Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Prayer Meeting Lesson Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/pm/pm19980527.htm

LUKE: GOSPEL OF CERTIFYING THE CHRISTIAN FAITH
Part XXXVIII: The Credibility Of Christianity Seen In Christ's Call For Unlimited Neighborliness
(Luke 10:25-37 with Judges 19-20)
  1. Introduction
    1. Most religions promote the welfare of the people within their group with a token care for those outside.
    2. However, a true faith from the true God and Creator of all men should be much broader and deeper.
    3. Luke reveals to the credibility of the Christian faith the intensive accountability a believer in Christ is charged to have toward all men in the world around them as follows:
  2. The Credibility Of Christianity Seen In Christ's Call For Unlimited Neighborliness, Luke 10:25-37.
    1. An expert in the Old Testament designated as a "lawyer", tried to test Jesus by a question, Luke 10:25a.
    2. He asked what he could perform (poieo) to gain eternal life, Luke 10:25b.
    3. Since the Law was designed to condemn man of his sinfulness, and since the lawyer had not yet come to see his own helplessness, Jesus responded with His own question of the Law's requirements, Luke 10:26.
    4. The man properly answered that the Law demanded love for God and for one's neighbor as himself, 27-28.
    5. Having anticipated Jesus' reply, the lawyer tried to entrap Christ, asking who was his neighbor, Lk. 10:29:
      1. When God had told the Hebrew people that they were to be separate from the sins of the Gentiles, they came to distort this view of separation as a prideful form of justified hate for the ungodly around them.
      2. Accordingly, one's neighbor, a godly Jew, was to be loved, but the ungodly were to be hated.
      3. Thus, the Pharisees debated who was a neighbor and who was not a neighbor and thus one to be hated.
    6. Jesus' response to this second question annihilates the debate to show we must love all men as follows:
      1. Jesus told a story of a man who traveled from Jerusalem to Jericho only to be abused by robbers, 10:30.
      2. Christ relayed how a priest and then a Levite passed by the half-dead man without giving any aid, 31-32
      3. In view of the Biblical history and culture of the area that the lawyer with whom Jesus spoke had full knowledge, this lack of caring by these to men who were Levites would have been quite horrible:
        1. The road from Jerusalem to Jericho lies in the tribal boundaries of Benjamin, Ryr. S.B., KJV map #4.
        2. Centuries before, in the days of the Judges, a Levite traveling through Benjamin territory was treated unsociably so that a sojourning, elderly man from Ephraem had to house him. Then his concubine was ravaged to death by Benjamites, bringing on the wrath of a nation and leading to war, Ju. 19-20.
        3. Thus, two men who were Levites are presented as ignoring the needs of an abused man in the very area where the lawyer to whom Jesus spoke knew full well that a Levite had once been himself badly wro nged, and which event had brought out the wrath of a whole nation in behalf of the Levite and his concubine. Thus, the Levites in Jesus' parable were heartless in not returning their obliged favor for what a whole nation had done in behalf of one of their own wronged long before!
      4. When Jesus told that a Samaritan stopped to help the man, this further greatly showed up the Levites:
        1. First, the road to Jericho was a way to avoid Samaria, so a Samaritan was going out of his way even to be on such this road from Jerusalem to Jericho! (Luke 10:33-35)
        2. Second, Samaria is in the midst of the ancient tribal boundary of Ephraem, the same region from which the ancient sojourning man in Benjamin had hailed when he had housed the ancient Levite, Ju. 19:16. Thus, Jesus further hammered home the thankless insensitivity of the two heartless Levites!
      5. Thus, if a whole nation that was not the immediate neighbor of the ancient Levite was moved to go to war over an atrocity done to him and his concubine , the least the priest and Levite in Jesus' parable owed to a half-dead, abused fellow Jew in the same region was to stop and help him!
      6. When Jesus asked the lawyer who was the neighbor of the three, he dared not say anything but that the man who had helped the abused man was that neighbor, Luke 10:36-37a.
      7. Accordingly, Jesus concluded that the lawyer should do the same, using the deep sense of responsibility to all men that is often aroused when a horrible abuse occurs to an innocent party, Lk. 10:37b.
Lesson: According to Jesus, the supportiveness that is roused for ANYONE in the WORLD that we hear undergoes a terribly abusive act by another, even if that person does not live right next door to us is the sense of neighborliness that Christians m ust ALWAYS have for ALL men! Accordingly, this high sense of neighborliness is evidence for the credibility of Christianity being the way of the true God.