Chapter 27—“Who is My Neighbour?”
This chapter is based on
Luke 10:25-37
.
Among the Jews the question, “Who is my neighbour?” caused end-
less dispute. They had no doubt as to the heathen and the Samaritans.
These were strangers and enemies. But where should the distinction
be made among the people of their own nation and among the different
classes of society? Whom should the priest, the rabbi, the elder, regard
as neighbor? They spent their lives in a round of ceremonies to make
themselves pure. Contact with the ignorant and careless multitude,
they taught, would cause defilement that would require wearisome
effort to remove. Were they to regard the “unclean” as neighbors?
This question Christ answered in the parable of the good Samaritan.
He showed that our neighbor does not mean merely one of the church
or faith to which we belong. It has no reference to race, color, or class
distinction. Our neighbor is every person who needs our help. Our
neighbor is every soul who is wounded and bruised by the adversary.
Our neighbor is every one who is the property of God.
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The parable of the good Samaritan was called forth by a question
put to Christ by a doctor of the law. As the Saviour was teaching, “a
certain lawyer stood up, and tempted Him, saying, Master, what shall
I do to inherit eternal life?” The Pharisees had suggested this question
to the lawyer in the hope that they might entrap Christ in His words,
and they listened eagerly for His answer. But the Saviour entered into
no controversy. He required the answer from the questioner himself.
“What is written in the law?” He asked, “How readest thou?” The
Jews still accused Jesus of lightly regarding the law given from Sinai,
but He turned the question of salvation upon the keeping of God’s
commandments.
The lawyer said, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all
thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.” “Thou hast answered right,”
Christ said; “this do, and thou shalt live.”
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