Who Is Your Neighbor - Luke 10:25-37

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If you say something over and over enough, it loses meaning.

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Pick any word.

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Potato, potato, potato, potato, potato.

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As I was creating the graphics for this podcast, I was looking at numerous

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stock photos of the words faith, hope, love, faith, hope, love, and

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as, after looking at it, eventually it stopped looking like words.

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It just looked like a pile of letters that I could no longer compose into words.

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It had lost its meaning.

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And the same thing happens in biblical stories.

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The Good Samaritan no longer has the meaning to us that it did in

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the time that Jesus told the story.

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My father, uh, is a big RV guy, he's got a, an RV, drives around

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the country, and he's part of a club called the Good Sam Club, which I

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assume is comes out of Good Samaritan.

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Uh, in fact, I believe it's CVS.

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Some company sponsors, uh, trucks that drive around on the highway

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called Good Samaritan Trucks.

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Because they're there to help out motorists in need when they break

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down on the side of the road.

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But, they're called Good Samaritans because in the context, they're not good.

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Let's go back to the original story for context.

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I like to actually share the full text because I've been, you know,

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Uh, listening to more audiobooks and reading, reading more, uh, books

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on Christianity and on theology.

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I always find it frustrating when they mention something

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but don't actually cite it.

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I'm like, ugh, gotta go find the other book.

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Especially the podcast.

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I know how you listen to a podcast.

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You're in your car, walking the dog, mowing the lawn, cooking dinner.

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You don't have time to go to your Bible and look it up.

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So I'm gonna read it for you in this case.

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So, let's take a look at Luke.

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25 to 37.

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This is the parable of the Good Samaritan.

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On one occasion, an expert in law stood up to test Jesus.

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Teacher, he asked, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

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What is written in the law?

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He replied, how do you read it?

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He answered, love the Lord God with all your heart and with all your soul

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and all your strength and all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself.

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Now, these, of course, come from Deuteronomy 6, 5 and Leviticus 19, 8.

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So these are not new things.

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These go all the way back to the ancient law.

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So Jesus goes on.

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You have answered correctly, Jesus replied.

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Do this and you will live.

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But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, And who is my neighbor?

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In reply, Jesus said a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho

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when he was attacked by robbers.

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They stripped him of his clothes, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead.

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A priest happened to be going down the same road.

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And when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side.

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So too a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.

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But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was.

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And when he saw him, he took pity on him.

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He went to him, bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine.

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Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to

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an inn, and took care of him.

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The next day he took out two denarii, which is two days wages, two denarii,

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and gave them to the innkeeper.

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Look after him, he said, and when I return, I will reimburse you for

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any extra expense you may have.

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Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell

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into the hands of the robbers?

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Jesus asked.

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The expert in law replied, the one who had mercy on him.

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Jesus told him, go and do likewise.

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So to put this into modern context, right, what's a Levite?

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We probably know what a priest is, that's a priest.

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You know, that's pretty clear.

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A priest is, is a, is a leader.

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But what's a Levite?

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A Levite is kind of an assistant.

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The priest is, it was the, the house of, uh, Jews, the clan of Jews who

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were the assistants of the priest.

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They, they knew all the laws.

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The scribes I believe in sub translations are actually called scribes.

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So when we think of priest, think of the.

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The holiest, most exalted religious person you can think of.

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Think of a minister.

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Think of a pastor.

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Um, and when I say priest, they mean big deal priest.

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They're talking about the Sanhedrin.

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They're talking about the Pharisees.

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These are people who have, you know, they're wearing stuff

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that actually has jewels in it.

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Uh, you know, expensive garments.

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Walking by looking all big deal.

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So imagine, you know, your mega pastor in their really shiny suit Maybe

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driving by in their very nice car.

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The Levite Levite to a modern equivalent would be a Very religious, maybe

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a lay person, not, not a reverend, not ordained, but the kind of person

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who leads Bible studies, the kind of person who's a leader in their church.

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They know every passage they need to know.

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They are a good Christian, right?

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They're a good religious person, a good follower.

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Supposedly, at least they act the part.

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Samaritans, Samaritans weren't just another, uh, people.

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out there in Israel.

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They weren't like the Hittites or the Canaanites or whatever.

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The Samaritans were the the worst kind.

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The Samaritans were also Israelites.

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The Samaritans claim descent from the Israelite tribes of Ephraim

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and Manasseh, sons of Joseph.

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They consider themselves the true preservers of the

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ancient Israelite religion.

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According to the Hebrew Bible, after the Assyrian conquest of the northern kingdom

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of Israel in 722 BC, many Israelites were exiled, and the Assyrians repopulated the

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region with foreigners who intermarried with the remaining Israelites.

