“Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote in the Gulag Archipelago that it was in prison where he learned that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor through classes, not through political parties, either, but right through every human heart and through all human hearts.
When we give ourselves serious evaluation, we find things hiding in our hearts that, if we could choose, we would remove. Our hearts have been described as “a zoo of lusts, a bedlam of ambitions, a nursery of fears, a harem of fondled hatreds.” Yet the Church, by its very nature, must be made up of the likes of us.
However, we are not left to ourselves. God is at work in the lives of all willing people, changing and transforming them into something more than they were.”
- excerpt from 30 Days to Understanding the Bible
The Parable of the Good Samaritan
25 o And behold, a p lawyer stood up to q put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to r inherit eternal life?” 26 He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” 27 And he answered, s “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and t your neighbor as yourself.” 28 And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; u do this, and you will live.”
29 But he, v desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 Jesus replied, “A man w was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a x priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise x a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a y Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. 34 He went to him and z bound up his wounds, pouring on z oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 And the next day he took out two a denarii [1] and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ 36 Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?”
