Bible Studies for Life
Professor of Religion, Samford University
Love Gets Involved
Luke 10:25–37
The parable of the Good Samaritan is so familiar that the impact of its message is cliché. We fail to understand how radical Jesus’ teaching was because we have never known a Jewish attitude toward the Samaritans.
Samaritans were those Jews who didn’t go into exile because of the Assyrian and Babylonian invasions but rather intermarried non-Jews. They became self-sufficient, building their own temple, having their own form of the Pentateuch. The animosity between the Jews and the Samaritans in the first century was fierce. Two of Jesus’ own disciples wanted to call down the fire of God’s judgment on some Samaritans. The word “good” and the word “Samaritan” did not go together in Jesus’ day. So when Jesus talks about a Samaritan being a better illustration of the love of God than any Jewish leader it was a bit like speaking about a member of the Islamic State or al-Qaida group who, instead of planting improvised bombs where people walked, decided to save someone by the roadside. It’d be shocking and scandalous.
We can’t love God without loving others. (25–28)
Jesus uses this dramatic parable to remind us that loving God does not only have vertical dimensions but also reaches out horizontally to others around us. And this love is demonstrated in having an equal concern for the spiritual, as well as physical and emotional, needs of people. In 1975 the Lausanne Covenant, a motion promoted by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, was an agreement by more than 2,000 leaders from the evangelical world. It affirmed: “We should share His concern for justice and reconciliation throughout human society and for the liberation of men and women from every kind of oppression. … We express penitence both for our neglect and for having sometimes regarded evangelism and social concern as mutually exclusive … [and] we affirm that evangelism and socio-political involvement are both part of our Christian duty.” True love reaches out to the whole of human need.
We fail to love God when we don’t take action. (29–32)
This love is not merely sentimental. Neither should it be locked in committees. It should be practiced. Jesus Himself practiced what He preached in His care for Samaritans. The land of Samaria was situated between the regions of Galilee in the north of Israel and Judea in the south. Jews traveling between Galilee and Judea would take the longer, six-day journey along the Jordan River valley rather than taking a shorter, more direct route through Samaria. But Jesus went out of His way on one occasion to go and meet a woman who lived in Samaria who had been ostracized by her community to meet her moral and spiritual need and let her know that she was loved.
We are commanded to love no matter what. (33–37)
Love is costly. It cost our Savior His life on Calvary. It cost the Father the pain of watching His Son die. Love is costly. But costly love always reaches out and pays the price. It pays the price of being misunderstood by people who think we are wasting our time caring for people’s material need when it is obvious that their spiritual needs are more important. It is costly in terms of our own physical and emotional energy as we take time to meet people, to get to know then, to stoop by the side of the road and take time to care for them just where they are. True love reaches out to our neighbors within the Church, but the Church is called to reach out to those on the outside.
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