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These mixed people became known as the Samaritans.

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The Samaritans accepted only the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, the

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Torah, as their scripture, rejecting the later writings and the prophetic

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books that are part of the Jewish canon.

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They built their own temple.

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On Mount Gerizim, which they considered the true holy place, as opposed

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to the Jewish temple in Jerusalem.

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Although this temple was destroyed by the Hasmonean king, John

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Hyacinth, in the late 2nd century BC.

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So, these weren't just outsiders, these weren't like the

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Babylonians something like that.

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These were apostates.

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These were heretics.

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And as we know, You don't hate anyone like a heretic.

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It's one thing to say they don't know.

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It's another thing to say they do know, but they choose not

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to believe what we believe.

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So, I want you to understand that when this says good Samaritan, when

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this says it was a Samaritan who came along and helped a Jewish man,

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that is a really, really big lie.

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deal right there.

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You know, think about who you would hate the most.

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That's a Samaritan.

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And I was trying to think about if I wanted to modernize this story,

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who would I, who would I make it?

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You know, maybe a terrorist?

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That doesn't quite work because terrorists aren't really a type of people.

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I thought maybe a drug dealer?

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Right?

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If I was to make a modern version of the story, a man, a good Christian's

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walking down the street, gets beat up by robbers, left for dead, and Maybe

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some super church pastor walks by, you know, thumbs his nose at him, says,

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Oh, I'm not going to deal with that.

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You know, some very religious person walks by.

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It's pretty clear who, who they are, but who would the Samaritan be?

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And so I thought, you know, maybe, maybe some, some big, big gang bear,

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uh, you know, drug dealer, drug kingpin drives by in his, in his fancy

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car with the white leather seats.

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Pulls up, sees this man, takes pity on him.

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Brings him into his car with the white leather seats, you know,

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blood and stuff and dirt all over and puts him in the car anyway.

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Brings him maybe to a, uh, a motel where he knows the proprietor, calls his own

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doctor to take care of the guy, or, or, you know, maybe takes him to the hospital.

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Because, you know, American hospitals, you get beat up on the street, not

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only getting beat up and robbed there, you get robbed by the hospital again

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when your insurance company doesn't cover this, doesn't cover that.

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So imagine the drug kingpin.

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Loads the victim into his car, brings him into the emergency room, pulls out

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a stack of cash, hands it to them, and says, this should take care of it, but

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I'll settle this bill in a few weeks.

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I'll be back.

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You know, once the insurance company decides what they're not going

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to pay, I'll take care of him.

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And then leaves.

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Right?

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This is, this is that same idea.

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But then I thought about it.

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And I thought, yeah, yeah, that's, that's one thing.

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But that's not a Samaritan.

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That's not a Samaritan to a conservative Christian.

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To a conservative Christian, a Samaritan is a gay Christian, right?

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They believe something different.

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A liberal Christian, a Christian who believes that, believes that all

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people are welcome, who believes in a certain interpretation Bible, but a

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different interpretation of the Bible.

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That is the true Samaritan.

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So, As I was repainting this story to really drive home the point of what

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Jesus is trying to say with the Good Samaritans, I think the best way to

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do this that would really drive home the point of what Jesus is trying to

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say is that the person who drives up in the nice car is maybe a drag queen.

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You know, not just a little gay, but a lot gay.

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I mean, you know, drag queen, non binary, the whole thing.

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And that's the person.

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Who pulls over with their immaculate, beautiful car and takes this

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beaten, bloodied, dirty man, half near death and lovingly puts him

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in the car and takes him to help.

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Because I feel that that might be the person they most look at as, as

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the apostate, as, as the heretic.

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See, here's the thing.

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And then where I got started thinking about this was the line before we

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get to the Good Samaritan story.

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Because that is this, Love the Lord God with all your heart and all your soul and

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with all your strength and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.

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Now this as yourself thing gets a little bit fraught in some ways,

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but we're not gonna touch on that.

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We're, uh, that, that's a whole different issue, but let us

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assume love your neighbor as yourself means love them a lot.

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Uh, in Matthew, In chapter twenty two, thirty, uh, thirty four to forty,

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Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together.

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One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question.

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Teacher, what is the greatest commandment in the law?

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Jesus replied, Love the Lord God with all your heart and with all

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your soul and with all your mind.

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This is the first and greatest commandment, and the second is like it.

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Love your neighbor as yourself.

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All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.

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Mark 12, 2834.

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One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating.

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Noticing Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked them, Of all the

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commandments, which is the most important?

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The most important one answered Jesus is this, Hear, O Israel,

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the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

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Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with

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all your mind and with all your strength.

