Steven A. Bush - April 21, 2013
The Loving Neighbor
An expert in the Law decides to test Jesus about how he might inherit eternal life. Jesus responds to his question with questions of His own, asking the lawyer what the Law says about the matter. The lawyer summarizes the Law well by melding Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” Elsewhere in the Gospels Jesus does the same and we commonly refer to this summary as the Great Commandment. But after Jesus commends the lawyer's answer, the man attempts to justify himself by asking Jesus who actually qualifies as his neighbor. Jesus discerns the expert's narrow notion of who his neighbor is and so He proceeds to stun the crowd by telling the parable of the Good Samaritan, or perhaps we should call it the story of the Loving Neighbor. Besides endeavoring to be loving neighbors ourselves, who truly is the Loving Neighbor we all aspire to be? And how is eternal life found only in Him?