After all this talk of good samaritanism, the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question is “How do we get there?” I know I should be more rather than less like Jesus, which is different than being more or less like him. I know that I should be on an “Improving Samaritan” trajectory. I want to be the kind of …
Improving Samaritans
By comparison to the “Ideal Samaritan” we’re all quite “Inadequate Samaritans” don’t you think? Since we’re not very much like him, “Good Samaritan” (Luke 10) status seems a little too lofty to my ears, so I’d like to recommend that we at least aspire to the rank of “Improving Samaritans.” Don’t forget, we’re playing a …
Some more excuses of not-so-good Samaritans
I offer a few more suggested excuses for being less than ideal Samaritans… “I don’t have time to help so-called ‘underserved’ people. I’m too busy just trying to raise my family and pay the mortgage.” It says that the Samaritan came across the dying man “as he traveled.” He must have been on his …
Continue reading "Some more excuses of not-so-good Samaritans"
Some excuses of not-so-good Samaritans
We’ve established that, even if Jesus didn’t exactly intend his parable to point directly to the kind of Samaritan he would be, he would make an “Ideal Samaritan.” Looking at the way he treats thrashed people, if we’re honest, we see how far we are from that ideal and might even consider ourselves “Inadequate Samaritans.” …
Inadequate Samaritans
In two earlier posts I introduced the concept and context of the parable of the Good Samaritan. I talked about to be like Jesus is to be like the kind of “Ideal Samaritan” he was. Let me take this a little further and identify, like the law expert with whom he shared his parable, we …
barney wiget 