The Good Samaritan

This is one of Jesus's best-known parables.

It is about a Samaritan helping a Jew who has been bashed and robbed by bandits while travelling by foot from one town to another.

Jesus used this parable to answer the question 'Who is my neighbour?' put to him by a group of men who had asked him to explain his advice to 'Love your neighbour as yourself''.

In the parable the bashed man is passed by one man, a fellow Jew, who didn't help and later by a Levite who crossed to the other side of the road rather than assist.

Later the Samaritan came along the road, saw the bashed man and tried to help him with his injuries. The Samaritan then took the bashed man to a near-by inn where he paid the inn-keeper to look after the man. As he left the inn to continue his travels the Samaritan said that he would come back that way and would pay any extra money required.

In this lesson on 'loving your neighbour' it is interesting that Jesus has a Jew looked after by a Samaritan - rather than a Samaritan looked after by a Jew.

This is so because Samaritans were considered 'unclean' by Jews.

(Refer to Luke Ch 10)

Introduction

Whether you believe in God or not; whether you believe that Jesus was the result of immaculate conception or not - there is considerable wisdom contained in the parables of Jesus.

Unfortunately the simplicity of this wisdom can be lost behind the curtain of church dogma.

In this blog I will look at some of Jesus's best-known parables and write about them from a lay-man's point of view.