Who is our neighbor?
Notes
Transcript
The New International Version (Chapter 10)
The Parable of the Good Samaritan
10:25–28pp—Mt 22:34–40; Mk 12:28–31
25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
I came across this piece Last night as I was finishing up preparing for this morning; it comes from R.C Sproul. It’s titled:
Luther’s Burden under the Law
I think it is ironic that the two most prominent figures of the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation were Martin Luther and John Calvin. Both studied the law before they studied theology. Luther was a student in law school when he was almost killed by a lightning bolt in 1505 that filled him with fear. He said, “Help me Saint Anne; I’ll become a monk.”
Luther entered the monastery at Erfurt and went to confession every day. He went not for ten, fifteen, or twenty minutes but two, three, or four hours, until the father superior in the monastery began to think he was either shirking his duties or he was psychotic: “What is wrong with you, Luther? You come here with serious sins, how much trouble can you get in in a monastery?”
Luther would confess, “I coveted Brother Jonathan’s extra piece of bread at dinner last night,” or, “I stayed up reading my Bible past lights out.” For four hours he confessed the sins he had committed in the last twenty-four hours, and he would get his absolution and walk out of the confessional.
On his way back to the cell, Luther would go into despair because he remembered a sin he forgot to confess. Was he sick, or astute? Luther said: “You asked me, do I love God? Love God? Sometimes I hate him.” Why did he feel that way? He was under the burden of the law, and he knew he could not justify himself.
26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
27 He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
· The lawyer quotes Leviticus 19:18
28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
· These lawyers were notorious for wanting to justify themselves.
· Look what Jesus says a few chapters away in Luke 16:15
· Luke 16:15 (NIV)
· 15 He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight.
· Webster defines Justify as: 1 : to prove or show to be just, right, or reasonable
trying to justify his selfish behavior.
· Chuck Swindoll writes in his commentary on Luke:
“At this point, the attorney—like all good practitioners of the law—started looking for loopholes. He knew he had not kept the Law perfectly, nor could he. He knew he had long ago lost the moral perfection battle. So, he attempted to do what all Pharisees did. Recognizing that the moral standard of heaven is too high, he looked for a way to lower the bar. “Wishing to justify himself,” he sought to define the term “neighbor” in the most convenient way possible.
In the Old Testament, before the Exile and whenever Israel was not sharing the Promised Land with invaders, a Jew’s neighbor was almost certainly another Jew. The man probably thought, If the definition of “neighbor” includes those people I like and with whom I am most comfortable, then I’m doing just fine! But Jesus didn’t come to lower the bar; He came to raise the standard of righteousness (Matt. 5:17–48).”[1]
30 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.
31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side.
· Why did this priest walk on by?
· Could it be that the priest thought that the man was dead? He couldn’t even take the time to see if he was alive. He very possible was thinking of Leviticus 21:1–3 (NIV)
Rules for Priests
21 The Lord said to Moses, “Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them: ‘A priest must not make himself ceremonially unclean for any of his people who die, 2 except for a close relative, such as his mother or father, his son or daughter, his brother, 3 or an unmarried sister who is dependent on him since she has no husband—for her he may make himself unclean.
32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.
33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him.
34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him.
35 The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’
36 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”
37 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”
Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
Warren W. Wiersbe says:
One of my favorite D.L. Moody stories illustrates this point. Attending a convention in Indianapolis, Mr. Moody asked singer Ira Sankey to meet him at 6 o’clock one evening at a certain street corner. When Sankey arrived, Mr. Moody put him on a box and asked him to sing, and it was not long before a crowd gathered. Moody spoke briefly, inviting the crowd to follow him to the nearby opera house. Before long, the auditorium was filled, and the evangelist preached the Gospel to the spiritually hungry people.
When the delegates to the convention started to arrive, Moody stopped preaching and said, “Now we must close as the brethren of the convention wish to come and to discuss the question, ‘How to Reach the Masses.’” Touche![2]
· Let’s stop discussing and start doing it.
· Joseph Mary and Jesus were refugees; they where homeless, and hungry.
o Matthew 25:44–45 (NIV)
44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
John 6:35 (NIV)
35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
The Samaritan’s one deed of mercy has inspired
1 Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996), 212.
[2]Charles R. Swindoll, Luke, vol. 3, Swindoll’s Living Insights New Testament Commentary (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2017), 303.