Helping others in life is beneficial to our own success. Napoleon Hill stated that "It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others." Helping others will bring happiness and joy into our lives. It's no wonder that many successful people in the world have been blessed with riches and success by doing so.
We may wonder who should I help first? Well, family should always come first no matter what, and then we should help our neighbor. Who is considered my neighbor? Certainly, our "neighbor" can be a confusing thought and of course the people that live around us and live in our community are in important to serve, although there are certain clues to who our neighbors are by reading the Parable of The Good Samaritan in the Bible.
In Hebrew, the name Samaria is Shomron or "Watch Tower" in English translation. From the parable in Luke 10 Jesus identifies the type of neighbor we should help. This is symbolic story, like most of Jesus' messages, but from this parable we can imagine that our neighbor is someone who on their journey in life was stripped of all hope, robbed of knowledge, wounded by life's harshness, left half dead with no one to help in life. This is the type of neighbor that needs the compassion of the Good Samaritan.
THE GOOD SAMARITAN
LUKE 10:25
25And behold, a certain [h]lawyer stood up and tested Him, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
26He said to him, “What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?”
27So he answered and said, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself.’ ”
28And He said to him, “You have answered rightly; do this and you will live.”
29But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
30Then Jesus answered and said: “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among [i]thieves, who stripped him of his clothing, wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. 31Now by chance a certain priest came down that road. And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32Likewise a Levite, when he arrived at the place, came and looked, and passed by on the other side. 33But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was. And when he saw him, he had compassion. 34So he went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; and he set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35On the next day, [j]when he departed, he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said to him, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I come again, I will repay you.’ 36So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?”
37And he said, “He who showed mercy on him.”
Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
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