Who Is My Neighbor?

The story of the Good Samaritan answers the question of "Who is my neighbor?" An expert in the law asks Jesus this question and Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan. The parable is found in Luke 10:25-37. Read the story and here are five lessons I think we can learn from this parable as we think about who our neighbor is in the 21st Century.

1. My neigbhor is more than just my own family and more than just my own church.
2. I can't let my religious duty and ritual become more important than loving my neighbor.
3. Being a Christian is more about what I do for my neighbor than what I know about the Bible.
4. It is altogether to easy to miss opportunities of loving my neighbor because of apathy, selfishness, religious elitism, prejudice, and busy schedules.
5. Loving my neighbor involves commitment, risk, sacrfice, and action.

Being a Christian and being the church is about helping those who are in need--by loving my neighbor. My neighbor is anyone that has a need. This is by far more impotant than how often I go to church, or how much Bible knowledge I have. Paul said, If I speak in human or angelic tongues, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body‹to hardship› that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Loving my neighbor is the answer to the question, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?"