Pastor Jeffress: COVID-19 Vaccines an 'Early Present From God'

The COVID-19 vaccines are an "early present from God," and people should get their shots not only for their own benefit but to help others stay safe from the spread of the disease, Pastor Robert Jeffress, the senior pastor of the 14,000-member First Baptist Church in Dallas, said Friday.

"For the past 10 months, millions of Americans have been praying to God, asking for relief from this pandemic," Jeffress, also a Fox News contributor, said on "Fox and Friends." "I believe God has answered this prayer through these vaccines."

He added that it should not surprise anyone that God "would use science to bring healing into our world."

"I mean, after all, in the past, people like Isaac Newton and Blaise Pascal and Louis Pasteur were not all just men of science but men of faith who believed God created this world in an orderly way that could be studied and benefited from," said Jeffress. 

And the one "chief reason" that people should be vaccinated is "not just for our obvious benefit, but for the benefit of others," Jeffress said. He added that in Phillippians Chapter 2, the apostle Paul said "don't just look out for your own interest but the benefit of others."

The Christmas story is also another good example, said Jeffress. 

"Jesus Christ came from Heaven to Earth not to meet his needs, but to meet our needs," said Jeffress, "and in the same way, we ought to put the needs of others above our own."

Jeffress also talked about an opinion piece he wrote for Fox News this week saying that this holiday season, people are looking to the holiday whether or not they are Christians because they are "hungry for hope."

"A recent survey showed that 88% of the religiously unaffiliated plan to celebrate Christmas this year," said Jeffress. "Ten percent of them plan to spend more time in spiritual reflection. There's a reason for that. I think this pandemic and the political strife in our country have highlighted just how broken our world is, and although we can patch it up occasionally, we have no lasting solutions. But God does."

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