The parable of the Good Samaritan provides an example of a call to compassion and explains that such a call presents opportunity to recognize a neighbor and demonstrate love of neighbor: care about the neighbor in need, commit to providing goods or service to address the need, and persevere in seeking to alleviate the need. God uses such interactions to direct human service to points of need and fulfill his purpose for provider-receiver relationships among people.
Living in the Image of God Module 02 Session 03 (7:58)
The parable of the Good Samaritan explains potential human behavior in a call to compassion. Potential response to such a call could consist of outright refusal, thus declining the responsibilities; or accepting the call and completing the responsibilities. Furthermore, the parable uses the events of a call to compassion to define love, neighbor, and “love your neighbor” in the context of recognizing another person’s need and accepting and completing responsibility to alleviate the need. Also, the parable defines need and needy in relation to a call to compassion.
We discuss the parable of the Good Samaritan and the explanations of human behavior provided in the parable to further understand what God expects from a person he calls to provide goods or service to alleviate the need of another.
Compassion is important to following God’s schedule: based on David’s early interactions with Saul and on Christ teaching in two parables—God uses call to compassion to direct a person to blessing he has ordained. He calls the person regarding a need and expects them to recognize the need, care about the needy, commit to providing, and persevere in seeking to alleviate the need. Earn blessing by completing the call or incur punishment by declining. Illustrations from David show he completed three calls to compassion early during his period as king in waiting and each completion led him to accomplish a goal and key step toward becoming king of Israel.
Teaching love through compassion [Luke 10:25–37] LumoProject.com FreeBibleImages.orgThe bible study series on Following God’s Schedule examines David’s interactions during the period between his anointing to be king and his confirmation by the people of Israel. The study focuses on understanding his following God’s schedule toward kingship notwithstanding the schedule was not revealed to him a priori. His path to kingship after the anointing included a transition from King Saul, kingship training for David, and preparing the people of Israel to accept David as king. God had a plan and schedule for each of these, required David to follow the schedule, but did not reveal the plan or schedule to him.
The study is applicable to everyday life because David’s situation is quite similar to common human experience. As we discuss in Prayer of Joseph from the Dungeon, God at times grants a prayer with a promise to be fulfilled to fit his overall plan for the recipient, sets a schedule for fulfilling the promise, requires the recipient to follow the schedule, but may not reveal the schedule or plan. The recipient needs to follow the schedule to receive fulfillment of the promise just like David needed to follow God’s schedule to become king.
Victory parade from killing Goliath Sweet Publishing FreeBibleImages.org
God provided his schedule to David piecemeal, as a series of preparatory and precursory events: preparatory events are those that prepared him for future occurrences, whereas a precursory event is one that is necessary to trigger a future occurrence. David’s choices regarding the events determined whether he followed or departed from God’s schedule. The study series focuses on understanding his choices in various events in the context of Christ teaching. We discuss David’s choices as they illustrate God’s purpose for human interactions and relationships, which Christ emphasizes in his teachings presented live several generations after David.
This session of the series focuses on compassion, based on David’s early interactions with Saul and others and on Christ teaching through two parables: the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats and the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Through the teachings, Christ explains that God uses a call to compassion to direct a recipient to a blessing, such as an achievement step toward fulfillment of a promise. The recipient earns the blessing by completing the call to compassion or incurs punishment by declining. Illustrations from David show he completed three calls to compassion early in his interactions with Saul and each completion led him to accomplish a goal and key step toward becoming king of Israel.
GODLINESS OPENS OPPORTUNITIES Ruth’s interactions with the community during her first season in Bethlehem highlight humility, politeness, respect for authority, sensitivity to needs around her, and persistent effort at contributing what she could to alleviate the needs. The interactions opened opportunities for her to step into the life for which she is known today. As we discuss in a subsequent bible study, the events that happened during this time led to Ruth marrying Boaz, becoming the grandmother of David, therefore, a grandparent in the lineage of Christ. Ruth’s Godliness opened opportunities for fulfillment of a grand blessing in her life.
