James Sanders, a very fine...
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James Sanders, a very fine Old Testament scholar, has said that if we are to properly
understand the Bible we are to identify with the bad guys. The problem in church is that
we usually always relate to the good guys and miss the point of the story. If we identify
with the bad guys in the story of the good Samaritan, we will see ourselves in the priest
and the Levite who both passed by the man left bleeding by the roadside. Of course, they
had good excuses for not stopping. They were so busy doing religious work that they did
not have time to do the real work of religion. Jesus told them that popular piety was not
enough. The labels of good and bad people just do not hold here. The bad guy that
became the good guy in this parable was a Samaritan. This outsider became the hero in
the story. Who are the unlikely ones -- the outsiders -- the bad people -- that Jesus would
hold up as a model of mercy-givers today?
