“Go and Do Likewise” | Luke 10:25-37

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in practical ways. Hey, everybody, welcome to the Bible Guys. Appreciate you tuning in. It's good to be back. I am Chris Man. We are the Bible Guys. Oh. I thought you were gonna shout it. I thought you were going to do the same thing you did the video, right, the Bible Guys. So, hey, we are in the middle of a series called What If Jesus had a podcast? And today his famous saying is go and do likewise? He said that a few times, didn't he Yes, he did. Yeah, So today we're going to talk about one of them. But before we do Hot Take Showdown, Well, we have a brand new segment again. That's right. Well did we did this one before? Oh? Dibbi, Oh yeah, you and I. That's a new segment, the newer. Okay, this is only our second time. Okay, So a Hot Take Showdown. Desiree says, I'll give you a bold, confrontational statement and you must either defend it or debunk it controversial. What did I say confrontational? Oh, they're almost to say as no, middle ground controversial, all in on. One or the other. We cannot be in the middle. Yeah, you can't go. You have to go all or nothing. That's right. Okay, here's the hot take number one. Okay, pineapple belongs on pizza? Yes it does. It does. Really, you know why, because we live in a world where nothing is off limits, right, people mix and match. But it belongs on pizza. That's what it says. Belongs. It doesn't say it has a right to be on. It belongs implies like you need it to be on the opposite means it doesn't belong, which means there's a rule that says you do not belong. And what I'm saying is no such rules should exist. Right. So am I saying that pineapple should be on every pizza? No, I'm saying it it belongs just as much as pepperoni. Wow, okay it is. I have never ordered. Have you ever ordered pineapple and a pizza for yourself? Dozens of time? I have never done it. Does I think? I think it's one of those things that shouldn't be happening. Do you really think? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah? Do you really are you just trying to be No? My daughter orders them, and then I'm like, I'm going to have one, and then I'll take the first bite and go. You know, I forget how much I like pineapple and pizza. But by the time I get to like the fourth bite, I'm like, why am I eating this? I don't want this? Why am I stupid? Right? And so I rarely finish even a slice, has it? And so yeah, I think you should just be banned. I can eat a whole pizza. Pizzas not Hawaiian. Huh, pizzas not Hawaiian, It's Italian. Yeah, well guess what. So it needs to be Pepperoni's and anchovies and peppers and those kinds of things. That's what needs to be on pizza. I am Italian, and I'm telling you I have more right to say. Well that only partly Italian. Let's be honest. I'm fifty Italian, which is a lot, and I'm here to say that pizza should not be bound by certain ingredients. Okay, yep, okay, Well you're the expert. Then I'll take it back. Oh thank you, Jack, thank you for conceding taking the Italian. I'll take number two. Folding laundry is therapeutic. How would I know that that is the perfect response. That is a perfect response. How would I know that you have said everything you need to say? There's there's no there's nothing left to say. Case in foot done. Okay. I actually I'm joking, by the way, I actually think partly mostly kind of sort of. I honestly believe that this is an absolute truth. Really, Oh my goodness, yes, oh wow. In fact, it's more therapeutic to me than washing dishes. I like washing dishes, which is unusual, but folding close I think it is so therapeutic. You know, there's a bunch of men to just turn the thing off right now because they'refraid their wives are going to hear you say this. Now, here's the thing. I don't like folding laundry, so I will do it out of love. Right. So, my wife's love language is acts of service. So every once in a while, I'll say, hey, you know, she'll have a basket something. You should negotiate with her. See if you get her to have a different love language. No doubt, no doubt. But I say, but I say, hey, i'll fold something, and a lot of times she'll no, I just got it or whatever. Or sometimes I'll just do the laundry by myself. But regardless of why I'm folding, that doesn't matter. When I am folding, I actually very much enjoy folding it very nice and neat. I'll button the pants, turn them sideways, make sure that the pants' legs are decreased, and I'll make sure to you know, I just I think it's very therapeutic, okay, satisfying. I think it's a function that's necessary sometimes sometimes, Yeah, it depends on what it is. Well, is there any laundry that you don't fold? On occasion, if I'm carrying stuff up from the you know, Bonnie will tell me, hey, there's laundry in the in the dryer, grab it, and you know, winds up being mine and it's just underwearing T shirts. Sometimes I'll sneak in and just throw them in the drawer. Oh well okay, all right, yeah yeah on occasion, all right, yeah, well that's something else. Most things I just prefer to hang up. Yeah, well that is true. Yeah, And we have a big closet, so that works, right, So I just hangs stuff up and then if I fold it. It's just it's a function that needs to be done. But I don't find it therapy like at all. So I'm gone, yeah, not at all. Huh, Well, I so. I made the joke at the beginning. How would I know that? Yeah, that's really fun. I know that. That's like my brother in law every time I like do something like I vacuum or something, and he'll say, he goes, why do you do that? And I said, don't you have to vacuum at home? And he goes, I got a hint for you. He goes, All you have to do whenever your wife asks you to do something, He goes, just