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This installment of our study series on Ruth focuses on events that occurred during the first season after her arrival in Bethlehem. Her interactions with mother-in-law Naomi and with family relative Boaz highlight the value of humility, politeness, respect for authority, sensitivity to needs around her, commitment to doing what she could to alleviate the needs, and persistent diligence at accomplishing her task.
Ruth in Boaz’s Field wikipedia.org
Ruth and Naomi arrived in Bethlehem during barley harvest. Having been away for a long time, they likely faced economic hardship because they did not have any farm to harvest. Ruth recognized their hardship and determined to do what she could to alleviate the condition. With the approval of her mother-in-law, she decided to go gleaning (i.e., picking grains leftover from regular harvesting) in any farm that would accept her. She was accepted at the first farm she applied, which happened to belong to Boaz, a close relative of Naomi’s husband. Boaz did not only welcome her in his farm but also offered her protection and preferential gleaning access, because of her humility, politeness, positive work habbit (diligence and persistent effort), and his prior knowledge of her positive interactions with Naomi.
This is the second of a two-part bible study on Christ’s teaching on the call to compassion. As we discussed in previous bible studies, God creates every person to be his provider assistant and assigns responsibilities to each of us through a call to compassion. Through the parable of the Good Samaritan (first part of the study at This_Link), Christ illustrates the circumstances of a call to compassion and what is expected from the chosen provider assistant. This bible study focuses on the parable of the Sheep and the Goats, where he provides a more general teaching on God’s call to compassion.
A mutual provider-receiver relationship results from God creating every person as his provider assistant. Through calls to compassion, he provides opportunities for every person to be a provider sometimes and receiver at other times. Christ uses the parable of the Sheep and the Goats to describe the responsibilities of a provider assistant, rewards for accepting a call to compassion by performing the assigned service, and punishment for declining the call by denying a service.
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HUMAN SERVICE God’s call to compassion is about human service. He assigns tasks to individuals to provide them opportunities to help others. A person earns blessing by providing the service or incurs punishment by declining. As we discussed previously at This_Link, earned blessing and incurred punishment accumulate and coexist as parallel promises from God, which he fulfills at his time, except that he will forgive a promise of punishment if the sinner repents and asks for forgiveness. Christ uses the parable of the Sheep and the Goats to explain that he will judge each of us based on our performance as his provider assistant. People that accept God’s call to compassion by providing services placed in their path will inherit eternal life. In contrast, people that decline the call by denying services placed in their path will inherit eternal punishment.
Christ used the parable of the Good Samaritan to teach us about love, compassion, and neighbor. As we discussed in several previous bible studies such as at This_Link, God creates every person to be his provider assistant. He assigns responsibilities to each of us as his provider assistant through a call to compassion.
LumoProject.com FreeBibleImages.org
Christ uses the parable of the Good Samaritan to describe potential circumstances of a call to compassion and what is expected of the provider assistant. Also, he uses the parable to underscore our freedom of choice to respond to a call to compassion by providing the needed service or to disobey by declining the call. Of course, there are rewards for obedience and punishment for disobedience that we will discuss in a future bible study.
In this bible study, we focus on Christ’s teaching through the parable of the Good Samaritan. We learn the meaning of a call to compassion, what is expected of the chosen provider assistant, and who is a neighbor. We also learn about the manifestation of love through compassion. In fact, one could say that Christ defined love through the parable. At the very least, he defined compassion as an effective manifestation of love. We discuss the meaning of compassion and its relationship with love. A call to compassion is an opportunity to perform our function (fulfill the purpose of our creation) as a channel for God’s compassion. Although he can do things for people in a supernatural way, he often prefers to use a natural approach by channeling his compassion through a human provider assistant. The parable of the Good Samaritan illustrates typical interactions between the service receiver and the provider assistant in a call to compassion.
