Compassion 1352 English 103 Project: The Parable Prompt #7 (Essay Sample)

Elizabeth Farias
1352 English 103
M. Gonzalez
Project: The Parable Prompt #7
February 1, 2016
Jesus gave the story of Good Samaritan to a law expert to give an insight of what is a neighbor. The Story talks about a man who was traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. The man was attacked by robbers and stripped off his clothes, and he was left half dead. The Priest and the Levite were traveling on the same road. When the priest saw the half-dead man, he crossed the road and passed him. Similarly, the Levite crossed the other side of the road and left. The Good Samaritan came across the man and shown his compassion by taking care of him. The Good Samaritan showed this compassion due to many ways.
First, the Good Samaritan was not bound by the excuse of the law regarding religious purity. The Levite and the Priest were temple officials. Therefore, they cared much about ceremonial cleanness. The law of high priest restricted them not to enter places where there was a dead body. Therefore, they were supposed to remain clean. The law could not even allow them to touch either their father or mother corpse as shown in Leviticus 21:11. The law was also applicable to ordinary priests. According to Leviticus 22:4, the law said that they would become unclean if they touch something defiled by a dead body. However, these laws did not bind the Good Samaritan. He confidently took the man and drove him with his animal.
Secondly, the Good Samaritan wanted to demonstrate that salvation is for all. He was curious about eliminating the boundaries that existed between the Jews and Gentiles. The Jews perceived Gentiles as sinners. Furthermore, the Jews looked Samaritans as heretics since they worshiped at Mt. Gerizim while Jews worshiped at Jerusalem. Therefore, they were not worth their interactions. The Samaritan viewed the Jews notion as hypocrisy since they were all human beings. He took the half-dead man as an example that every person has a responsibility to take care of one another.
Additionally, the act was meant to show Jews that Salvation was for all the people. Thirdly, the Good Samaritan wanted to demonstrate the meaning of neighbor. Before the incident, there was an ongoing argument about who is a neighbor. Many people at the time took a national approach to limit the meaning to fellow compatriots. There was no clear meaning about who is a neighbor. The Jews were selfish in nature and only viewed neighbor as their fellow Jews. However, the Good Samaritan set a new meaning to indicate that neighbor meant people should be each other brother’s keeper. These involved helping people in need and showing them love.
Furthermore, the Good Samaritan followed his internal conscience about the person in need. The Samaritan was good hearted, and his heart desires were to help the person in need. He went further to the risk of being held accountable if the man died on his way. He goes beyond many expectations by cleaning the wounds by pouring oil and wine. He further tore up part of his cloth to bandage the man. He takes the man to a guesthouse and gives the innkeeper two silver coins on the promise of reimbursing extra expenses. He showed his mercy.
Additionally, he put himself in the half-dead man shoes and though what would have happened if it was him in danger. The conviction to do good things was inside him...