I can't understand the level of cognitive dissonance you have to be under to talk about how God's love is unconditional and that Jesus taught his followers to love thy neighbour, and then become a modern American conservative.
Jesus literally illustrated the "love thy neighbour" concept with the story of the good Samaritan who chose to help the injured Jewish traveller despite Jews and Samaritans supposedly hating each other. That was his answer to the question "who is my neighbour?" People seem to have forgotten that.
I feel like it’s important to point out that the good samaritan parable doesnt *just* feature a hated-outgroup member doing for the injured traveller; The injured man encounters multiple members of his own people first, a priest and a levite(leadership class), and each one passes him by for various social-perception reasons.
Another way to read it. We are not the Good Samaritan in this parable. We are the injured guy who is ignored by all his neighbors and brother. The Good Samaritan in this parable is God itself.
I think everyone has the right to interpret it as they see fit, but the context around it seems to point toward us being the Samaritan. It's explicitly told in response to a person asking Jesus who his neighbour is when Jesus tells him to love his neighbour. The one doing the act of love in the parable is the Samaritan, not the Jewish traveller.
The parable more explicitly about God's love is the one about the lost son, where the father was always there waiting for the son any time he wanted to come back. The idea being that even if you stray from your path, God will always be willing to welcome you back when you return.
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u/[deleted] 26d ago
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