Charlie Loften: The questions we wrestle with as Christians about who God is, how do we live out our faith, what is the Bible, what is the truth of the Bible, what are we supposed to believe? How are we supposed to live? There are really big deep questions that we ask each other, that we ask God, that we wrestle with ourselves. And that's why the Cultivate podcast exists, to help us go deeper in our understanding of who God is, his word, and the way that he's called us to live. Enough of that.
We are still in the middle of the parables, and we did the parable of the, the debtors and tax collector and the Pharisee the last couple of weeks. And we are now going to move on to the Parable of the Good Samaritan, which again is going to be very, very helpful for us. He's going to set the context. This is going to be in part of an interaction that Jesus is having with one of the Pharisees, and they're gonna He
Abigail Boone: talks to them all the time.
Charlie Loften: He talks to them all the time, and he is the one that he is Again, I think it's important for us. He is trying to undo their wrong perspective about who God is, what salvation is like, what is the nature of the law. He's trying to undo that and prepare them for what we would just call a Christian theology of accepting Christ, the resurrection, the crucifixion, all those things. And so in order for him to really to really do that well, he's not only gonna have to talk to the people
Abigail Boone: Talk to the people who
Charlie Loften: were taking who was the ones who were you're gonna have to take down the authorities a little bit. Right? Mhmm. These these are the people who know. Actually, they don't know.
And let me just
Abigail Boone: Yeah.
Charlie Loften: Yeah. Alright.
Abigail Boone: But he waited so long to start. That's a whole other episode. But What do you mean? Like, he could've started at 20.
Charlie Loften: I've got a theory about that, and it involves that I think that Joseph had passed away, and he was waiting for his younger brothers to get of age where they could take care of mom.
Abigail Boone: Okay.
Charlie Loften: We can talk about that another time.
Abigail Boone: Okay.
Charlie Loften: That would be would be a that would be a podcast series, and it would really just I would just call it weird questions that Abigail has. Just like, almost like an apologetics episode, but not like not like you're getting a non Christian. Here's the top 10 objections that people have. 10 things that non Christians are like, here are 10 things about the Bible that Abigail just doesn't quite understand or has real questions about. It would be the most hodgepodgy collection.
Abigail Boone: It'd be so scattered.
Charlie Loften: Yeah. I'm in. I'm down. I'm down. Alright.
Luke chapter 10 verse 25. 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. Okay? Pause right here. There are several times all throughout the scriptures where Jesus has some sort of interaction with somebody, where these laws kind of get put above everything Sometimes they're asking, you know, this person's asking for this reason, this person's asking for this reason.
Sometimes it's Jesus who is the one that gives the answer. Here's the answer where someone else gives the answer. So then some people are like, oh, the Bible contradicts itself. I'm sure in three years of teaching, probably this conversation came up 50 times. I mean, and so they're just different recordings of it.
So Wait.
Abigail Boone: So did they call Him teacher, Jesus' teacher? Or he's asking someone else?
Charlie Loften: No, he is talking to Jesus, and it is a sign of respect, but I would say it is a sign of sarcastic respect. Hey, teacher. You know, and just kinda like, Hey, you who thinks you know things, let me ask you a question. I know you won't be able to answer, and then everybody will know we shouldn't call you teacher anymore.
Abigail Boone: Okay. It's a challenge.
Charlie Loften: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. A sarcastic acknowledgment of difference.
Abigail Boone: He thinks he is.
Charlie Loften: Teacher Uh-huh. What do you think about this? Yeah. Do you know so much?
Abigail Boone: Yeah. K.
Charlie Loften: So then he gives the what we would call the great commandments. Love God with your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. Verse 28, Jesus' response. 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?
Abigail Boone: That is a really good question.
Charlie Loften: Well, it's an interesting response because, you know, I mean, he said, you know, discusses, hey, so what do have to do to inherit eternal life? I was like and Jesus was I don't know. You tell me. You love God and love your neighbor.
Abigail Boone: Mhmm.
