In our passage today, a lawyer asks Jesus who his neighbor is, and Jesus responds by telling one of his best-known parables -- the story of the Good Samaritan. Even people who have no familiarity with the Bible know what a Good Samaritan is. There are many organizations that use the name Good Samaritan. Virtually anyone who helps another person in need is called a Good Samaritan. There are even Good Samaritan laws, which protect people who are trying to help those in need. So the concept of being a Good Samaritan is fairly well known, even though many people probably don’t know that Jesus was the one who originally told the story.

All of us perhaps need to be reminded about being a good neighbor. During the holidays, we tend to think primarily about family and friends. Our attention is focused on those we know and love. But there may be other people out there who need our help whom we are overlooking. Let’s try to be good neighbors to those in need this season.

We are all probably fairly familiar with this parable, but there may be a few details here that we had not considered previously. Let’s take a fresh look at the Parable of the Good Samaritan.