LOVING YOUR NEIGHBOUR
LESSON FOR JUNIORS
Study Scripture: Luke 10
Lesson 7 October 17, 2020
Key Verse
“Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbour to the man who fell into the robbers’ hands? And he said, “The one who showed mercy toward him”. Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do the same” .
Luke 10: 36-37
INTRODUCTION
The word compassion is a word which means tenderness of heart, a feeling in your stomach which makes you want to help others, especially when they are in any kind of difficulty.
This tenderness of feeling for others is something that God has made and placed inside us. We will be able to show this when we learn about and obey the commandment of God which says:
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy soul and heart and mind and thy neighbour as thyself”.
With this command from God comes the reward of eternal life to those who love and obey God. Eternal life is a special kind of life where we are with God in an extremely close relationship with Him and because of that we are free from any kind of difficulty or any kind of problem that we go through while we are living on earth.
To have eternal life from God therefore as a gift one is given when we love God and therefore do things to show that we loved God. You would have to show compassion for other people and treat them well for you also loved them as God loved us.
Our Lesson teaches these things about what God likes.
A highly educated teacher came to Jesus and asked Him how he could get eternal life and Jesus reminded him that all he had to do was to follow the Commandment of God which said that he should love God with all his heart and soul and mind and strength and he should love his neighbour as himself. The man agreed but then the man went on to ask Jesus to tell him who was his neighbour. It would seem that he did not love his neighbour as himself and was not full of compassion and tender feelings to others as God had commanded.
This man had a wrong idea about who was his neighbour for he seemed to have thought that only the people of his nation, those in his class and position who were as educated and influential as he was could be called his neighbour. So Jesus had to correct him. He did this by telling a story in the form of a parable to teach the man important lessons. Some will tell you that a parable is a story using things or practices that happen on earth but which had a heavenly meaning, telling you about behaviours that God wanted man to have.
The story Jesus told was about a Jewish man that was traveling along a dangerous and rocky road where robbers would sometimes hide behind rocks and then when they saw somebody coming they would run out, beat up the person badly, and take away everything they had, down to their very clothes, leaving them naked and many times close to dying.
A priest, who in those days would be somewhat like the minister is in our church, had been carrying out official duties in the Temple in Jerusalem. He knew what God had commanded. He knew very well that God said that one should have compassion on those that were in need and that one should help them. But instead of doing that when he saw the poor man lying beaten and naked and close to death in the road, he went over to the other side of the road and passed by the poor man. Even though his job was to teach the people the Commandments of God and to provide a good example by what he did, he thought that other things were more important for him to do than meeting the needs of people and showing compassion to them as God had commanded.
And shortly after this bad behaviour by the priest a man from the tribe of Levi, who had the responsibility of working in the Temple and also teaching the people the Commandments of God, came along and saw the half dead man lying on the side of the road, and he also crossed to the other side of the road and went on his way, totally ignoring the wounded and helpless man. He also knew better than that but he didn’t care to show any compassion.
We are sure that the people listening to Jesus must have gotten very angry at the behaviour of the priest and the Levite and condemned them outright. They would have been loud in their condemnation. These two of all people should have known better. They were always telling people what God wanted them to do, but they had no interest in doing what they were teaching.
They would be asking themselves what would happen now to this half dead man? If the priest or the Levite did not want to help who else could possibly turn up to help?
But Jesus now shocked everybody by saying that along came a Samaritan, a person from a group of people that the people of Israel hated and had over the years fought many wars with them. They had always condemned the Samaritans and said they were going to hell because they did not believe the right things about God.
Nobody listening to Jesus thought that this Samaritan would stop to help this half-dead Jewish man that had been beaten and almost killed by the robbers. If that wounded man was in his right mind and in okay shape he would never have wanted to even talk to the Samaritan man. He would have hated him so much.
But note that Jesus said that this Samaritan stopped, looked at the man, saw that he was in great need of help, was filled with compassion, felt sorry for him, and in his heart he could not leave the man in that sad state.
He went over to the man, put some oil and wine which they used as a kind of antiseptic and healing medicine on his wounds, bandaged the man taking off some of his clothes, using his own clothes, put the man on his donkey for the man could not walk, and walked with him to an inn or local motel and took care of the sick man that night, paying for the room. This Samaritan paid the innkeeper some money and then told the innkeeper to take care of the man and when he returned he would pay him the balance that was owed to him for taking care of the wounded man.
Note that was certainly love, the kind of love that God had commanded we should show to others. God wants all of us to treat others the way that we would like them to treat us.
So Jesus then asked the teacher or lawyer or learned man the question in our Key Verse:
“So which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”
The lawyer answered:
“The one who showed mercy unto him”.
You can be sure this prejudiced teacher or lawyer was shocked and would have under his breath quietly answered and gave that answer to Jesus. So to the shocked crowd, once Jesus got that answer that showing mercy was the right thing to always do, Jesus told the teacher and lawyer and the crowd you are to go and do the same as the Samaritan had done to this wounded half- dead man. You are to love others as you love yourself, and want others to do to you what you have done to them.
The Lesson for us is that we should act like the Good Samaritan and treat everyone we meet as our neighbour. Our neighbour is really anyone that needs our help. So remember we have a lot of neighbours. We should honour the Word of God and follow the Commandment of God to love our neighbour.