Michael Maardt, written shortly before Christmas 2022
What did Jesus actually say?
The Good Samaritan
Luke, chapter 10
Then a lawyer [or scribe] stood up to test Jesus and asked him, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?”
The man answered, “You shall 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 your neighbor as yourself.”
Jesus said, “You have answered correctly. Do this, and you will live.”
But the expert in the law wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbour?’
Jesus replied, ‘A man was travelling from Jerusalem down to Jericho when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes and beat him, then left him half dead. By chance, a priest came along that road; he saw the man but passed by. So did a Levite who came to the spot; he too saw him and passed by.
But a Samaritan [a geographical area, but also a group of people], who was travelling, came to him, and he took pity on him when he saw him. He went over and poured oil and wine on his wounds and bandaged them, lifted him onto his own mount and took him to an inn and looked after him.
The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper and said:
“Look after him, and whatever else you spend, I will pay you back when I return.”
Which of these three do you think was ‘a neighbour’ to him [my emphasis, note the word TO (dative)], who fell into the hands of the robbers?
The expert in the law replied, ‘The one who showed him mercy.’
And Jesus said, ‘Go and do likewise!’
[end of the parable]
So who is your ‘neighbour’?
The so-called Christian church fathers and rulers, who misused Jesus’ words and deeds to create an oppressive pseudo-religion called Christianity, have grossly distorted and perverted this parable. They have led the ‘believers’ to believe that ALL other people are ‘your neighbour’. Nonsense. Jesus affirms the lawyer who replies: ‘The one who showed him mercy.’ Or to put it another way:
Your neighbour is the one who has helped you.
I have received comments from some who either ‘do not understand’ or ‘disagree’, so I shall try to clarify. Jesus asks: “Which of these three do you think was ‘a neighbour’ to him who fell into the hands of robbers?”. The victim is the one who fell into the hands of the robbers. To use metaphors from links on the internet or relationships in relational databases: Jesus points FROM the victim TOWARDS the helper, saying ‘a neighbour FOR him’, NOT the other way round, as the pseudo-Christian interpretation does.
The English King James Bible says the same: ‘unto him’ – “Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?”
It is conceivable that certain beings have tampered with Jesus’ words, precisely in order to distort and misrepresent the meaning, but the essence has nevertheless been preserved. I repeat
Your neighbour is the person who has helped you.
Elsewhere, Jesus says ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’ and thereby means: ‘Love all those who have helped you as yourself’. I repeat what Jesus says at the end: ‘Do likewise!’
Best regards, Michael Maardt, shortly before Christmas 2022 – and a tribute to the late Steen Duelund, who brought this to my attention.