If Jesus had come today instead of
2,000 years ago, Christian pastors and
bishops would also have killed him. A man travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho was attacked by armed-robbers,stripped of his belongings and left lying on the road half-dead. God’s providence ensured that first a priest, and then a Levite, passed by. But instead of helping the dying man; both of them
quickly moved to the other side and
went away. Finally, a Samaritan came
along. Unlike the priest and the Levite,
he had compassion on the injured man,
bound up his wounds, took him to the hospital and paid for his medical
expenses. The Good Samaritan Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan is
very deliberate. It is incredible how, as
Christians, we still fail to understand its
full implications. The first mistake we
make is in the identity of the Good
Samaritan. When we situate the story in the contemporary setting (as we should
with all scripture), we assume that the
Good Samaritan is a Christian. However,
Jesus deliberately excludes that
possibility by providing two characters
clearly representative of the Christians of today. The priest is easily
identifiable as today’s pastor, while the
Levite is easily today’s Christian layman. Who then is the Good Samaritan? Let
me repeat this for emphasis: the Good
Samaritan cannot be a Christian. The
Christian is already adequately
represented. The Good Samaritan is
Jesus himself. Jesus’ story eloquently sets forth the goodness and kindness of
Christ our Saviour towards sinful,
miserable and defenceless humanity.
The thief came to steal, kill and
destroy, but Christ came to give life and
to give it abundantly. (John 10:10). But there is the rub. If Jesus is the
Good Samaritan then Jesus is not a Jew;
for Samaritans were not accepted as
Jews. If Jesus is the Good Samaritan,
then Jesus is a Samaritan. If Jesus is
not a Jew but a Samaritan, then Jesus cannot be a Christian, for it is the Jew
who represents the Christian of today. Jesus killers By the time some Jews observed Jesus,
they assumed he was not a Jew. In the
first place, he refused to be a disciple
of Moses but claimed instead to have
come to fulfil the law. He did not obey
the letter of Jewish laws but claimed to comply with its spirit. He insisted
pharisaic religious tradition was old wine
which could not be put into the new
bottles he provided for the new wine of
the New Testament. (Matthew 9:17).
He prefaced a lot of his sermons with the statement: “You have heard that it
was said to those of old… but I
say.” (Matthew 5:27-28). Therefore, some Jews insisted Jesus was
not Jewish. As a matter of fact, their
position was that he was a closet
Samaritan: “Then the Jews answered and
said to him, “Do we not say rightly that
you are a Samaritan and have a demon?” Jesus answered, “I do not have a demon;
but I honour my Father, and you
dishonour me.” (John 8:48-49). Note
that Jesus did not contest the charge
that he was a Samaritan. But he took
great exception to the allegation that he had a demon. But if Jesus identified with the
Samaritans and not with the Jews, then
it becomes clear he would not identify
with most of the Christians of today. In
fact, let me be so bold as to say that if
Jesus were in the flesh today he would not be a Christian. If Jesus had come
today instead of 2,000 years ago,
Christian pastors and bishops would also
have killed him. Like he did our
forefathers, Jesus would also have
exposed our ungodliness to public ridicule. Religious irrelevancies So if Jesus would not have been a
Christian, what would he have been? He
would have simply been Jesus without
any specific religious affiliation. Today,
Jesus has been replaced by theology,
but the real Jesus was not religious. Jesus established no religious institution
when he was on earth. Indeed, if Jesus were to show up
physically on earth today, most
Christians would not recognise him even
as the Jews did not. If he came as a
woman, we would not recognise him. If
he smoked cigarettes, we would not recognise him. If he drank whisky, we
would not recognise him. If he wore
earrings and a nose ring, we would not
recognise him. If he spoke Pidgin
English, we would not recognise him.
Since he did not wear trousers, we would be contemptuous of him. We would
disqualify him by religious irrelevancies
instead of identifying him by his fruits. When Jesus asked the lawyer to
identify the neighbour of the man who
fell among thieves, the man wisely did
not say it was the Samaritan. If he had
said that, he would have been wrong.
Instead, he correctly defined him by his fruit. He said: “He who showed mercy on
him.” He who showed mercy on him could
be anybody, Christian or non-Christian,
as long as he believed in Jesus and
produced the fruits of his righteousness. Merciless Christians What then does the story of the Good
Samaritan mean if, indeed, the priest
and the Levite represent today’s
Christians? It means that,
prophetically, it is the Christians of
today who have no mercy. We despise unbelievers, certain they are going to
hell. We speak disparagingly of them.
We condemn sinners on grounds they are
ungodly. We stone them because they
are caught in adultery. We fail to
appreciate that they are hapless travellers on the road of life who have
been attacked by spiritual armed-
robbers and left for dead. We
conveniently forget that we used to be
in the same position until we were
rescued by the grace of God. Therefore, “God is not a Christian,”
declared Reverend Desmond Tutu. “We
are supposed to proclaim the God of love,
but we have been guilty as Christians of
sowing hatred and suspicion; we commend
the one whom we call the Prince of Peace, and yet as Christians we have
fought more wars than we care to
remember. We have claimed to be a
fellowship of compassion and caring and
sharing, but as Christians we often
sanctify sociopolitical systems that belie this, where the rich grow ever richer and
the poor grow ever poorer.” One thing is certain. Both the
offending priest and the Levite must
have had “compelling” reasons for not
attending to the man dying on the
roadside. They probably could not stop
because they were in a hurry to attend a bible study. The priest decided that
the best thing to do was to pray for the
man when he got to church. The Levite
was hurrying to get to a meeting of the
Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria and
could not afford to be late. Jesus’ parable “kills” the self-righteous
believer who thinks he is justified by
calling himself a Christian and by going
regularly to church. He alerts us to the
danger of assuming we are heaven-bound
because of our observance of certain religious rites. True Christianity is not
legalistic. The love of our neighbour is
the emblem of our being Christ’s
disciples. “Dear friends, let us practice loving each
other, for love comes from God and those
who are loving and kind show that they
are the children of God.” (1 John 4:7).

Why come and past a stupid writeup by some antichrist columnist here. Takeing a refrence story jesus used in the bible to analyse him? If that was the essence of the story he would have said it himself. The story was answering the question "who is your neighbour" not who is jesus. And yes he is not christian but christ himself the son of jesus Act 11: 19-26 his follower were likened unto him that was where the word christian came from. One knowledge that is beyond people like this is that christianity is not a religion but a life we live.