"If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers." James 2:8-9 Don’t just love those in your neighborhood, but your neighbors in every neighborhood, because your neighbors are scattered all …
The Law is the Law, or is it? – Romans 13 and the Refugee Crisis (Part 5 of 5ish)
“You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions!” Jesus I’ve been saying from the beginning of this series that Attorney General Jeff Sessions and other politicians, pundits, and preachers were mistaken when they used Romans 13:1-7 to justify the administration’s policy to separate parents from …
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How Improving Samaritans influence other people toward the “Ideal Samaritan”
We’ve covered a bunch of ground since we began our Good Samaritan talks. We’ve looked at how there is no more Ideal Samaritan than Jesus, how, in stark contrast to him we’re all pretty much Inadequate Samaritans with quite a replete repertoire of excuses for it, and then how we might get on a trajectory …
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How “Improving Samaritans” Improve
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 …
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