NEVER BEFORE had I seen strangers, like the Samaritan, so eager to help others in times of need.
THE BOOK OF LUKE says that a certain lawyer tested Jesus, asking, "Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" When Jesus threw the question back to him and asked the man what he thought the answer might be, the lawyer responded by saying that Jewish law stated, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy mind; and thy soul and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself." The lawyer then asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbour?" In reply, Jesus told the man a parable—the parable of the good Samaritan (see Luke 10:25-37). Today, even thousands of years later, this story has given me such inspiration.
Jesus started the parable by introducing us to a man who was traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. On his way down, thieves attacked him and left him on the road half dead, stripped of all his clothes. As he lay there, a priest and a Levite passed by on the opposite side of the road, not helping the stranger. But then a Samaritan man came. When he saw the injured man, he went over to him and helped him; he cleaned the man's wound, set him on his donkey, and took him to an inn. As the Samaritan left the next day, he told the innkeeper, "Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee" (Luke 10:35).
