Tonight I was leading a group at church studying the Gospel of Luke. We were discussing the parable of the Good Samaritan and I was encouraging everyone to look for more in the story than the traditional "morality play" presented in Sunday School and VBS.
That's when we all had an "ah-hah" moment, courtesy of some observations by Scott M. He said that as he was reviewing this very familiar scripture before class he asked himself why the Samaritan in the story was traveling on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. That is a long way from Samaria. The Samaritan was in hostile territory, given the traditional enmity between the Samaritans and the Jews. What was he doing there?
Then it occured to him: Jesus is the Samaritan in the parable.
Jesus was a stranger--the son of God--in a hostile enviornment. He reaches out in compassion to the man in need of rescue when the religious people ignored him. Notice that the man's nationality isn't identified. We don't know whether he was a Jew, a Roman, a Greek or fellow Samaritan, which emphasizes that Jesus came to save both Jews and Gentiles. The Samaritan in the story saves the injured man and purchases his well-being by paying the innkeeper. Similarly, Jesus purchased our salvation with his blood on the cross.
What do YOU think? Could Jesus be the Samaritan?
That's the beauty of parable, eh?
ReplyDeleteSounds good. You've convinced me. :)
ReplyDeleteWe are supposed to imitate the Good Samaritan. And are we not supposed to imitate Christ?
Works for me.
AND, my favorite part-- we are all the beat-up guy in the ditch. This interpretation of the parable has been made popular by liberation theologians, especially in South and Central America.
ReplyDeleteDang, Becky. Scott thought he was being original! I guess that's impossible, though.
ReplyDeletewhat was interesting about it is that this interp was the first response by rural South American "peasants" who had never been exposed to the Bible before. The book that talks about this is called "Reading the Bible Through Third World Eyes". Ask your knowledgable clergyfolk about this one.
ReplyDeleteGREAT thought :)
ReplyDeleteI've never thought about it that way before and it's a good way to understand the story at a deeeper level.
I would encourage you to read the book "Unlocking the Prophecy Codes" by Bryan Cutshall. He speaks about the same thing. And even goes further as to describing who the "certain man", the "certain preist", and the "certain levite" was. The certain man resembles Adam, the certain preist resembles Moses, and the certain Levite resembles Aaron. And you are correct in determining that Christ is the Samaritan. I find it awesome how He used this parable to satisfy the "lawyer" in this passage with a face value answer, but yet left a hidden prophetic layer in this parable for us to find.
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