Suffer

"But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion."

"As long as it doesn't affect me, I don't care." Sadly, I believe this is the attitude for most people in society. Our world has turned into a selfish playground full of "little kids" that only care about themselves. It bothers me that this selfish attitude has made its way into the church. Now don't get me wrong, for the most part church people will help church people, to some degree. As long as it doesn't interfere with their schedule.

The Scripture mentioned above is from a story in the Bible that we all know way too well. We have been taught this scripture since we were infants. But somewhere along the way we stopped practicing it.

I think for many of us, we are just like the Lawyer who is listening to this story. Earlier in the text the Lawyer wants to know what he must do to have eternal life. The Lawyer proceeds to do a great job quoting Scripture. Like the Lawyer, many of us can quote Scripture but we do not practice what is said and in doing so we miss the point.

A word in this text that pops out to me is "compassion." The word compassion comes from the Latin words com, which means "with" and passion, which means "to feel." So the word compassion means "to feel with." Some scholars believe the Latin word passion means "to suffer." So then the meaning would be "to suffer with."

How would our society be if we learned to "suffer" with those in need? I think what we need in this world is more compassion filled Samaritans and less scripture quoting lawyers.

There is so much more that I could ramble on about this passage but I won't.

My challenge for you this week is to "suffer" with those that are suffering.

May the Lord bless you and keep you.