Worldview of a Samaritan

Aug 10

A priest, a Levite, and a Samaritan were out on a walk one day. No this is not some joke I’m about to tell you. It’s from the parable Jesus told called “The Good Samaritan” in Luke 10:25-37.

So the priest, Levite, and Samaritan came upon a man who was robbed, beaten, and left for dead.

When the priest saw this man laying on the side of the road, he barely even turned his head as he walked on by on THE OTHER side of the road. He didn’t even want to see if the man was indeed dead and got as far away from him as he could. This guy wasn’t important enough to him. The priest’s business, and where he was going, was more important to him. So, he carried on forward.

Next came the Levite. A Levite is from the tribe of Levi. This is one of the 12 tribes of Israel. Their tribe’s duty was to be a priest for the nation of Israel. This was a calling and job based on their designated Israeli tribe. So as he walked by the man on the side of the road, he did a very same thing to what the Priest before him did. He went out of his way to go on the completely far side of the road to stay away from this hurt man. The Levite’s business, his comfort, and where he was going was more important than helping.

Now before we go to the next guy let me mention that in the book of Leviticus, there were very detailed instructions, laws, to the Israelites. They were not to touch a dead body or they would be considered unclean for a certain time. And they would not be allowed to interact with others. The priest and the Levite did not want to help this man on the side of the road in case he was dead. So they decided to leave him alone, go about their business, maintain their purity, and not disrupt their comfortable existence. There’s nothing wrong with being pure, however the man on the side of the road needed some help.

Lastly, a Samaritan walked by. You see, in Israel’s history there was a time where they were exiled to Babylon. Almost all of them were removed from the nation of Israel and taken to Babylon by the Assyrians. Those who stayed behind intermarried with some of the other people in the area. This created the Samaritans. Those other people didn’t serve God, Yahweh, as the Israelites did. So naturally they didn’t worship in Jerusalem or considered Jerusalem anything holy, set apart to be a place of worship. About 60 years later, after the Israelites returned from Babylon, they stayed away from the Samaritan people and disassociated from them all together. They were called Gentiles and Jews never associated with Gentiles.

So this Samaritan guy sees the robbed and beaten man, takes pity on him, and helps him. He didn’t worry about being considered impure because he was already considered impure by all the Israelites. He didn’t care about that anyway. He saw someone in need and he helped him. It didn’t matter who he was, where he was from, what he looked like, what happened to him previously in his life, or anything else.

The Good Samaritan is about a worldview of unconditional love and grace.

A worldview is how we see others and things in the world around us. It is how we perceive everything and everyone we encounter and establish our opinion or beliefs.

What influences our worldview are experiences, people, places, cultures, influencers, books we read, movies we watch, podcasts and music we listen to, faith doctrines we explore, and so on.

The message Jesus wanted to convey when he told the parable of the Good Samaritan was a worldview shift.

He doesn't want us to maintain the worldview held by others as the standard to base our opinions or beliefs. He wants the standard for our worldview to be God.

Jesus wants us to love God, and love our neighbors. Who is our neighbor? What does loving them look like?

It looks like what the Good Samaritan did. He picked up the hurt man, put in the back seat of his Tesla, brought him to the nearest Marriot, paid for him to stay there for a few days as he rested and recovered, and told the hotel manager that if any other expenses need to be made to restore this man to full health, that he would pay that bill when he returned.

This hurt man didn’t need to do anything to be healed, recovered, and restored. It was done for him. This is what Jesus has done for us and wants us to do for others.

When we have a worldview shift of this magnitude, we do what we need to do for the sake of others, even if it means we lose some of our own comfort to show love to someone, despite who they are, what they look like, what they’ve done, what political party they attach themselves to, what religion they believe in, or where they’ve come from.

To love our neighbors does not come with a caveat, designator, or disclaimer.

That’s a worldview shift.