Our neighbour

When Jesus had finished the parable, he turned to his questioner and asked, “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”  The man, like all the Jews, disliked the Samaritans and so could not bring himself to say “The Samaritan”.  Instead he said, “The one who showed him mercy”.  Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise” (NRSV, Luke 10:36,37).

From this we see that our neighbour is anyone to whom we have the opportunity of doing good, and we have no excuse for not doing it in the hope that someone else will do it instead.  We must do our duty to our neighbour ourselves and not leave it to other people to do it for us.

SUMMARY

Jesus told the Parable of the Good Samaritan in order to teach us that our neighbour is anyone to whom we have the opportunity of doing good, and we have no excuse for not doing it in the hope that someone else will do it for us.