Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-37) (02/22/24)
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TITLE: The Heart of a Benevolent Soul | Previous Challenge Entry
By Lakella Davenport
02/28/24 -
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What Does It Mean to Be Good?
Some synonyms for good are pleasant, well pleasing, favorable, righteous, pure, “moral, kindhearted, benevolent, charitable, and merciful,” (thesaurus.com). Good people can also be hospitable. According to the Bible, to be a good person you must have a good heart. A good heart is a loving, kind, patient, respectful, merciful, caring, temperate, peaceful, joyful, longsuffering, gentle, meek, and faithful heart (Galatians 5: 22-23). In essence it is a heart overflowing with the fruits of the Holy Spirit. A good heart is one filled with the love of Christ. It is an obedient heart, a heart that seeks after God and follows his commands for holy living.
The parable of the Good Samaritan is the story of a benevolent, charitable, and hospitable man who saw the need to help another man who was in need. In the story of the Good Samaritan, a man who was traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho is robbed by thieves, stripped of his clothing, and wounded (beaten) and left for half-dead by the bad/evil thieves (Luke 10: 30). A priest and then a Levite who are supposedly holy men of God each passed by the man on the other side of the road and don’t stop to help the injured man (Luke 10: 31-32). However, “a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him. And went to him and bound up his wounds pouring in oil and wine and set him on his own beast and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him. Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee,” (Luke 10:33-35).
Who Were the Samaritans in The Bible?
The Samaritans were frowned upon by the Jews in the Bible because “Samaritans were half-Jewish and half-Gentile,” (www.bibleref.com). “The Jews disliked the Samaritans because the Samaritans built their own temple which the Jews considered pagan,” (progress-index.com). “Among the most significant differences between the Samaritans and the Jews is the site which they believed God chose for his dwelling,” (Britannica.com). “Samaritans were those Yahweh worshippers of the region of Samaria who eventually rejected Jerusalem and its temple as sacred centers. For them, Mount Gerizim in the vicinity of ancient Shechem and the temple on it became the focus of religious life,” (oxfordbilbiographies.com).
According to the parable, a Good Samaritan is someone who shows mercy and compassion on their fellow man. A Good Samaritan is one who loves his neighbor as himself or herself. Jesus commands us to be like the Good Samaritan in the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:37).
Good Samaritans Examples in the Bible
The Bible is filled with a wealth of stories of Good Samaritans who have shown merciful kindness toward their fellow man. A harlot named Rahab hid two Israelite spies who were sent to Jericho by Joshua to spy out the land. She showed kindness to them by keeping them from getting caught and killed by the King of Jericho’s men. “And the woman took the two men and hid them,” (Joshua 2:4). “But she had brought them up to the roof of the house, and hid them with the stalks of flax, which she had laid in order upon the roof,” (Joshua 2:6). Once it was safe for the spies to go; she told them to hide in the mountain for three days until the men pursuing them returned back home (Johsua 2: 15-16).
A second example of a Good Samaritan in the Bible is the Shunamite Woman spoken of in 2 Kings chapter 4. Whenever the prophet Elisha would pass through the land of Shunem, this Shunamite woman and her husband would open up their home to him to feed him and give him a safe place to rest.
“And she said unto her husband, behold now I perceive that this is an holy man of God, which passeth by us continually. Let us make a little chamber, I pray thee, on the wall; and let us set for him there a bed and a table, and a stool, and a candlestick: and it shall be, when he cometh to us, that he shall turn in thither,” (2 Kings 4:9-10). Jesus commands us to be merciful to others like the Good Samaritan.
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