do it. Poorly, do it as bad as you can the first Yeah. And then she'll never ask you to do it again, he said, that's his strategy. But you only get away with that a few times. Then she finds out you're not good at anything? Right, right? Right? Then why does she need you divorced? Yeah? Yeah, why does she need you? Can not get anything? That's terrible? All right? Well, uh go ahead, I don't go ahead talk about not being good at anything. There are these guys that were so bad at life that all they could do is rob people, okay, and they beat up this bad guy or this good guy. I don't know, I don't know. Yeah, do you have one? Do you have a better one? I was gonna say, uh that that debate was brutal. It was brutal. You know what else was brutal? Uh to beat down the. Two thieves that beat down the goods or they them, and then until the good submaritan came along. Well, we're telling the story of the good smart That was a better transition, better bad transition? Mine, good job, Well, Luke. Chapter ten is where we're at verse twenty five, and we're gonna read twenty five through thirty seven, and this is the only place Jesus tells the story in the Bible, which is pretty interesting. It's such a significant story you'd think it shot up with you. I mean well, I mean think about it. Even in our culture today, whenever there's a do gooder, we still use the phrase, oh, you're such a good Samaritan. Yeah, And it's always a surprise when a good smartan stops on the side of the road to help somebody and then they get hurt or you know, write right, a good samaritan steps in and intervenes and getting shot or something, so yeah, they call him on the news. Is a good smart. Yes, and it's It's interesting, isn't it How the Bible used to be way more ingrained in culture than it is now. Right, And by the way, I remember reading, I remember watching an old movie with Dudley Moore. Come on, it been Dazzled. Now, Brendan Fraser redid that with Elizabeth Hurley where she's the devil and he makes a deal with the devil and she kind of okay, Well, it's a remake from the seventies version of Dudley Moore was Bedazzled and so basically racal Welsh was in it. Anyway, the point is is that that was a movie from the seventies and you would be shocked how many Bible jokes they make that aren't biblical teaching things. I mean, obviously this is just a Hollywood thing. Right, but everybody knew the joke. But everybody knew the jokes. And he's like, well, you know the seven things that God hates, and everybody's laughing or whatever, and then they're all listing them and then they're like, well, it's not at least you're not Jonah, And everybody's like, oh, I'm thinking, dude, they're making Bible jokes in a Hollywood movie because the world knew the scriptures, right, the culture understood. But now we have remnants. Well there's still yeah, there's still a lot of phrases in terminology in our culture, and this is one of them. The good Samaria we. Have gave and Goliath references right, things like that. Yep. So in Luke, chapter ten, verse twenty five says, one day an expert in religious laws stood up to test Jesus by asking him this question, Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus replied, what does the law Moses say? How do you read it? The man answered, you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind. And love your neighbor as yourself. Right, Jesus told him, do this and you will live. The man wanted to justify his actions, so he asked Jesus, and who is my neighbor. Jesus replied with the story. A Jewish man was traveling from Jerusalem down to Jericho and he was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him up, and left him half dead beside the road. By chance, a priest came along, but when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. A temple assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side. Then a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him, going over to him. The samar and soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them. And then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn where he took care of him. The next day, he handed the innkeeper two silver coins, telling him take care of this man. If this bill runs higher than this, I'll pay you the next time I'm here. So which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by the bandits, Jesus asked. The man replied, the one who showed him mercy. Then Jesus said, yes, Now you go and do the same. Oh yeah, there's a bunch of hidden stuff there. There's a bunch of stuff in this world. So the Quest Study Bible has a side note here, and it says it's entitled priest, Levite, Samaritan. Jesus included these three kind of individuals in his story, raising three kinds of expectations among his listeners. A priest was God's representative, A levite his assistant, so called examples of righteousness. Jesus's listeners would have expected them to help. Samaritans, on the other hand, despised for their ethnic and religious impurities, would have been expected to walk on by. So it's it's an interesting thing how he very strategically makes the victim a Jewish Man, right, And that's on purpose, yes, because the guy who's asking the question is a Jewish Man. But not only that, but he's an expert in the law, right, so so he an expert in the law, would have been what a sadducy? What would he have been? Would would have been an expert in the law. So so, but either way, it doesn't say. But an expert in the law, probably a Pharisee or. At least a lawyer. He would have been a lawyer because you had the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin were all they were, essentially the supreme court of Israel. They weren't all Pharisees, but they were all experts. In the