In this Bible Story, we learn about the true meaning of kindness from the story of the good Samaritan. Jesus uses this story to teach that goodness does not always come from the perfect people, rather those that we may least expect. This story is inspired by Luke 10:25-37. Go to BibleinaYear.com and learn the Bible in a Year.
Today's Bible verse is Luke 10:37 from the King James Version.
Episode 201: On another day of walking and teaching a lawyer came up to Jesus asking about eternal life. Wanting to justify himself he responded to Jesus’ answer by asking Him who counts as a neighbor. To illustrate His point, Jesus told the lawyer a story about an Israelite man who was robbed, beaten, and left for dead. Nobody who should have helped this man, actually helped him. Instead, a Samaritan, hated by the Jews, picked him up, bandaged his wounds, and brought him to an inn to be taken care of. The next question Jesus asks challenges both the lawyer and us to think about what it means to be a neighbor.
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Let us pray, And he said, he that showed mercy on him then said Jesus unto him, go and do thou likewise. Luke ten thirty seven, open the eyes of my heart so that I will be able to come to the aid of my brother and sister in Christ. Break off all prejudices and cultural stigmas that may be attached to my mind, both knowingly and unknowingly. Give me the strength, Lord to break through cultural boundaries, like Jesus, to show the love and kindness you have and think towards them. Like the story of the Good Samaritan, I will not wait for convenience to be a resource and outlet of hope. I also thank you in advance for providing all the provision needed to adequately serve those in need. You've commanded me to love my neighbor as I love myself. Therefore, first increase the love I have for myself, so that I can increase the love for those all around me. I declare that others are valuable because I am valuable. I declare that they have worth because I have worth. I declare that they are called to greatness because you have called me to greatness. God, with these truths as anchors to my soul. I will help build the lives of those around me because you are building my life within me in Jesus name, Amen. Listening to these daily prayers strengthens your relationship with God. Continue hearing from the Lord by listening to today's Bible in a Year, brought to you by Bible in a Year dot.
Com the Good Samaritan. In our last story, Jesus gave an intense illustration about the true meaning of forgiveness and mercy through a servant and his master. Now Jesus unpacks the meaning behind being a good neighbor through an unexpected hero inspired by the Gospels.
Hello, this is Jack Graham with today's episode of the Bible in a Year. The last time we were together, we heard Jesus's teaching on how great our debt is to God and why his forgiveness of our sins should motivate us to forgive others. It's an important lesson on showing mercy and giving forgiveness as a response to God's incredible, immense grace toward us. Today, we'll hear another parable from Jesus. A parable is described as an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. Jesus this time is illustrating what it means to love our neighbor and who is our neighbor. His teaching sets the highest of standards for loving as God loves. So let's listen now to the reading of his word.
Jesus was walking in the outer regions of the city. It was a bright spring day, and Jesus was mingling with a few of the villages. A lawyer came from the crowd and sat beside Jesus. The young man was carky and held himself with unearned confidence. Jesus smiled at the young man and greeted him, paying little attention to pleasantries. The lawyer spoke, saying, Teacher, how shall I inherit eternal life. Jesus looked forward towards the children playing beside the road. He saw their parents close behind them, laughing. Jesus looked back at the lawyer and replied, what is written in the law? Have you read it? You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. You shall love your neighbor as your elf. The young man replied, very good. Jesus answered, do these things, and you shall live into eternity. As Jesus sat up to walk towards the people, the lawyer stopped him. Yes, but who is considered my neighbor? The lawyer asked in jest. He asked these things to figure out who he needed to love and who he could ignore. Jesus turned back to the man and walked back. He sat on the bench beside him and told him a story. As he began, a whole crowd of people gathered around to listen. A man was traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. As he walked the countryside, a band of robbers ambushed him out of nowhere. They struck his face and his ribs. As the man fell to his knees, another robber kicked him in the jar. The man's head slammed onto the ground, and an onslaught of kicks barraged him endlessly. The robbers tore off his clothes and took everything he owned. Once they were through shaming him, they tossed him off the edge of the road into a ditch full of stones and weeds. The man lay there half dead. He had lost all feeling in his legs, and his face was so swollen he could barely see his cracked ribs scraped against his lungs as he struggled for every breath. The man truly believed he would die there until he saw a priest walking by the road. The priest was holding a few scrolls strolling along the pathways. The man groaned and tried to shout out to the priest for help. The priest looked around and saw the naked man bloodied on the floor. Repulsed by the sight, the priest walked to the other side of the road and continued on his way. The day rolled on and the air was growing more frigid by the minute. The beaten and bloodied man shivered among the stones, unable to even lift his head. On the corner of his eye, he saw a levite. He was wearing his elegant robes of different colors and hummed to a tune sung in the synagogues. When the levites saw the man quivering by the wayside, he cringed and shuffled over to the other side of the road, pretending not to see him. The priest and a levite had rejected him. The man was certain he would die within minutes. Night was approaching and the earth was basking in the last moments of sunlight, the cold wind blew through the canyons by the road. At this point, the man was completely unconscious. A Samaritan, one of the people reviled by Israel, was passing by the road. He hoped to find an inn by nightfall, so he was in a rush. That was until he saw the man on the side of the road. The Samaritan climbed down the rocks to the man. When he saw that he was still alive, he carried him on his back up the hill. The samaritan stumbled a few times, scraping his knees on the jagged rocks, but he kept going. He strapped the man to his donkey and walked him into town. There he found an inn intended to his wounds. He bound up his broken bones and sowed up his torn flesh. For a whole night and day, he tended to the man's every need. Once the man was beginning to heal, the Samaritan paid the innkeeper enough money to take care of the man for a few more weeks. Then he turned to check up on him. Jesus finished his story. The lawyer was doing his best to hide his teary eyes Jesus turned to him with a tender smile. Tell me which of the three was a better neighbor, the priest, the levite, or the Samaritan. The lawyer wiped his eyes and took a deep breath. I suppose it was the one who should mercy, he answered. Jesus patted the man on the back and said, you go and do likewise. And with that Jesus stood to his feet to tend to the crowd. His story revealed deep truths that had been hidden by dogma and racism. The Samaritans were considered undesirable and wretched people by the Jews. They treated them like dogs more than humans. On the other hand, priests and Levites were revered and admired. Jesus told the story of the good Samaritan to show that goodness, mercy, and kindness can come from unexpected places. It showed Jesus's heart that he was not concerned with cultural boundaries, but human kindness.
