AND WHO IS MY NEIGHBOUR? - PART 3

TUESDAY 29 APRIL 2025

If you want to keep your memory fresh about knowing who your neighbour is, and about being a neighbour to someone, seek for and identify with Christ's wisdom so evident in the parable of the Good Samaritan, which is remarkably worthy of attentional recognition and is considered as that which you can never really find as man's definition. More below!

Reference: Luke 10:29 New International Version (NIV)

"But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, 'And who is my neighbour?"'

And who is my neighbour?

To answer this question accurately, the Lord Jesus replied the expert in the law with a parable: "A Jewish man was traveling from Jerusalem down to Jericho, and he was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him up, and left him half dead beside the road."

3 different kinds of people passed through the same road, where the Jewish man was stripped, beaten and battered, and was eventually left half dead, to the point of being helpless.

The first two persons were considered as operating in a self-centered manner, although I treat the parable as partly retrospective, because in recent times, many a person will swiftly respond to such from the standpoint of calling out an ambulance to deal with the emergency or carrying out basic first aid, if they came across an injured person unconscious on the ground, while others may continue their journey in the same pathway without being considered as bad neighbours.

Now what is the identity of the first person that went down the same road? He was identified as a Priest. So by chance a priest came along. But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by, which seemed like an issue of negligence.

When it comes to this priest, the Bible didn't tell us the kind of priest the person was. At least we know that it wasn't a priestess. But was he a fetish priest? Was Jesus making reference to a pagan priest, or call it - that of Gentiles? Was he a Jewish priest, particularly in the context of the Levitical priesthood?

From an inner perception, I'm trawling to ascertain the nature of that priest, in order to avoid our exposure to any knowledge that threatens our Priestly status quo as born again Christians. That means, we want to be introduced to the "right" knowledge regarding the priest's self-image, even though it sounded like Jesus revealed his inward and outward foibles, which is in contrast to our royal priesthood's character.

In this day and age, people like to gravitate toward what is safe, and mostly, they tend to avoid getting involved in something they don't understand, especially when they sense danger. Could it be that the Priest sensed a danger when he saw the assaulted man, and then decided to angle across to the other side, because he assumed that the bandits were waiting for their next victim [bearing in mind that the incident was still fresh]? Could it be that he was very reluctant to recognize the lash out on the helpless man, which would be attributed to an attitudinal problem? Stay tuned for part 4. Shalom!

Scripture Reading - 2 Samuel 22:28; Isaiah 49:13; 2 Corinthians 1:6; Isaiah 53:9.

Guided Prayer:

Gracious Father in heaven, I thank you for granting me the ability to be a good neighbour to the one in dire need of my help, and to always experience your neighbouring influence through the enabling power of the Spirit in Jesus' Name, Amen.