The Good Samaritan

Last Sunday I studied my Sunday School lesson and here are a few things I learned.

1. Christ taught that unless we become as a little child we cannot inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. Have you ever met a child that is perfect? I know Hayley says Mikey is so perfect that he farts rainbows, but wait till he starts to crawl, walk and talk. This to me, this reveals one of the simple truths of the gospel. Children are not perfect but they are clean and pure. If we want to be with Heavenly Father in the Kingdom of Heaven we need to be like them. Not perfect, but clean. We become clean by repenting and partaking of the sacrament on Sundays. Like a child, we will be saved because we are clean, (repentant) not because we are perfect. Joseph Smith said we will not be perfect until long after we have left this life.

2. The parable of the unmerciful servant teaches us that Christ will for give us of all of our debts, or sins if we repent. The first lord (Christ) forgave his servant a debt of ten thousand talents. Then that same servant turned around and put his servant in prison because he would not pay him the 100 pence that was owned to the unmerciful servant. The average wage at that time was about one pence for a day’s work. At that rate the unmerciful servant would have to work for 150,000 years to repay his lord (Christ) the ten thousand talents. On the other hand, it would take a little over three months for the second servant to repay the 100 pence. How many times am I willing to forgive others who are not perfect? And how many times has the Lord, who is perfect forgiven me and suffered for my sins for me? The Lord, who is perfect, forgives all of us who are not perfect, and willing to repent. He takes those sins and suffers for them so that we won’t have to. He must love us a lot!

3. Christ was teaching the 70 and his disciples, who had eyes to see and ears to hear, like babes, about the plan of salvation, when a Lawyer, (a master of the Law of Moses), interrupted him and asked, “Who is my neighbor?” Then Jesus gave the parable of the Good Samaritan. One level of understanding for this parable is that we need to be good neighbors to everyone we meet and share the gospel with them. Another level is that “A certain Man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho” symbolizes Adam, Eve and all of us, as we leave the presence of God and came down to earth where we are assaulted and wounded by sin and saved by Jesus the Christ, the Good Samaritan. As I studied and pondered, I think another level of the parable is because Christ was in the middle of teaching his disciples about the sacred ordinances when he was interrupted that he continued teaching the sacred ordinances as he gave the parable. Christ in the verses just before this parable says, “I saw Satan fall from Heaven like lightening”, and I think there are other things in the parable that can help us get a better understanding of the sacred temple ordinances.

That is the way I see it.