law, scribes experts as well. Scribes were writers. Oh okay, they weren't educators, they were just writers. Okay. So so either way, this man, who is also Jewish, you know it has uh, probably the same disdain toward the word Samaritan that everybody else has, right. And so here comes the Samaritan coming along, and everybody you know who's from the Bible understands that Jews did not like Samaritans. So here comes this man coming along showing compassion. And then he says, who is the neighbor? And did you notice that the expert of the law couldn't even say the word Samaritan? Yeah yeah at the end. Yeah, well just I mean, Jesus referred him as a Samaritan the whole time, right, And so he said, who is the neighbor? And that man reflied the one who had mercy. Yeah, he didn't even want to utter the words. The Samaritan was the name literally one of those people, right right, right. He didn't want to say the name. He didn't want to say the word. Yeah, yeah, which is which is really hilarious. And Jesus says it how many times, two or three times? Oh at least. Yeah, yeah, despise Samaritan, the Samaritan. Yeah, wow, Yeah. It's interesting, and yet, you know the message overall, it was kind of a dig, right, but really the emphasis is on showing love and compassion for all people. Right, So you know he did it on purpose because what he's saying is he's saying, a neighbor doesn't have to be people who are like you, right. A neighbor doesn't have to be those who you are friends with, or those who you have a treaty with, or those who you have good relationships with. A neighbor is anyone who loves and shows compassion on God and others, regardless of who they are. And so the emphasis is just show love and compassion on everybody, and then you're a neighbor. Well, the Life Application Study Bible, which we always like to highlight, says in this story, the legal expert viewed the wounded So the wounded man being kind of the core the story, the legal expert viewed the wounded man just as a topic for discussion. Well, that poor guy. Yeah, the bandits saw him as a victim to exploit, the priest saw him as a problem to avoid, and the temple assistant as an object of curiosity. Right, So there's all kinds of things, all kinds of ways that we respond to people of different races and cultures and different problems and circumstances. For this parable, From this parable, we learned three principles about loving our neighbor. Only the Samaritan treated him as a person to love. And it says one we learned that lack of love is often easy to justify, even though it's never right. It's easy to justify it. For the priest, he's on the way to the temple, if he touches, if that man's dead, he would be unclean, wouldn't be able to do his job. The levite also wouldn't have been able to do his job. So while he was curious, I wonder if he's still breathing, he would be unclean. He wouldn't be able to go in and do the work of the temple. And so both these guys can justify, well, the work I'm doing in the temple is more important than any one man, right, That's how they're justifying it. So lack of love is often easy to justify, even though it's never right. Secondly, our neighbor is anyone of any race, creed, or social background who's in need. So you have a Samaritan and a Jew who would normally be arch enemies. But in the moment, this Samaritan looked beyond his race and creed and religion and just looked at here's a desperate man that if I don't help him, he's going to die, right, And so in that moment, he just was a man in need and that's what he saw. And then love means acting to meet the person's need. Wherever you live, people in need are close by, don't cross to the other side. Instead, show Jesus love to them. And so Jesus said, love your enemies, pray for your enemies. Those things are easy. But here in this story Jesus is saying, actually, love, love does right. This is so silly, I'm hesitant to mention it. But yesterday my wife wanted Chili's and she said, Hey, let's order from Chili's and we'll go pick it up, you know, and by that she means me, go pick it up. Yes, so mean yeah, will means me. So she texted me the order. I call it in, they say, I'd be writing fifteen minutes. I'm like great, So I get in my car. I head there get it, and I'm loading my car. And as i'm loading, you know the stuff in my car it's actually my wife's car. There's a box of tissues on the ground. It's like one of those small clean X boxes, right. I don't know why she has a box of tissues on the ground, but she does. So it's uh, you know, sometimes she has she always has tissues, by the way, but usually they're in the little packets right in the console. But in this case she must have needed them and grabbed them anyway. So I was going to set this really big bag of Chili's on the ground, but this box of tissues was in the way, so I picked it up, set it down the chair and or you know, on the seat, and then I setting it in and I closed the door, and I walked around to the driver's side. And as I was walking around, I kid you not, there was two like eighteen year olds and they're they're arguing about something, and one kid sneezes and says, oh, I don't have any tissues, and so I'm like, I'm like, okay, that's hilarious. So I open the driver's door. I reach over and I grabbed this box and I come walking out like this magic genie, right, And I walk over to this guy and I go, here you go. And he looks at me and he goes, I can't believe you have tissues. And I said, yeah, I said, I just sorry, I just overheard you and you said you needed tissues, and he goes, I can't believe that you're offering me tissues because that's hilarious. She reaches over and grabs them, and I said, hey, no problem. And I'm walking back to my car and he