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Oct 3, 2022Liked by Phillip Hadden, Jonathon Fessenden, Lexis Challen

This is a good article, and a reminder to extend christian charity--neighborliness--to all whom we encounter.

However, I would like to suggest an alternative reading. This was one of the first things I discussed in my own newsletter, as this is a passage I enjoy contemplating.

When Christ tells the story of the good Samaritan, he puts us in the position not of the Samaritan but of the jew in the ditch. This fits with the explanation given at the end, that our neighbor is “the one who shewed mercy”. Neighborliness is *not* universal by this reading, but it can be in practice the way you describe. In answer to the question “who is my neighbor” i would say “those who help us”. If we were to flip this and ask “who am I neighbor to” it would be “those whom i help”.

Both of these are smaller subsets than “be neighbor to everybody” and of we take time to really think about who helps us, and who we have helped, we can see the tangible boundaries of our community. Honest contemplation of this will probably yield some surprises.

But Christ takes this a step further by specifically using the Samaritan, whom first century Jews hated with a deeply rooted and not unjustified resentment. We CAN be neighbor to anybody, even though not everybody will be neighbor to us. If we want to build bridges of neighborliness, it involves reaching out to people in our lives, perhaps people who hate us (as the Jews hated Samaritans) and helping them.

Thank you as always for this reflection! God bless you!

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Oct 3, 2022Liked by Jonathon Fessenden, Lexis Challen

This is so true, and in this day age when Christians are being persecuted and attacked even in the USA, we must show that we not only believe in loving our neighbor, we must actualy live it. Instead teaching and sharing our faith thru criticism and in negative ways, we should teach loving first and foremost God(God always comes first) and loving our neighbor. Share our faith by teaching and living love!

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