Part 1 (verses 25-29)
On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
"What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?"
He answered: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"
"You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live."
But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"
The question posed is spiritual not biological. The lawyer has asked about aionios zoe - soul without beginning or end - in the original Greek.
The lawyer and Jesus agree on the essential requirements. Both know the fundamentals of the law set out in the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy.
But being tendentious in the way that lawyers and those religiously inclined often are - and perhaps a bit of a show-off as well - the lawyer asks a crucial follow-on, "And who is my neighbor?" More literally, the Greek asks, "And who is near to me?"
At the core of Jesus' message is love of God and neighbor. In the New Testament Greek we are to agapao: to welcome, to entertain, to be fond of, to love dearly. In the Hebrew of Deuteronomy, we are to 'ahab: to hunger after, seek out as a friend, and be intimate with.
In answering who is our neighbor, Jesus tells us of the Good Samaritan.
No comments:
Post a Comment