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The second is this, Love your neighbor as yourself.

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There is no commandment greater than this.

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Well said, teacher, the man replied.

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You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but Him.

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To love Him with all your heart, with all your understanding, and with all

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your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than

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all burnt offerings and sacrifices.

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When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, You are not far

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from the kingdom of God, and from then on, no one dared ask him any more questions.

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And of course, we've already talked about Luke 10, 25 28, which is what

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leads into the Good Samaritan story.

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Three times, in three of the Gospels, Jesus emphasizes this point.

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He does not say it in John, but in John, he does offer another commandment.

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A new command I give you, love one another as I have loved you,

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so you must love one another.

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By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.

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John 13, 34, 35.

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There's a theme here, it's really, really clear.

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And it's this theme that I built this book on.

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podcast around.

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The reason I'm sharing this is this is it.

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And he says it really, really explicitly in Matthew 22.

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All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.

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Here in the United States, we have a constitution and then we

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have laws and the constitution supersedes the laws in every way.

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So if there's a law that says, something.

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Maybe there's a bigoted law.

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There's an unfair law.

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You go back to the constitution and you say the constitution says that law

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is not legal because the constitution guarantees our rights and our, and

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our, you know, what we're entitled to as citizens, as humans, as people,

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all the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments, love the

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Lord, you're God with all your heart.

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And your soul and your mind and love your neighbor as yourself.

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It all comes back to this.

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So, I don't care how you interpret the translation of some obscure Greek word.

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I don't care how you feel about some type of people.

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It all comes back to these two commandments.

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Period.

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End of story.

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Three times in three Gospels Jesus himself.

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Why am I saying this?

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Because Christians like to find ways to put themselves above other Christians.

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And they like to find ways to make themselves feel special.

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We all do.

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Humans, I should say.

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Not Christians.

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Let's not call out Christians.

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Humans like to find ways to make ourselves feel special,

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make ourselves better than them.

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I'm holier than thou.

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And there's a whole lot, I mean, last episode I talked, Matthew 23,

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about how Jesus feels about religious leaders who are stoking their own

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ego at the expense of other people.

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In our modern times, this is really coming up a lot with the LGBT community.

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Gays, bisexuals, transsexuals, et cetera.

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And I'll get into this deeper in, in another episode, but when you dive

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into it and you say, what does the Bible say about homosexuality, about

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transsexuals, et cetera, it, it tends to hang on very, how many angels can dance

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on the head of a pin kind of things.

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And so.

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If you get right down to it, whether or not the Bible condemns homosexuality,

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comes down to what the definition of the ancient Greek word arsenikatoi is.

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One word.

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If arsenikatoi means one thing, then it condemns it, and if

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arsenikatoi means a different thing, then it doesn't condemn it.

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And that is what it hangs on, and the way people interpret that, and

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the way they act is a matter of life and death for thousands of people.

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Did you know that among transsexual youth, the suicide attempt rate is 42%?

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42 percent of transsexual youth will attempt to kill, not

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consider, actually attempt to kill themselves before they turn 18.

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This is not abstract theology.

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This is life and death.

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And this is one example.

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And we'll get into the theology of what the Bible says.

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In a different episode, there's a lot to dive into there.

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But the point is, this all comes down to two commandments.

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Love God, love your neighbor.

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That's it.

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When in doubt, go back to those two.

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And, Jesus does not give me the impression, maybe you read it differently,

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Jesus does not give me the impression that God's sitting there with a ledger saying,

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all right, well, it looks like you got 4, 917 points in favor and 4, 972 points

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against, sorry, you're going to hell.

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That's not what God does.

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He's not nickel and diming.

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God is looking at, are you right with God?

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Are you embracing God into your heart?

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And are you doing the things that you honestly, sincerely believe

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based on communing with God, reading the Bible, praying, listening,

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praying, listening some more?

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The things that you honestly in your heart believe are what God's wants.

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See, I believe that you are obeying those two commandments if you are authentically

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Loving God, which means listening to God, which means living the way you believe

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God wants you to live, and loving your neighbor in the way you believe you are.

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Now here's where it gets interesting.

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If we're going with this authentic belief doctrine here.

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And here's where I'm going a little bit off the, off the book into

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my own thoughts and speculations.

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And I'd love to hear your thoughts on this because I feel like what I'm about

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to say is the kind of thing that I'm going to come back to later and say,

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yeah, after getting more feedback, I now believe it may be this way and not

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that way, but I'm going to speculate.

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It is about authentically believing you're in league with God, which means.

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You could well be one of those people that Jesus describes as a whitewashed tomb.

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You could be someone who spouts hate.

