10 Key paths to Heaven! - Part 1

More of the 10 Key paths to Heaven!  -  Part 1 Love thy neighbor!


 The Parable of the Good Samaritan  
Luke 10:27 NIV

…26   And He said to him, "What is written in the Law?
 How does it read to you?"  
27  And he answered, "YOU SHALL 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 YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF."  
28 And He said to him, "You have answered correctly; DO THIS AND YOU WILL LIVE."…   {Live Forever in heaven - added for clarity}

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So what does this mean?

** Jesus gives this parable to show the Principle that Love for another person should transcend all human barriers in life - including sex, race, religion, ethnic background or economic status - station...  **  This is not about any sexual relationships - rather it is about coming to the Aid of another; whom has been wronged or hurt! 

So it is more than just another nice story; or a practical parable -  and not even to just to make someone feel good?

Just as with all stories you really need to know the history and background of the Samaritans!

 Exactly who they were ??

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**
The Samaritans:
 (Samaritan Hebrew: שוֹ‏מְרִים Samerim "Guardians/Keepers/Watchers [of the Law/Torah]",
 - Jewish Hebrew: שומרונים‎ Shomronim,

- Arabic: السامريون‎ Sāmeriyyūn),

 were an ethnoreligious group of the Levant, descended from ancient Semitic inhabitants of the region.

The Samaritans are adherents of Samaritanism, an Abrahamic religion closely related to Judaism. Based on the Samaritan Pentateuch,^[4]
  Samaritans say that their worship is the true religion of the ancient Israelites prior to the Babylonian Exile, preserved by those who remained in the Land of Israel, as opposed to Judaism..  Which they say is a related but altered and amended religion, brought back by those returning from the Babylonian exile.
Ancestrally...  Smaritans claim descent from the Israelite tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh (the two sons of Joseph (son of Jacob)) as well as from the priestly tribe of Levi,^[1] who have links to ancient Samaria from the period of their entry into the land of Canaan...  While some suggest that it was from the beginning of the Babylonian Exile up to the Samaritan polity of Baba Rabba. Samaritans used to include a line of Benjamin tribe...   Which went extinct during the decline period of the Samaritan demographics.

The split between them and their brothers; the children of Judah (the Jews) began during the time of Eli the priest, and the culmination was during the Kingdom of Israel and Kingdom of Judah when the Samaritans (then Kingdom of Israel) refused to accept Jerusalem as the elect, and remained on Mount Gerizim.^[5]

The Samaritans say that Mount Gerizim was the original Holy Place of Israel from the time that Joshua conquered Israel. The major issue between Jews and Samaritans has always been the location of the chosen place to worship God; Jerusalem according to the Jewish faith or Mount Gerizim according to the Samaritan version.^[6]

In the Talmud, a central post-exilic religious text of Judaism, the Samaritans are called Cutheans (Hebrew: כותים‎, Kutim), referring to the ancient city of Kutha, geographically located in what is today Iraq.^[7] In the biblical account, however, Cuthah was one of several cities from which people were brought to Samaria,^[8] and they worshiped Nergal.^[9][10]

Modern genetics suggests some truth to both the claims of the Samaritans and the account in the Talmud.^[11]

 - Once a large community of over a million in late Roman times, the Samaritans shrank to several tens of thousands in the wake of the bloody suppression of the Third Samaritan Revolt (529 AD) against the Byzantine Christian rulers and mass conversion to Islam in the Early Muslim period of Palestine.<sup>[12][13]

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Under the Roman Empire, Samaria was a part of the Roman-ruled province of Judea.

Samaritans appear briefly in the Christian gospels, most notably in the account of the Samaritan woman at the well and the parable of the Good Samaritan.
 In the latter it is only the Samaritan who helped the robbed man, left on the road half dead. The priest and Levite walking past. The Samaritan helped a man who may, or may not have been, a Jew.

This period is considered as something of a golden age for the Samaritan community, the population thought to number up to a million.^[47] The Temple of Gerizim was rebuilt after the Bar Kochba revolt against the Romans, around 135 AD. Much of Samaritan liturgy was set by the high priest Baba Rabba in the 4th century.
A building excavated on Delos, dating to the 2nd century BC, is commonly identified as a Samaritan synagogue, which would make it the oldest known Jewish or Samaritan synagogue.^[48] On the other hand, Matassa argues that, although there is evidence of Samaritans on Delos.. 
There were some Samaritans in the Persian Empire, where they served in the Sassanid army.

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 1920 -

   During the entire week following the Feast of the Passover, the Samaritans remain encamped on Mount Gerizim. On the last day of the encampment they begin at dawn a pilgrimage to the crest of the sacred mount. Before setting forth on this pilgrimage, however, the men spread their cloths and repeat the creed and the story of the Creation in silence, after which, in loud voice they read the Book of Genesis and the first quarter of the Book of Exodus, ending with the story of the Passover and the flight from Egypt
— John D. Whiting
  The National Geographic Magazine, Jan 1920
  

  {From Wikipedia between the dashed lines....}

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 So you can see that during the Ministry of Christ that the Jews and the Samaritans did not get along...  Therefore the personal exchange of the " Good Samaritan " for  Jews was very much out of character during this encounter! 

Where you can see the love or concern...
 Read this entire section of Luke to see the larger picture where some Jewish Lawyers were out to discredit Jesus...
Yet this parable showed the effective way of Christ teaching of the Truth of God for mankind to follow in this worldly existence!

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