Who Is Our Neighbour/Friend?
They may even be our enemy!
This is the Second Post in the serialization of Chapter 1 of the book Friends With God
As we have seen in the First Post in this series, we must demonstrate our faith and love toward God, by our love toward others. If we don’t show love to our neighbours, then our faith in God is meaningless.
The lawyer in Luke 10:25-30, who discussed this with Jesus, was highly educated in the word of God, but he wasn’t sure what the scripture meant when talking about his “neighbour”. So he asked Jesus “Who is my neighbour”
While today we speak of a “neighbour” as being someone who lives near us, but in Hebrew and Greek (in which the Bible was originally written) the term neighbour can also mean friend, depending on the context.
This then makes a lot more sense for the lawyer to ask. For it’s obvious that anyone whom you don’t even know could be your neighbour, but to be your friend is more personal. The lawyer wanted to know whom he should treat as his friend. He got his answer: go and do as the Samaritan in the story did, who, by showing mercy toward a total stranger, treated him as his friend.
We express our love toward God, whom we can’t see, by showing love and friendship toward our neighbour/friend, whom we can see, feel and touch.
The parable of the Good Samaritan tells us plainly who our neighbour/friend is, and what we should do for him. A friend is a neighbour who we have an ongoing positive and meaningful relationship with.
We may not be able to get on well with all our neighbours, but we should show love and concern to them as friends, nonetheless. Jesus also famously tells us to love our enemies. (Matt 5:44, Luke 6:35)
By showing love to our neighbours, and even our enemies, we will hopefully turn them into friends. This is not an exclusive New Covenant teaching either, for people were also told to help their enemies in the Old Covenant too. (Exo 23:4-5)
The Levite and the Priest
The other people in this parable of the Good Samaritan are the Levite and the Priest, who had very important hereditary positions, given by God. They would not have gained their positions by political manipulation in any way. They did not need to impress anybody in order to maintain their positions and status.
They, like the lawyer, would have twice a day recited the scripture “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, … and (love) your neighbour as yourself”. Yet, both deliberately passed by on the opposite side of the road from the wounded man. Perhaps to them he was not their neighbour? More likely, however, they simply didn’t care about him.
Jesus then contrasts these important, and very knowledgeable, chosen leaders in Israel, with someone whom God had not chosen to do anything in particular- a Samaritan.
The Samaritans lived in the land of Israel, but were despised by the Jews, because, although they worshiped God, they also worshiped other gods. Even so, Jesus showed great respect toward them by spending two whole days with them. (John 4:1-43)
The extreme contrast between the good Samaritan and the Priest and Levite, highlights that God is more interested in how you show love to others, rather than who you are, or what you know about God.
In this parable, Jesus was showing that you don’t need to be an important knowledgeable person, specially selected by God, in order to gain eternal life.
No matter who you are, God is not asking too much of you- just be friendly with each other.
The simplest way to do this (as demonstrated by the Samaritan) is to be merciful and compassionate to those who need your help. By your being friendly to a stranger, or neighbour, or enemy, then they will more than likely become your friend, with whom you may have an ongoing, meaningful, and loving relationship.
God simply wants you to love Him and other people. When we see the necessity of doing this, and do it, then God holds out the reward of eternal life as a motivation to endure the difficulties that we will encounter in a world where the love of God, and love of our neighbour, are not often a high priority.
By loving others in a hostile world, we also demonstrate our love to God by being willing to overcome any adverse conditions in order to live a good life, full of compassion and mercy toward others. As if eternal life were not enough, we are also told that those who overcome the difficulties of this world, will receive various rewards over and above everlasting life! (Rev 2:7, 2:11, 2:17, 2:26, 3:5, 3:12, 3:21, 21:7)
The example of the Good Samaritan is so simple and profound, because it sets aside all the ritual of the Priests and Levites. It puts us into the shoes of the Samaritan, who was just a normal man who saw the pain and misery of his poor neighbour (potential friend) who was beaten and left for dead.
The Levite and Priest could perhaps have justified not helping the man, because if he had died it would have made them ceremonially unclean, and therefore unable to perform their service at the temple for a few days, if that is where they were heading. (Num 19:11-16).
Yet, due to the fact that they had not helped the wounded man, they were not actually on the path to eternal life, no matter what they were doing to serve God in his temple. Yet the Samaritan was on the path to eternal life, although he may not have even understood which mountain God required him to worship upon. (John 4:20-21)
The next post in this series will examine what it means to put love in action.