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Believing that that serves God, you're believing that you're loving God by

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doing that, you think you're defending God's kingdom and defending God's truth

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by spouting things that hurt people, and you believe that you are sharing love

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by telling them that they're sinners and condemning them, you think that you're

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just bludgeoning them into alignment and it's the best you can think of to do to

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get them out of the flames of hell and into the embrace of heaven, and if you

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believe that no matter how bad the thing you're doing is, If you authentically

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and honestly believe it, and in your heart you feel good about that, that

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you're doing the right thing, then you are, to the best of your ability,

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loving God and loving your neighbor.

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And then my job is to make you realize you're not.

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And then once you know it, you will shift your behavior.

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But until someone informs you of it, you would be, to the best of

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your ability, within the realm of the two great commandments.

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This is where it gets kind of messy and complicated.

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People that I detest the behavior of, I almost said people that I

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detest, and I caught myself, because a true Christian detests no one.

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Because you love your neighbor as yourself, and your neighbor

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is everyone, even the person who you should detest the most.

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But people whose behavior and the harm they cause that I detest the most

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still may be within their heart to the best of their knowledge and ability

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in line with what they think are the two great commandments and thus might

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still get to heaven and be embraced.

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Maybe.

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That is a very fraught and complex concept.

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I would love to hear your thoughts.

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I know I'll share my email address at the end.

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I'd love to get your, your feedback on that.

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I would love for this podcast to be more of a dialogue where I share things

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and then you share feedback and, and we, we go back and forth and exchange

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more concepts and, and dive in deeper.

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Maybe you point out other passages that I haven't thought of, but ultimately

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it comes back to these two things.

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And I think.

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I think part of it is responsibility to open your own eyes.

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You know, take the moat, take the log out of your own eye or the plank out

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of your own eye before trying to take the moat out of your brother's eye.

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And by the way, side note, neighbor and brother are different things.

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Your neighbor is anyone in the world.

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Your brother is your fellow Christian.

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So it's important to notice where it says.

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Neighbor versus brother.

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In 1 Corinthians 5, 12 to 13, Paul says, What business is it of mine

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to judge those outside the church?

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Are you not to judge those inside?

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God will judge those outside.

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Expel the wicked person from among you.

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So this is a, another key thing.

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Again, we're not going to get into the implications of that.

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But this is a huge one.

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With implications towards how Christians should be behaving in the

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greater political realm, and whatnot.

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Um, but, we're not gonna go into there right now, but, so brother

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and neighbor are different, but it doesn't say love your brother.

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It says love your neighbor.

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That's everybody.

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Everybody.

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If they are human, they are your neighbor, no matter how detestable

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you think maybe they might be.

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That's up to God to judge, not you.

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So, yeah, this eventually comes up in LGBT communities a lot, but I

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don't think it's limited to that.

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I think we encounter this who is my neighbor question and the implications

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of it in a lot, a lot, a lot of places.

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And I think we would benefit a great deal from being reminded

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that everyone is our neighbor.

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This comes up in terms of charity.

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This comes up in terms of, uh, global affairs of various kinds, uh, both, you

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know, charity, giving money and support to poorer, less developed countries,

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and also in geopolitical situations.

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There's sometimes situations where you have to get more involved and where the

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act of picking someone up off the side of the road may be a bit more kinetic.

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There's a whole lot of stuff to get into, and, yeah, these episodes would be

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seven hours long if I were to get into every side trail that, uh, comes up.

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But, I figure I'll drop a few things, give you make you give you guys an

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excuse to give me some feedback, and that will determine what we talk about more.

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But ultimately, it comes down to one very simple set of rules

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that I will remind you of.

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And this very simple set of rules is very simply, Love the Lord your

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God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind.

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This is the first and greatest commandment.

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And the second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself.

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All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.

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And if anything you do, think, say, or feel misaligns these

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two commandments, then maybe you need to think about them again.

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I'd love to hear your feedback.

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My email address to send it to is michael at guy who knows a guy.

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com If you found this interesting, I hope you will leave a rating and or review

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on whatever platform you listen to this podcast, and I hope you will share it.

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Hit the share button, put it out on Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, X,

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Y, Z, whatever place you happen to be sharing these sorts of things.

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Let people listen to it.

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If you agreed with it, share it.

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If you disagreed with it, share it with commentary.

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But let's get this conversation going.

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This is how we learn By debating how many times is Jesus in the temple

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with other rabbis he disagreed with, other leaders disagreed with,

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saying, Hey, but what about this?

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What about that?

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I want to be questioned.

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That's how I get better.

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That's how I learn more, and hopefully you feel the same way.

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So thank you so much for listening.

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I'd love to hear your feedback.

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And I look forward to sharing with you in the next episode.