Charlie Loften: Alright. Well, okay. Well, we're we're in agreement on it. Mhmm. Like, shouldn't the converse I felt like the conversation should end at that point.
Abigail Boone: Not a question asker.
Charlie Loften: What do you think, Jesus? Jesus is like, well, what do you think? Well, I think this. I agree with you. High five?
Well, feel
Abigail Boone: like that's how a guy would approach a conversation as compared to a girl.
Charlie Loften: Well, are two guys.
Abigail Boone: I know, but that's their boy brain to assume that's where it stops.
Charlie Loften: No. But I'm no. I'm just I'm just saying it's like it says he he needs to justify himself. Yeah. He's the one that gave this answer.
Yeah. I give this is what I think that you need to do, and Jesus says, yeah, we'll do that, and you'll be great. And, like, so there's this moment where it's like guess there's a moment reflection for the Pharisee guy where he's like, Well, I don't know that I'm doing that. Depending on how you define neighbor. I love God because I follow the law.
I guess whether or not I'm following I guess there's a moment of, like, like unsurprising or unnecessary question mark, reflection on the part of the Pharisee
Abigail Boone: here?
Charlie Loften: Like, it's like because, you know, like in the story of the rich young ruler, you know, he's like, hey, you just, you know, you just need to follow the law. And the guy's like, Well, I've And the guy's like, I've done all this, thanks, and could have left. But he was like, I've done all these, but something's Oh, right? And so there's a moment of reflection here for the Pharisee where it's like, if that really is it, as opposed to following all of the laws rigidly, like we talk I'm not
Abigail Boone: missing something.
Charlie Loften: Maybe I'm not all the way there. Mhmm. But maybe I am.
Abigail Boone: So who's your neighbor?
Charlie Loften: Who's my neighbor? Yeah. Like, so the question then, the implicit question there is, who am I required to love? Mhmm. So this is the context in which Jesus tells this fairly familiar story, and I say that because the phrase Good Samaritan
Abigail Boone: Everybody talks about it.
Charlie Loften: Everybody talks about it, and I don't even
Abigail Boone: know how many people even
Charlie Loften: know that that comes from the Bible. What'd you say?
Abigail Boone: There's a Samaritan house here in Fayetteville.
Charlie Loften: Yeah. And there's a group of people that go camp, like, people on camper, like, Good Samaritan Club
Abigail Boone: or whatever. Right?
Charlie Loften: In reply, Jesus said, a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was, and when he saw him, he took pity on him.
He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out 2 denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. Look after him, he said, and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have. Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?
The expert in the law replied, the one who had mercy on him, Jesus told him, go and do likewise.
Abigail Boone: So we have this guy who got robbed Mhmm. A Levite Mhmm. A Samaritan.
Charlie Loften: Yes.
Abigail Boone: Those are all the three main characters.
Charlie Loften: The guy no. The guy who got robbed, a Levite, a priest
Abigail Boone: Oh, I was putting those together. Okay.
Charlie Loften: Well, there's two there's two
Abigail Boone: of them. Yeah. There's two. Okay.
Charlie Loften: Yep.
Abigail Boone: And then the Samaritan. Yep. Okay.
Charlie Loften: What stands out to you?
Abigail Boone: I don't know what a Samaritan is.
Charlie Loften: Great. Let's take them in order. We know what a man being robbed is.
Abigail Boone: Yes.
Charlie Loften: And so and they're going from Jerusalem to Jericho, and that was a known dangerous rocky kind of you're going from up here to down here. And so there was kind of this mountain path that you had to go on, and it was fairly well known for being a dangerous place.
Abigail Boone: Okay.
Charlie Loften: And so it was a dangerous place to be traveling. So a guy gets knocked out and robbed, which would not have been unusual. That would not have been a shocking part of the A guy went to a dangerous place and got hurt. Sure. And so then the first person that comes by is a priest, and the second one is a Levite.
