Daily Luther Sermon Quote - Trinity 13 - Good Samaritan - "This Samaritan of course is our Lord Jesus Christ himself, who has shown his love toward God and his neighbor."

 

 Rembrandt

Complete Sermon ->Trinity 13 - 

The Good Samaritan - Luke 10

II. A SERMON ON THE GOSPEL IN A PARABLE.

20. The foregoing is the first part of our Gospel lesson, and it is a sermon on the law. The second part now follows, and it preaches the Gospel, how and whence we are to receive power to fulfill the Law. This the good Samaritan will teach us.

21. How does this lawyer act now after the Lord had thus turned him away? He goes ahead, the Evangelist says, and desires to justify himself and says to the Lord: “And who is my neighbor?”

22. He does not ask: Who is my God? As though he would say: “I owe God nothing, with God I am in good standing. I am also inclined to think that I am under obligations to no man; yet, I would like to know who my neighbor is? The Lord answers and tells him a very beautiful parable, by which he shows that we are all neighbors among one another, both he who does another a kindness, as well as he who is in need of a kindness.

Although the text reads as if Christ said that he is our neighbor who does another a kindness. In this, however, the Scriptures make no difference.

Here they call him neighbor who does a kindness, and at other places him who receives the kindness.

23. By means of this parable the Lord concludes with the words, “Go, and do thou likewise,” so that this lawyer did not only sin against God, but also against his neighbor. He not only failed to love God, but he did not love his neighbor, and never did him a favor. By this the poor man falls into such a sweat that he is only deceived from head to foot. How could he be so mistaken, the highly learned and pious man? His mistake came in this way; he led a Pharisaical, feigned and hypocritical life. He did not look down to his neighbor to help him with his life, but only sought thereby his own vain glory and. honor before the eyes of the people, and with this he stared piously toward heaven.

24. Now you have often heard that a Christian life consists in acting before my God in faith and with a pure heart, but toward my neighbor in right living and good works; and not wait until my neighbor seeks a kindness of me, and asks me for something, but approach and meet him with kindness and freely offer it to him. Let us now see what the parable in itself teaches.

25. This Samaritan of course is our Lord Jesus Christ himself, who has shown his love toward God and his neighbor. Toward God, in that he was obedient to him, came down from heaven and became man, and thus fulfilled the will of his Father; toward his neighbor, in that he immediately after his baptism began to preach, to do wonders, to heal the sick. And in short, he did no work that centered in himself alone, but all his acts centered in his neighbor. And this he did with all his powers, and thus he became our servant, who could have well remained in heaven and been equal to God, Philippians 2:6. But all this he did because he knew that this pleased God and was his Father’s will.

The LCMS and WELS, Priest and Levite - The Parable of the Good Samaritan

KJV Luke 10: 30 And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. 31 And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32 And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side. 33 But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him. 34 And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.

If anyone has read Luther, he knows the Good Samaritan is not a social worker trying to establish man-man justice or a social activist who should have made the road to Damascus safer. The Samaritan is Jesus.

But who are the priest and the Levite today?

The Missouri Synod and its tag-along ELDONUTs are the priest, walking experts and advocates of all the adiaphora. Like the colorful priests of the Old Testament, they are passionate about matters of indifference and indifferent to the truth. 

The Missouri Synod started with Justification by Faith, just as the Old Testament began with true prophetic words (example - the largely forgotten Genesis 15:6 passage, also cited in Romans 4). False prophets like CFW Walther, Edward Preuss, and F. Pieper promoted the false teaching of forgiveness without faith, which is essentially the ELCA position. 

The Wisconsin sectarians are the Levites, all about the Law, or rather, the constantly changing Law. One year they are alone in loving the KJV, unlike "those liberal Lutherans" - who use the NIV and RSV. But - WELS turns around, mocks, and gets rid of pastors who use the KJV.

The ELDONUTs did the same, 100% of them holding Objective Justification a treasure, later pivoting to Justification by Faith. Much like the WELS, they hold the best translation - the KJV - in low esteem, using the ESV (a Calvinist first cousin to the RSV) or admiring the New KJV (which uses frequent footnotes to honor the ESV-NIV-RSV apostasy).

Although Missouri clergy and laity pride themselves on shunning other Lutherans, WELS and ELDONA have taken that attitude to a new, lower level.

The Man Left for Dead

The congregations of Missouri and WELS are the man left for dead, wounded and bleeding along the road, where so many robbers practice their trade.

Jesus fed the multitudes with bread and fish, but the loving/denying Church Growth "conservative" Lutherans feed the laity popcorn, peanuts, and soft drinks during the entertainment [worship] service. The clergy delight in starving their members spiritually while insisting on the need for more expensive materialism to attract even more superficial audiences.

Jesus only taught one thing - faith in Him as the only access to God's grace (KJV Romans 5:2). Everything in the Bible points back to this Gospel and the applications of this message.