- Jan 25, 2009
- 19,765
- 1,428
- Faith
- Oriental Orthodox
- Marital Status
- Private
- Politics
- US-Others
Because being able to intelligently engage with culture is often helpful in our administration of the good news of the kingdom.
Blessings,
Ben
Thank you for noting such, sir...
And on the issue, to be clear, I think that many times we fail to understand that the issue of racisim is not something that has EVER gone away.....though it has more than gone UNDERCOVER in many respects---and for those experiencing such, like the many black families who've gotten alot of grief from others offended they'd raise white babies, it's something we cannot act as if it's not an issue.
And to be clear, even for the Lord Jesus, racism was not an issue that He could afford to be "undercover" and act as if it was no issue.
Luke 10
The Parable of the Good Samaritan
25On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
26“What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
27He answered: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’[c]; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[d]“
28“You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
29But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. 35The next day he took out two silver coins[e] and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’
36“Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” 37The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”
Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
The Parable of the Good Samaritan
25On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
26“What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
27He answered: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’[c]; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[d]“
28“You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
29But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. 35The next day he took out two silver coins[e] and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’
36“Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” 37The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”
Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
…..because it’s much more easier to talk about the Lord within the realm of our OWN CULTURES than outside of it…
Regarding treating all people the same, something I've always found intriguing is the fact that Jesus always used parables with Samaratans to illustrate MANY POWERFUL points....and rightly so.
For example, there was a deep hatred that existed between the Jews and the Samaritans. The Jews saw themselves as pure descendents of Abraham, while the Samaratans were a mixed race produced when THE Jews from the northern kingdom intermarried with other peoples imported from other nations by the King of Assyria after the exile in order to keep peace (II Kings 17:24)
Moving on, the Jews in the southern kingdom considered Samaratins to be “IMPURE”RACIALLY/refused to recieve help from, even during the rebuilding/return from EXILE.
Thus the pure Jews hated this mixed race because they felt that their fellow Jews who had intermarried had betrayed their people/nation…….and the Samaratins had set up an alternate center for worship on Mount Gerizim to parallel the temple at Jerusalem, but it had been destroyed 150 YEARS earlier.
… For more info, go check out II Kings 17/2 Kings 17, Ezra 4 , Nehemiah 2 , Nehemiah 4.)……
Starting to see some parallels toward today, where one race was forced to do something to the other race’s detriment and how it embittered them for life???
BUT RELATIONS BETWEEN THE TWO GROUPS GOT PROGRESSIVELY WORSE, even into Jesus’s Day (and hence, the reason WHY JESUS CHOSE TO HAVE A SAMARATIN BE THE HERO of HIS STORY, as he would’ve been the person least suspected by a Jew to be worthy/capable of anything good)…..and moreover, the reason why JESUS HIMSELF WAS INTENTIONAL ABOUT MINISTERING TO SAMARATANS.
John 4
Jesus Talks With a Samaritan Woman
1The Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John, 2although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. 3When the Lord learned of this, he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.
4Now he had to go through Samaria. 5So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
7When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.[a])
10Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
11″Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?”
13Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
15The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
16He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
17″I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
19″Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
21Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”
25The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
26Then Jesus declared, “I who speak to you am he.”
The Disciples Rejoin Jesus
27Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”
28Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29″Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” 30They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
<B>
31Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”
32But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”
33Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”
34″My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 35Do you not say, ‘Four months more and then the harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. 36Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. 37Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. 38I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”
Many Samaritans Believe
39Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” 40So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41And because of his words many more became believers.
42They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”
</B>
This is the same thing seen today in principle—where people refuse to actually do things that’d be EASY/BENEFICIAL and choose to take the harder way *(though in their minds, because there are racial issues that one doesn’t wish to deal with because of the humility/willingness to work it’d require), they’re cool with it….and actually come to see their actions as QUITE PROPER
As many churches say, “Well, it’s best to keep things seperate between our churches…..they have their culture and we have ours…….and we’re all serving Christ!!!!…….yet the SEPERATION/DISUNITY CONTINUES TO FESTER and we’re so used to it that we no longer see it as an issue…..
Jesus, however, DID NOT LIVE BY SUCH RESTRICTIONS…THE ROUTE THROUGH SAMARIA WAS SHORTER, and that was the ROUTE HE TOOK….why take a harder route for the sake of RACE when it’d be more sensible to take the one where you’re actually forced to deal with it but it’s more beneficial in the long run?
When He talked with the woman at the well, many people forget that the woman was known to be living in sin….and was a Samaratan. NO RESPECTABLE JEWISH MAN would talk to a woman under such circumstances…….
But JESUS DID……..FOR THE GOSPEL IS FOR EVERY PERSON, NO MATTER WHAT HIS OR HER RACE IS, or social position, or past sins……..JESUS CROSSED ALL BARRIERS TO SHARE THE GOSPEL AND WE WHO FOLLOW HIM MUST DO NO LESS. Sticking with our own sub-culture cannot be tolerated….
Last edited:
Upvote
0