So we'll just take them in order. So Levite is one of the tribes of Israel,
Abigail Boone: and
Charlie Loften: they performed all of the religious functions for the nation. So essentially, all of the Levites were the people who kinda took care of the temple, and priests came from there. And so a priest is a Levite, but a priest is like an elite Levite, like the best of them.
Abigail Boone: Are all priests Levites?
Charlie Loften: All priests are Levites, but not all Levites are priests. See? Mhmm. And so this priest, the person that you would expect to like, he's at he's at the top of the chain spiritually.
Abigail Boone: Mhmm.
Charlie Loften: He he goes on the other side.
Abigail Boone: Mhmm.
Charlie Loften: And then you've got
Abigail Boone: Because it'd be, like, bad for him to touch a robbed person.
Charlie Loften: Maybe he's dead, so you can't touch a dead body. I'm a priest. I've got priestly things to do. I can't be contaminant. I would be contaminated, and then based on all the ritual things, I would probably have to I'd have to spend a week in isolation and do this and do this and do this, and it's gross, it's unclean, and so he just goes on by.
And so then a Levite who has less ceremonial requirements for cleanliness to do his functions, and so he's still a pretty good guy and doesn't really have that excuse at the level that the priest might, he does the same thing. So we've got these two guys where, I mean, for lack of a better word, it'd be like, the pastor comes by, and then the youth pastor came by. Right? Like, have, oh, well, the really busy, and he's got all these things you need to do. But I mean, youth pastor, I mean, come on.
Come on. Come on. He's just So right it's not that one is better than the other, that neither one of them have a real good excuse for going by, but this is the reason that they would've had. And so then, in a normal telling of that story, it would have been, and then random Joe the carpenter came by, and he helped them. And so then the idea is like, so just so these elite people wouldn't do it, but good old Joe did.
Joe the plumber came by, and just some sort of folksy, working class guy. But that's not what he does. He says, A Samaritan. Is it from Samaria? Samaria is a region of Israel, and where that comes from, it's titled, I mean, there's only ways to say this is going to sound offensive, but a pure Jew would have thought of a Samaritan as a traitor and a half breed.
Abigail Boone: Half breed.
Charlie Loften: So there was a time when Southern Kingdom, Northern Kingdom, when the Southern Kingdom gets wiped out by Assyria, Assyrians, in order to try to assimilate the Northern Kingdom, moved their people into the Northern Kingdom, and then they began to intermarry with the Jewish people, which would have been forbidden according to Jewish law. A Jew should not marry a non Jew. And so, the result of that is what was then now called Samaritans. So these were the results of unfaithful people. So they were traitors and marrying in with the captors, and it makes you, again, I guess we'll go back to Harry Potter.
Half blood. Yeah. Right? You're blood, which is not preferable. Right?
That's bad. So
Abigail Boone: Were they identifiable? Or you'd be like, Oh, that's Samaritan?
Charlie Loften: I would imagine so. I don't know that I can say that with confidence. I think about that all the time when I hear about historical groups of people that we used to hate the Irish, and I'm like, Can you see it? We used to hate the Italians. I'm like, they were more used
Abigail Boone: Which one's an Italian? I don't know. We just
Charlie Loften: live in a different world. But I'm sure to them, Okay. Absolutely.
Abigail Boone: Yeah. But story wise, it stuck out that he used Samaritan.
Charlie Loften: Yes. It means I don't I mean, I don't want to I I don't I don't wanna even create. Me trying to say it would be like this, mean, it would offensive. Only But just imagine someone religiously and politically that you thought was a traitor and were intermarrying with unsavory people.
Abigail Boone: I
Charlie Loften: mean, there are historical examples of that. So we'll just pick one and go with it. And so these would have been reprehensible people, and they would have known that they were viewed that way. And so then you would expect the Samaritan to walk by and go
Abigail Boone: I shouldn't have.
Charlie Loften: Uh-huh. Yeah. Wonder if he's got anything else on him. Right? That's what you would he would have that sort of an he's not a good person, one, and two, why would he care?
