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Why do we call this a Samaritan ministry?
"You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth"
Acts 1:8"Jesus gave a breathtaking global sweep to the task before the apostles. He was strategic. He did not emphasize one part of the task over another.
"His disciples were to have an apostolic ministry locally in Jerusalem, nationally in all Judea, to ethnic minorities in their land like the despised Samaritans as well as to other lands, continents to the end of the earth.
"We need to keep that balance too. The Great Commission is not just the glamorous 'far far away', but the humdrum local outreach in the streets and fields where the believers live, and also to the difficult sections of the community nearby that we would normally seek to avoid.
"Jesus was not giving a range of alternatives from which we could choose... God's passion is for the redeeming work of his Son to be proclaimed to all the peoples of the world. We, as the Church, should be the ones to do it."
Patrick Johnstone,
"The Church is Bigger than You Think."Jesus graphically illustrated this same principle in Luke 10:29-37.
He had just told the crowd to "love your neighbor as yourself." In response came the question, "Who is my neighbor?"
Jesus answers with the story of the Good Samaritan, a minority man (the Samaritan) who reaches out across ethnic and sociological barriers.
The traveler and the Samaritan were culturally distinct but geographically close to each other.
Like the traveler in Luke, many of our ethnic neighbors need our help, to find jobs, start churches, and begin a new life in America. And there is much they can share with us.
We have the privilege to befriend our ethnic neighbors in the name of Jesus. When we do, we please our Lord and give more credibility to our witness both at home and on the foreign field.
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