goes, hey, man, I go back and he goes, that was awesome. That's what he's said, that was awesome. Well, you're a super awesome person, Chris. Well, no, here's what I'm saying. I'm saying I have a point, Jeff, besides that, I'm. Also you're super awesome. Is that people say you're not saying you're awesome. People have said I've. Heard it has been said, I've heard I'm pretty awesome. It has been said, No, that's not the point of the story. Yeah, okay. The point of the story is is that it wasn't obviously as big as finding somebody who was an inch, you know, within their life and taking care of them. But it is being a neighbor to somebody who is of a different race, of a different generation, and quite frankly, even a different side of town. Because I was on the whole different side of town. So it's like, so I was most likely never going to see this person again, you know, most likely I would never talk to this person. But yet I just it was neighborly. And I think, I really truly think, based on that kid's reaction, he was like, Wow, there's good in the world, right, People are good, right, And and I just I just love the fact that it's the small things as. Well as he'll probably be driving around and here's Mercedes when he's fifty years old with with tissues in his car, and some kid's gonna sneeze, I've got I've got it. I've got a tissue. And then he's gonna turn to the person sitting in the car and say, you know, there was this wise man. I was just a teenager, good looking man, and good looking man, very very kind, awesome, let me tell you how awesome this is. And and he'll probably carry tissues now thinking there's going to be a day when I can serve somebody else. Okay, thank you for poking front of my story. No, I'm not. I do not think any of those things will happen because of this. Actually, actually I want to celebrate your story because it's if so. My dad used to say this. He would say, see a need, meet a need. He would say, if you think of something good to say, say it. If you think of something good to do, do it. And if we would if everybody lived that, the world would be an amazing place, right, But not everybody's gonna live it. Even Jesus acknowledges that two out of the three don't. Right, But it doesn't matter. And then what I love about it is it doesn't matter what your background is. It doesn't matter where you came from, It doesn't matter what your reputation is. It doesn't even matter what the other person thinks of you. You can be a great person, you can do great things, right, So it doesn't matter if the whole world's not going to see a need. Me to need. I think it's something good to say and say it, think of something good and do and do it. But if you started doing it, I think it becomes contagious and more and more and more people will do it. It's kind of part of the hope that Jesus has of telling the story. I want you to be the good, smart and I don't want you to be the priest and the levite. Yeah right. The ones that you would expect to make good choices are the ones Jesus uses you would have thought they'd be the heroes in the story. Yeah, and instead it's the guy that was least likely that becomes the hero. And you can be a hero just in your everyday stuff. Even in that situation, you were a hero. You change that kid's day and his outlook on people like you, right, yeah, in that moment, Yeah. In that moment. Yep, it's small, yeah, just a little bit, but a little bit. But like you said, if everybody did it, uh, and and. He had as opposed to honking them on the way out and tell him get out of your way, right, that would have been a totally different feeling about you and people like you, right. Yeah, yeah, cover your mouth when you sneeze, boy, exactly right, right, which, which, by the way, uh, you know, he definitely sneezed in the open. Yeah, you know, he didn't, he didn't do the vampire thing. So so so plainly answer this question, then who is my neighbor? So so so answer like the person is wondering, who's my neighbor? Who's Jesus saying, is. Your neighbor if you see a need me to need? Yeah, it's everyone, it's everyone. Yeah, it's everyone. Yeah. So so your neighbor is someone around the world, it's it's someone across the aisle. Jesus goes so far as to say, he's implying your neighbor is even the least likely person you think is your neighbor. That's right, that's right, yep, and uh. And by the way, like for me, be it like an Ohio State. Fan, right, the neighbor. We are your neighbors. If I saw somebody and read, I would have to. We are your friendly neighbors in the south. That's right. And by the way, just a quick side note, if you've been to Israel, then you know how cool this story is because even though it's hypothetical when it says a man goes down to Jericho, Jerusalem was much more above sea level than Jericho is so so it is there is an actual windy road from Jerusalem to Jericho. Based on its location, that could have been a very dangerous and famous path that Jesus was hypothetically referring to. Yeah, so there's all these hills dropping in and it would have had high cliff faces all around, very easy to ambush, yes, people, and so it was very very common. It was one of the most dangerous roads in all of Israel. Right and so, and that makes it very relatable because it's like Jesus is using a scenario. We would say a like, uh, so there's a man that wanders down a dark alley in New York City and and and they were as soon as you said that, you go and he says there's a man wandering from Jericho or from Jerusalem down to Jericho. And you're like, okay, that's this is gonna go back. This is going to go bad. Ye. So that's interesting. All right, Well, hey, that is our time, so hopefully we will see you tomorrow on the Bible guys. Yeah. H