And who is my neighbor? This is possibly the most important question asked of Jesus during His life on Earth. And the answer Jesus gives in The Parable of the Good Samaritan is equally significant. Jesus shifts the emphasis of the question from generating criteria by which you determine who is and who is not your neighbor to what is required in order to define yourself as a neighbor. Simply put, you are a neighbor when you have mercy on your fellow man.
By directly linking the word neighbor with a particular action that demands a recipient Jesus perfectly harmonizes His answer with one of the many beautiful melodies resonating throughout the Scriptures; you are not alone. From the Ten Commandments to the Beatitudes the Bible represents the human to God relationship in light of how we behave in community with others. As soon as you take away your fellow man from your Theology, your foot has set upon a very slippery slope that inevitably ends in the quagmire of Christian Nihilism.
We were created to live in community with God and our fellow man, not alone. And what determines whether or not our fellow man is our neighbor is not race, gender, culture, geography, or even religion. The single determining factor for whether or not someone is our neighbor is how we treat them. If I stand back and ask myself who qualifies as my neighbor, I am missing the point. The Parable of the Good Samaritan makes this point perfectly clear. We don’t get the luxury of deciding who is and who is not our neighbor before we decide to have mercy on them. The Samaritan was the man’s neighbor because he had mercy on him.
Go and do likewise.
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.
From The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Part VII
Written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge – 1798
Forward a friend this link to sign up for the
36 Parables Monthly Newsletter:
http://36parables.blogspot.com/
“Buen Vecino” – Based on the Parable of the Good Samaritan
http://www.illuminatingunderstanding.com/?id=5167028
Community – 36 Parables Monthly Newsletter – December 2009
And who is my neighbor? This is possibly the most important question asked of Jesus during His life on Earth. And the answer Jesus gives in The Parable of the Good Samaritan is equally significant. Jesus shifts the emphasis of the question from generating criteria by which you determine who is and who is not your neighbor to what is required in order to define yourself as a neighbor. Simply put, you are a neighbor when you have mercy on your fellow man.
By directly linking the word neighbor with a particular action that demands a recipient Jesus perfectly harmonizes His answer with one of the many beautiful melodies resonating throughout the Scriptures; you are not alone. From the Ten Commandments to the Beatitudes the Bible represents the human to God relationship in light of how we behave in community with others. As soon as you take away your fellow man from your Theology, your foot has set upon a very slippery slope that inevitably ends in the quagmire of Christian Nihilism.
We were created to live in community with God and our fellow man, not alone. And what determines whether or not our fellow man is our neighbor is not race, gender, culture, geography, or even religion. The single determining factor for whether or not someone is our neighbor is how we treat them. If I stand back and ask myself who qualifies as my neighbor, I am missing the point. The Parable of the Good Samaritan makes this point perfectly clear. We don’t get the luxury of deciding who is and who is not our neighbor before we decide to have mercy on them. The Samaritan was the man’s neighbor because he had mercy on him.
Go and do likewise.
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.
From The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Part VII
Written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge – 1798
Forward a friend this link to sign up for the
36 Parables Monthly Newsletter:
http://36parables.blogspot.com/
“Buen Vecino” – Based on the Parable of the Good Samaritan
http://www.illuminatingunderstanding.com/?id=5167028