My comics, like a hedgehog, also have many points.
TEXT OF COMIC:
The Bible says a lot about how to treat your neighbor. Don’t covet your neighbor’s property. Love your neighbor as yourself. And people seem to assume that “your neighbor” is just another way of saying “everyone.”
But when the disciples asked Jesus to define “neighbor,” he didn’t say that. Instead, he told the story of the Good Samaritan– and the point of that story was that the Samaritan was a neighbor to the man he helped.
Of course, that story had a lot of points. One of them was that people can be good even if they’re members of a very stigmatized minority– which Samaritans were at the time.
Another is that sometimes you have to break rules to do the right thing. The story describes the victim as “half dead” when the Samaritan found him, and I think it says in the Book of Leviticus that you’re not supposed to touch a half-dead person.
Of course, when my religion professor explained that to me, I questioned the definition of “half dead,” and I asked if it was okay to touch someone who was forty-nine percent dead. I think he just looked at me, the way professors look at me sometimes.
I think you’ve gotten off track.
Yes. My point was, if the definition of a neighbor is someone who acts like the Good Samaritan, then you only have to follow biblical laws in relation to people who act like the Good Samaritan.
If the guy next door is a jerk who would never help an injured person on the street, then you don’t have to love him as yourself, because by Jesus’ definition, he’s not a neighbor.
Your point loses a bit of its power when you get there in such a roundabout way.
My stories, like the story of the Good Samaritan, always have many points.
MOUSEOVER TEXT: yet more consequences of ACTUALLY taking the Bible literally
