Racial Prejudice

Racial Prejudice

The Wife Of The Man Helped By A Samaritan

Read: Luke 10:29-37

The elderly woman stood looking at her house and shaking her head. The tornado that had ripped through her town had been a shock, all right. And she had been surprised by the fourteen volunteers who had quickly shown up to put a new roof on her home and repair her front porch and windows. The speed with which they had completed the job was nothing short of amazing! But what shocked her most was the color of the group.

If the victim in the passage from Luke had a wife, she could have identified with the feelings of this elderly woman. In Jesus’ parable, robbers beat a Jewish man and left him for dead. Although a Jewish priest and a Levite saw the man’s condition, they offered him no help. Finally, a Samaritan came along and aided the injured traveler, even paying an innkeeper to care for him. Since Jews and Samaritans despised each other, we can imagine how surprised the victim’s wife would have been to hear who had been willing to help him. They would have expected the priest and Levite to help a fellow Jew, but not a member of the Samaritan race.

Racial prejudice has been around for a long time. How sad that it often takes a disaster for people to look beyond skin color and simply see another person in need. In God’s eyes we are all equal. We are all born as sinners who need a Savior. Rather than allow our differences to separate us, God wants us to concentrate on what we have in common. When he commands us to love one another, he doesn’t mean for us to love only those who look, talk, and think as we do. If we treat one another as he intends, no one will be surprised when help comes in a different color.

My dear brothers and sisters, how can you claim to have faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ if you favor some people over others?

James 2:1