From a practical point of view, in the parable of the Good Samaritan, the most important thing is the distinction between what the scribe, who asks Christ about eternal life, understands by the word "neighbor," and what the Lord Himself understands...
From a practical point of view, in the parable of the Good Samaritan, the most important thing is the distinction between what the scribe, who asks Christ about eternal life, understands by the word "neighbor," and what the Lord Himself understands. The scribe, quite in the spirit of ordinary human thinking, considers a neighbor to be the person who stands in a certain relationship to us. He expects in response a word that would belong in the same category as the concepts of "relative, friend, neighbor, fellow countryman, coreligionist." The necessity of helping those who are near us is repeatedly spoken of in the Holy Scriptures of both the New and, especially, the Old Testament.
It must be said that the position of the Old Testament law on this issue is quite exalted; it requires doing good to everyone, from relatives to refugees, whom it calls strangers in our land. And yet, the Old Testament consciousness does not differ in this from the mindset of all people. It assumes the existence of ever-widening concentric circles of people who are located closer or further from oneself. In the proper sense of the word, a person, including an Old Testament person, considers relatives and friends as neighbors. We are ready to treat them with all goodwill, even with love. "Do not even the Gentiles do the same?" asks the Lord ( 5:47).
However, the Old Testament, compared to pagan beliefs and customs, significantly expands this circle. Not only relatives and neighbors, but also completely unknown fellow countrymen must be considered neighbors. Even a slave and a disenfranchised stranger are also human beings, therefore you must treat them humanely, that is, as your neighbors. Thus, the Old Testament brings the answer to the question: "who is my neighbor" to its limit: "any person who happens to be nearby."
The Lord, however, concludes the parable of the Good Samaritan with a counter-question to the scribe: "Which of these three proved neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers" ( 10:36). The Synodal translation in this verse is somewhat approximate. The Greek text contains not the verb "to be", but the verb "to become,
to be born, to be made". The Lord is saying that you became a neighbor to a person because he
is in need of your help.
It is not a matter of a relationship of closeness or kinship, but of a relationship of need
for another person. Moreover, He emphatically reverses the concept: it is not that the one who
fell among robbers became a neighbor to one of the three travelers — this would be quite in the
spirit of the Old Testament; on the contrary, one of them became a neighbor to him. Thus, at the
center of the circles defining the concept of "neighbor," the Lord places not you, but the
other, the one who needs you. A neighbor, therefore, is not the one to whom you would like to
give something. A neighbor is not even the one to whom you could give something. A neighbor is
the one who needs you.
And here it is important to remember how the Apostle Paul calls those who have believed "fellow
citizens with the saints and members of the household of God" ( 2:19).
We become neighbors to God because we need Him. And He invites us to define a neighbor exactly
as He Himself does, that is, to follow His path, to be like Him.
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2:12 Were at that time without Christ - Having no faith in, or knowledge of, him. Being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel - Both as to their temporal privileges and spiritual blessings. And strangers to the covenants of promise - The great promise in both the Jewish and Christian covenant was the Messiah. Having no hope - Because they had no promise whereon to ground their hope. And being without God - Wholly ignorant of the true God, and so in effect atheists. Such in truth are, more or less, all men, in all ages, till they know God by the teaching of his own Spirit. In the world - The wide, vain world, wherein ye wandered up and down, unholy and unhappy.
2:13 Far off - From God and his people. Nigh - Intimately united to both.
2:14 For he is our peace - Not only as he purchased it, but as he is the very bond and centre of union. He who hath made both - Jews and gentiles, one church. The apostle describes,
- The conjunction of the gentiles with Israel, Eph 2:14-15. And,
- The conjunction of both with God, Eph 2:15-18.
Each description is subdivided into two parts. And the former part of the one, concerning abolishing the enmity, answers the former part of the other; the latter part of the one, concerning the evangelical decrees, the latter part of the other. And hath broken down the middle wall of partition - Alluding to that wall of old, which separated the court of Israel from the court of the gentiles. Such a wall was the ceremonial law, which Christ had now taken away.2:15 Having abolished by his suffering in the flesh the cause of enmity between the Jews and gentiles, even the law of ceremonial commandments, through his decrees - Which offer mercy to all; see Col 2:14.That he might form the two - Jew and gentile. Into one new man - one mystical body.
2:16 In one body - One church. Having slain - By his own death on the cross. The enmity - Which had been between sinners and God.
2:17 And he came - After his resurrection. And preached peace - By his ministers and his Spirit. To you - Gentiles. That were afar off - At the utmost distance from God. And to them that were nigh - To the Jews, who were comparatively nigh, being his visible church.
2:18 For through him, we both - Jews and gentiles. Have access - Liberty of approaching, by the guidance and aid of one Spirit toGod as our Father. Christ, the Spirit, and the Father, the three - one God, stand frequently in the same order.
2:19 Therefore ye are no longer strangers, but citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem; no longer foreigners, but received into the very family of God.
2:20 And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets - As the foundation sustains the building, so the word of God, declaredby the apostles and prophets, sustains the faith of all believers.God laid the foundation by them; but Christ himself is the chief corner - stone of the foundation. Elsewhere he is termed the foundation itself, Co1 3:11.
2:21 On whom all the building fitly framed together - The whole fabric of the universal church rises up like a great pile of living materials.Into an holy temple in the Lord - Dedicated to Christ, and inhabited by him, in which he displays his presence, and is worshipped and glorified.What is the temple of Diana of the Ephesians, whom ye formerly worshipped, to this?