In the parable that Jesus tells. This story begins with an expert in Jewish religious law questioning the Lord. He was not simply asking a question, but really testing Jesus. This was not uncommon in that time. His students would ask questions to teachers in a public forum like this. But while his actions weren't necessarily wrong, clearly his motives were. This man is a self righteous lawyer, and he's attempting to trap Jesus, as the religious leaders have been trying to do now for some time. Jesus is very controversial, so he asked Jesus what was required for him to inherit eternal life. Jesus then turned the question back on the lawyer, pointing to the Torah, the law of the Jews, and ask the man how he reads it. The man, of course, knows all the right answers. He's a lawyer who is well prepared, so he responds with the twofold commandment to love God with heart, soul, mind, and strength, and then to love your neighbor as yourself. It was a textbook answer, and the man knew it. Jesus congratulated him on his right answer and told the man to go and do those things as if it were easy, and he would inherit eternal life. Of course, Jesus knew that the law itself could not give this man, or any man, eternal life. Rather, it served to point us to the need for the savior. The law points us to the Lord himself. This man wasn't satisfied with the Lord's answer. He didn't want to be just right. He wanted to justify himself. So he asked Jesus, who is my neighbor? Who is my neighbor? That is a very important question, isn't it, And we need to know the answer to that question as well. Jesus tells us this story. Rather than give us a list of the people that we should love, Jesus told this story, which is very familiar. A man was traveling on a dangerous road alone. It was a path known to harbor thieves who would attack travelers and rob them and so on. Yet the man foolishly put himself in a vulnerable position, and sure enough, he was attacked. He was robbed, beaten, and left for dead. Can you picture some of those listening to this story thinking, well, that serves him right. What was he thinking going there doing that? So the man is laying there, helpless and dying. Then a priest appeared on the road. This was a godly and righteous man by most anyone's standards. Surely he would help. But rather than help, the priest crossed the road and walked by as far as he could, away from the dying, dirty, bleeding man. Next came a Levite. This man knew what worship was. He helped priest in the temple and led the people in songs of praise. If anyone should know the heart of God, it should have been this man. But he too crossed the road and walked on the other side, way out of reach, ignoring the man whose life was draining from his body. By now the crowd listening to Jesus must have been perplexed, or maybe they were even waiting for Jesus to tell them that, like these two godly men so called, that they also could walk by on the other side of the road and not pay attention to people's needs. But of course that's not what they heard. Jesus then introduces another traveler, a Samaritan. Now the Samaritan was the least likely hero. They were despised by Jews, what good could come from Samaria? But this Samaritan man saw the broken man, the bleeding man, and he had mercy on him. He stopped and cared for the stranger. He saw him and had compassion upon him. He attended to his immediate needs. But he didn't stop just there. He loaded the man onto his animal and took him to a nearby end, where he paid for the man to be lodged, fed, and cared for, promising to return and settle any remaining debt. It was an outpouring of generosity that would have shocked everyone listening. We then hear the exchange between Jesus and the lawyer in Luke ten thirty six and thirty seven. Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers? He said, the one who showed him mercy, And Jesus said to him, you go and do likewise, you go and do the same. Here's what we learn in this story. Every person in need is our neighbor. It goes beyond the physical and cultural, and political or even religious boundaries that we may cherish. When we love God with all of our hearts, minds, soul and strength, then we will others the way God loves others, and we have the power of His spirit to help us do this. It's a sacrificial love that we're incapable of on our own, and one that Jesus would demonstrate to the whole world by dying on the cross, to pay the debt for our sin, to die for us because we were dying in our sins, to give us hope and to receive life. This is the love, the agape, love, the compassion that Jesus has for every one of us. Now in Christ, we should show that same love to others and in the name and in the power of God, meet needs all around us. Dear God, thank you for showing us what love really is and how we are to love our neighbors and that anyone who has a need is our neighbor. Help us to love people as you love people without limitations. Thank you for sending Jesus your son to rescue us when we were dying and helpless. That you lifted us because you loved us. In Jesus' name, Amen, Thank you for listening to today's Bible in a Year podcast. This is Jack Graham from Dallas, Texas. You can download Theprey dot com app and make prayer and Bible study a priority in your life. Millions and millions of people have done just that, and we are grateful. If you have joined this podcast, share it with someone you love and let them know how they also can connect with the Bible. In a year, it could absolutely change another person's life. And if you want to know more about Jesus and how to experience his love and grace in your own life, or how to live the Christian life, be sure to visit us at Jack Graham dot org. God Bless you.
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