What is a Good Samaritan?

How would you define a “Good Samaritan?” Is it someone who stops to help someone who needs roadside assistance?

Not surprisingly, that is the modern-day meaning of a Good Samaritan, but that is not what Jesus was teaching us to do!

 
This coming Sunday the downtown Cool Disciples will start a new Rotation on the Parable of the Good Samaritan. I’m hoping that we’ll see the hidden meaning in this parable!

Here are some recommended steps you can take over the course of the next few days. Do these things at the family dinner table. Or wherever your family is gathered together.

Your assignment: (Think of this as… Traveling down the path to deepening your family’s faith. And a way to get more out of Sunday’s Cool.)

• Read our story in Luke 10:25-37.
• The next time you gather, read the story in a different Bible version. (How about The Message?)
• When you gather again, try telling the story from memory. Check a Bible to see how you did.
• A fun thing to do after multiple tellings of the story is to tell the story incorrectly! “Once a man was traveling from Ann Arbor to Lansing.” Allow everyone to add a line to the story. See if anyone catches the purposeful mistakes.
• Watch this animated video of the story.

Watch it a second time and tell the story as the video runs. (If reading this in an email, you can watch this video on YouTube.)

Think of how much deeper the classroom discussion could be if everyone arrives with a general knowledge of the story!

See you in class! (Hope you’ve put church on your calendar.)

Photo credits:
Flat tire by OakleyOriginals, who licensed this photo on Flickr under a Creative Commons License.