And so not only does he help him, but he goes above and beyond. And so the telling of the story, hey, so who is my neighbor? Like Your enemy? No. Well, the normal telling of the story is the guy on the side of the road is your neighbor, and people like you are walking past him all the time.
And if you want to love your neighbor, you should stop and help this guy. Which is why Joe the plumber went in and helped the guy, and that, you know, your neighbor is the one who is the hurting one that needs the help, and people like you, for your ritualistic reasons, won't do that. That's your neighbor, the guy hurt on the side of the road. But instead, in what seems like a very normal telling of that, like, who's my neighbor? The guy on the side of the road.
He comes in out of left field with, and then the worst person you can possibly imagine strolls up and does all the right things, and then Jesus reframes the question with him, who do you think was a neighbor? Okay. He's asking, who is my neighbor? And then Jesus responds by telling the story that you think is going one way, where the answer is, the the guy on the side of the road is your neighbor. Love people like that.
He comes in out of nowhere, brings in a villain to be the good guy, and says, I've actually got a different question for you, who was being a neighbor?
Abigail Boone: The Samaritan.
Charlie Loften: He doesn't even say Samaritan. The one who had mercy on him. And then Jesus says, Go and do likewise. And so He ends it by basically saying, Yeah. So, yeah, so the guy on the side of the road, those are the people that you are supposed to love.
And then while we're at it, I just really attacked some of your Cultural. Cultural biases, which then the implication then beyond that is and the Samaritans too, bro. It is not just the hurting who you're definitely ignoring because of your rituals.
Abigail Boone: But also
Charlie Loften: But also your racial and political biases are yeah. You are failing at this in so many ways. All I had to do was just tell this one story to expose all the different ways you are failing at loving your neighbor. Mhmm.
Abigail Boone: That, like, the neighbor isn't just the guy on the ground, it's also the guy that you think shouldn't touch you.
Charlie Loften: Yeah. So yeah. So it's yeah. So not not only is the guy that you need to be helping, that's your neighbor who you're supposed to help, But while we're at it, why don't you just also reconsider all the ways that you are. You're actually hating people.
So I'm gonna make him the good guy and make you have to just kind of not only acknowledge the way that you are ignoring hurting people, and regular common people are the ones that are having to do it. Not only am I going to expose that, but while we're at it, I'm gonna talk about these people that you have just been maligning for centuries.
Abigail Boone: Just
Charlie Loften: to show you how far away from love your neighbor you are. Yeah. You're so far away from love your neighbor that your question I I I call I I call into question the way that you ask your question.
Abigail Boone: Right.
Charlie Loften: Why are you even why are you even asking why are even asking that question? Because you think that you can get away with it because if you're loving just the right people? I'm gonna show you I'm gonna show you all sorts of ways that you are not loving people well. So essentially, everyone. Everyone is the answer.
And here's a couple of great examples of how
Abigail Boone: you're not doing that.
Charlie Loften: You are failing miserably right now. Mhmm. Alright. So before we started this, were actually before we started recording a few episodes ago, and I said this one was coming up. You said somebody very like, like, you was like, somebody brought this up, and they told me that we're reading it wrong, and now I don't even know.
So I keep waiting for you to We're drop your
Abigail Boone: trying to say that the Samaritan is you, which as we started doing this, I'm like, I used to just read parables to figure out which one was me, but that's not really the best way to read them. But they would they were saying that we were identifying with the person on the side of the road as me, but really, you are the Samaritan.
Charlie Loften: Now you I mean, I in the context of this, of who Jesus is telling this story to,
Abigail Boone: you
Charlie Loften: are the Levite that passes by on the side of the road. You are the one who, for whatever reason, ignores a hurt right in front
Abigail Boone: of you.
Charlie Loften: That's who you are. You should be like the Samaritan, but you're not. You're actually the priest that passed by on the side of the road. That's who you are. You should be the Samaritan.
And while we're at it, me even bringing that up, she was like, I'm trying to get you to not identify with the priest, but to identify with this person, and this person based