Redefining Neighbor: Lessons from the Good Samaritan

### Quotes for Outreach

1. "Throughout the world, especially in the Western context, European, North American, the term Good Samaritan is synonymous with good deeds, good actions. If you've ever heard of Samaritan's Purse, they are an interdenominational or non-denominational faith-based humanitarian group. They're huge. During his presidency, George W. Bush said that the United States was going to be the Good Samaritan to those nations on the side of the Jericho Road, which he just said that because he believed that his audience would understand the reference." [40:58]( | | )

2. "The idea of the Good Samaritan is this idea of aid and help. When you think about it, I don't think we could name it that now in our politically correct culture, because to say that there is a Good Samaritan is to imply that that Samaritan is the exception and all the other Samaritans are bad. And I don't know if anybody would be ready to do that, but yet that is how this story has been pitched because of the cultural undertones that the Jewish people felt towards the Samaritans, which we'll get to in just a few minutes." [41:45]( | | )

3. "The lawyer asks the question that cannot be answered. What must I do to inherit eternal life? The question implies or assumes that eternal life is a commodity to be inherited or purchased on the basis of a particular action rather than a gift that has been given. So Jesus responds, you know the law. How do you read it? What do you think you need to do? His point is not that keeping the law will get you to heaven. His point is to change the conversation." [46:34]( | | )

4. "Jesus says, do this and you will live. I don't know if you've noticed this, but Jesus has actually just changed the question. What must I do to inherit eternal life? And that's what the man asked. And Jesus says, do this and you will live. So the man says, how do I get there? And Jesus says, this is how you live here. This is how you interact here. This is how you love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself." [50:17]( | | )

5. "So the questions we need to ask ourselves are who is our neighbor that we need to love? Who is the voiceless person or people group that we are called to give a voice to? And not just like a political voice I'm talking like actually give them the dignity of like food and clothing and sanitation and all those things. Think of like our work earlier with Pilgrim Feast what we were trying to do. What enemy needs my love? And am I willing to live in a way that brings God's kingdom and love to this earth?" [09:28]( | | )

### Quotes for Members

1. "When I open the Bible, I start from my context. I can't help it. That's just being human. And to do it otherwise, to think of it as maybe how another culture would see it, or how a different age demographic, or how somebody else, that changes things. Let me give you an example of what I mean. If you were in the Middle Ages, and you read Revelation, and you're the kingdom of the North, you're probably thinking like, if you go far enough back, well, that's got to be Rome. And if you go after that, then it's probably like, you know, somebody just north of you. And then I remember in the 90s, it was totally, the 80s and 90s, it was totally Soviet Russia, right? Like, it's, you read your Bible from the context that you're in. To do otherwise takes work." [36:12]( | | )

2. "So as we come to these stories, yes, Jesus is the promised Messiah who dies. He rises again. He is ascended to heaven. And he brings salvation to the world. They didn't know that yet. So we're going to kind of live in this tension of we know stuff they don't know. So what did they hear? And then more importantly, what should we hear as we encounter these stories? So for the next little while, we're going to be looking at a number of parables in no particular order, and we're definitely not covering all of them. But we're just going to take some and unpack them over the next little while and look at these stories." [38:55]( | | )

3. "The lawyer answers, to love the Lord Jesus, the Lord your God with all your heart, love your neighbor as yourself. And Jesus says, you answered correctly, do this and you will live. I don't know if you've noticed this, but Jesus has actually just changed the question. What must I do to inherit eternal life? And that's what the man asked. And Jesus says, do this and you will live. So the man says, how do I get there? And Jesus says, this is how you live here. This is how you interact here. This is how you love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself." [50:17]( | | )

4. "So how could we look at this story? How could we interpret this? What are the different facets? Well, one way we could look at it is that the robbers are the world and sin and they're beating up the man and leaving him for dead and the priest and the Levite are religion and Judaism and they don't help the man. You could turn it slightly, it's still very similar but now it's more personal. Is, I am the man traveling, you are the man traveling and sin and the world beats us up and leaves us on the side of the road. And the priest and the Levite are religion and Judaism or whatever religion you come from and they don't help us. They aren't willing to get down in the dirt and help us. They say, clean yourself up but they won't come down. They're the one who comes and at great lengths and this is, I preach this sermon and it's actually really quite good. Jesus is the one who comes and at great cost to himself he continues to help us and fix us and save us when we could not help ourselves." [54:29]( | | )

5. "So the questions we need to ask ourselves are who is our neighbor that we need to love? Who is the voiceless person or people group that we are called to give a voice to? And not just like a political voice I'm talking like actually give them the dignity of like food and clothing and sanitation and all those things. Think of like our work earlier with Pilgrim Feast what we were trying to do. What enemy needs my love? And am I willing to live in a way that brings God's kingdom and love to this earth? I am called and you are called to love God with your whole heart your whole soul your whole mind and all your strength and to love your neighbor as yourself because I am my brother's keeper and you are your brother's keeper." [09:28]( | | )