—wrote that Romans 13 should never be read to demand "slavish obedience to the depraved wishes of men."^[6] The authority Paul describes is conditional on its service to justice. When it ceases to serve justice, it ceases to carry the moral weight Paul assigns it.

The Shameful History of Romans 13

If you want to know what a biblical interpretation actually means, look at who has used it and for what purpose. The company Romans 13 keeps, when deployed the way Johnson deploys it, should make any Christian's blood run cold.

• American slavery. Slaveholders cited Romans 13 to argue that the Fugitive Slave Act was God's law and that abolitionists were rebels against divine order. A "Slave Bible" was published in 1807 that kept Romans 13 intact while removing the Exodus narrative—because a story about God liberating enslaved people might give slaves dangerous ideas.^[7]
• The Confederacy. Southern Christians used Romans 13 to argue that the Constitution's protection of slavery was ordained by God and that opposing it was opposing God himself.
• Nazi Germany. The Deutsche Christen—the "German Christians" who aligned with the Nazi regime—cited Romans 13 to justify compliance with the Third Reich. The Confessing Church, led by Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Karl Barth, argued that this was a grotesque misreading.^[8]
• Apartheid South Africa. The Dutch Reformed Church used Romans 13 to justify the apartheid regime as divinely ordained racial order.
• Jeff Sessions, 2018. Attorney General Sessions cited Romans 13 to defend the policy of separating immigrant children from their parents at the border. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops condemned the practice. Even Franklin Graham called it "disgraceful."^[9]

Every time Romans 13 is used this way—as a divine mandate for state violence against the vulnerable—it lands on the wrong side of history. Every single time. Because the reading is wrong. It was wrong when slaveholders used it. It was wrong when the Nazis used it. It was wrong when Sessions used it. And it is wrong when Johnson uses it now.

What Pope Leo Actually Said

Pope Leo XIV didn't wade into partisan politics. He quoted Jesus. In November, speaking to journalists, he cited Matthew 25:35 and urged deeper reflection on how nations receive migrants. He spoke of families separated, of people who have lived peacefully in the United States for years now living in fear. He asked that church ministers be allowed to provide pastoral care to people in detention.

In his apostolic exhortation Dilexi Te—"I Have Loved You"—Leo wrote: "The Church has always recognized in migrants a living presence of the Lord who, on the day of judgment, will say to those on his right: 'I was a stranger, and you welcomed me.'" He traced the experience of migration through all of salvation history: Abraham setting out not knowing where he was going, Moses leading a pilgrim people through the desert, Mary and Joseph fleeing with the child Jesus to Egypt. Christ himself, Leo wrote, "lived among us as a stranger."^[10]

"Where the world sees threats," the pope wrote, "she sees children; where walls are built, she builds bridges."

This is not a political platform. It is the Gospel of Matthew applied to the present moment by the successor of Peter. And the Gospel of Matthew is not optional. It is not one perspective among many. It is the words of Jesus Christ describing the criteria by which every nation, every soul, every government will be judged at the end of time.

The Jesus of the Gospels Was a Refugee

There is a detail in Matthew's Gospel that is easy to forget and impossible to explain away. After the Magi visit the infant Jesus, an angel warns Joseph in a dream to flee to Egypt because Herod wants to kill the child. Joseph takes Mary and Jesus and crosses an international border without authorization, seeking asylum from state violence (Matthew 2:13-15).

The Holy Family were refugees. They were undocumented migrants in Egypt. They fled because their government wanted to murder their son. And they were fulfilling prophecy: "Out of Egypt I called my son" (Hosea 11:1).

When Jesus says "I was a stranger and you welcomed me," he isn't speaking abstractly. He lived it. He was the displaced child, the border crosser, the family fleeing violence. The Son of God entered the world as precisely the kind of person Mike Johnson's preferred policies would deport.

The Biblical Case for Welcoming the Stranger

Johnson claims "borders are biblical." Let's look at what the Bible actually says about how to treat foreigners within your borders.

"When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the stranger. The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the stranger as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt."
—Leviticus 19:33-34

"Cursed is anyone who withholds justice from the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow."
—Deuteronomy 27:19

"The Lord watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow."
—Psalm 146:9

"Do not oppress the foreigner; you yourselves know how it feels to be foreigners, because you were foreigners in Egypt."
—Exodus 23:9

The Hebrew word is ger—the resident alien, the foreigner living among you. The commandment is unambiguous: do not oppress them. Love them as yourself. Treat them as citizens. God watches over them. And anyone who withholds justice from them is cursed.

Johnson wants to quote the Bible? These are direct commands from God to a nation about how that nation is to treat immigrants within its borders. Not suggestions for individuals. National law. Torah. The word of the Lord.

The Church Has Already Spoken

The Catholic Church's teaching on this is not ambiguous. It is not a matter of theological debate. It is settled doctrine:

"The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin."
—Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2241^[12]

Yes, the Catechism also affirms that nations may regulate immigration. But it places that right within the framework of the universal destination of goods and the obligation to welcome. The right to regulate is not the right to terrorize. The authority to enforce borders does not include the authority to shatter families, cage children, or treat human beings as an infestation to be removed.

Pope Leo made this point gently. The Church does not call for open borders. But the Church insists—because Christ insists—that every immigration policy be measured against Matthew 25. How does this policy treat the stranger? Because the stranger is Christ. That's not metaphor. That's Christology.

Whose Words Will You Follow?

Here is the choice Mike Johnson has presented, whether he intended to or not. On one side: the words of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, speaking about the Final Judgment, declaring that he is personally present in every hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, imprisoned, and displaced person on earth. On the other side: seven verses from a letter Paul wrote to a handful of Christians in Nero's Rome, advice about paying taxes and not starting riots, ripped from a passage that begins with "overcome evil with good" and ends with "love is the fulfilling of the law."

Johnson chose Paul over Jesus. Or rather, he chose a mutilated fragment of Paul—stripped of its context, its conditions, and its history of catastrophic misuse—over the unambiguous, universal, binding words of Christ about how nations will be judged.

Pope Leo chose differently. He chose the words of the Master. The words that describe the final exam every one of us will face. The words that say, with absolute clarity: I was a stranger and you welcomed me. Or you didn't.

The slaveholders had their Romans 13. The abolitionists had their Exodus. The Nazi collaborators had their Romans 13. The Confessing Church had its Gospel. Jeff Sessions had his Romans 13. The bishops of his own country condemned him.

And now Mike Johnson has his Romans 13. And Pope Leo has Matthew 25.

Which side of that judgment do you want to be on?

Because Jesus will not ask you, on the last day, whether you enforced the border. He will ask you whether you welcomed the stranger. And he will tell you that the stranger was him.