brokenredeemed

Happy fall, ya’ll! We have had a busy September. We spent a week in Orlando for our first big family trip ever and had so much fun that we had to take an extra week off from homeschool to recover, lol. My hubby and I helped out with worship for a church outreach when we got back, and now we’re prepping for another in October. Our nation faced some hard situations while we were in Orlando. Thankfully, we were too busy to spend much time on social media because I, for one, didn’t want to go down that rabbit hole. But the situation stayed heavy on my heart as we went about our days.

We have the One Year Bible for Children, which we’ve been reading with our littles before bed, and the other night, we read about the parable of the Good Samaritan. I couldn’t help but feel it was a reminder to us in our current atmosphere. I’ve written about this parable before, years ago, which you can find here. But I remember last year when I read through the Bible chronologically, I finally noticed how the Samaritans came to be, which brings new insight to the parable.

When the Israelites turned from God and the Assyrians defeated the Northern Jewish nation of Israel, they deported the survivors and resettled the land with their own colonists. However, 2 Kings 17 states that the colonists were attacked by lions which killed some of them, and the people went to the king of Assyria and complained that they didn’t know the god of the land, and therefore, they were being killed. So the king sent back one of the Hebrew priests that they’d carried off, so that he could teach them how to live and fear the Lord; but the people still worshipped their own gods, in addition to the Lord. Over time, the people intermarried with the Jews, but continued to worship, both Yahweh, and false gods.

So, when Jesus spoke of the Samaritans, He spoke of a people who weren’t considered part of the nation of Israel. They were enemy outsiders who intermarried with the Jews and didn’t worship God alone. Thus, the Jews of Jesus’s time rejected them.

When the Samaritan man in the parable, in Luke 10:25-37, is the only one to help the injured man, it said something about the faith of the Jewish leaders. They may have had strict adherence to the Law, and prided themselves in that, but they missed God’s heart. The Samaritan was being applauded for his compassion to someone who most likely would not have returned the favor; Jesus wanted Israel to have this same compassion. He desires us to have this compassionate heart, as well.

I recently finished the book of Genesis and decided to head to the New Testament for a little while, so I’ve been reading the book of John. Lo and behold, in chapter 4, Jesus meets with a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well in Sychar (which was the land near Schechem that Jacob had purchased in Genesis 33:18-20, and then willed to Joseph upon his death).

As I read this, this time around, I noticed that Jesus stayed in this region for two days teaching the Samaritans. A group of people that was usually avoided by the Hebrews and seen as less-than, but Christ saw as harvest ripe for the picking! I immediately thought, “who are our Samaritans?” Who are those we avoid, because we think they’re too…I don’t know..too far-gone, too worldly, sinful? You fill in the blank. Because the Truth of the matter is, there’s no such thing! God calls us to preach the Good News to all! It doesn’t matter their outward appearance. It doesn’t matter their skin color or nationality. It doesn’t matter what their political stance is. Angry, scared, frustrated, misunderstood, confused, rich, or poor…NONE OF IT MATTERS. The only thing that matters are souls; and there are souls that are seeking something real, and we have the keys (Matthew 16:19)!

Anyways, I feel like this was a long post in the making, since I started it last month and finished towards the end of November. But when I started reading John 4, I realized why I was so drawn to the parable in Luke, and why I needed to share the background info for the Samaritans. There are people looking for something to hope in and we serve a God who is our everlasting Hope. We can’t keep Him to ourselves. He died for the world, so that all men would be saved through Him.

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because He has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

~ John 3:16-18, ESV

Thanks for sticking with me until the end. Now go forth and preach the Gospel in truth, love, and grace!