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includes Tim Chester’s books and recommendations.

It is the question a religious teacher asks Jesus in Luke 10. He wants to define the task of loving our neighbour. He wants to know where his responsibility starts and stops.

In response Jesus tells the parable of Good Samaritan. It is a story that breaks the boundaries of locality and ethnicity. The man who is a neighbour to the wounded man is not from his tribe or nation. He is a stranger, a foreigner, an enemy who encounters this man in his need and does something about it. My neighbour is anyone I see in need.

That was okay until television became a mass medium. Now people who were once far away and unseen are now brought into our front rooms. We see them suffering as we eat our dinner. If my neighbour is anyone I see in need, what happens when I see one billion hungry neighbours? Or three billion poor neighbours? Or five billion lost neighbours?

1. God is gracious: let God be your Saviour

One of the things that often motivates these kinds of questions is a sense of guilt. Again there is nothing new in this. Luke tells us the religious teacher asks ‘Who is my neighbour?’ because ‘he wanted to justify himself’ (Luke 10:29). Maybe he wanted to feel good about himself or impress others or be right with God. So he wants a defined and achievable task.

But Jesus smashes his world. You cannot turn love for neighbour into a checklist. If you made a checklist of seven billion people the pile of paper would be 9.4 miles high. If you spent an hour loving each person (and I do not know what you are going to do in an hour) it would take you 800,000 years to love seven billion people.

The point is this: ‘Who is my neighbour?’ is a great question to ask, but not if you want to justify yourself.

The parable of the Good Samaritan is followed in Luke’s Gospel by the story of Martha and Mary. Martha being a good neighbour. But Jesus says to her, ‘You are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.’ (41-42) And what is that Mary has chosen? To sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to his words (39). And what does Jesus say? ‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.’ (Matthew 11:28) He hangs on the cross and says, ‘It is finished.’ The work is done. There is nothing left for you to do.

You do not have to save yourself through what you do. And you do not have to save the world through what you do.

2. God is great: let God be their Saviour

It is not as if the world has got out of control and you need to step in to sort it out. We do not have to take responsibility for everything because God is control. Seven billion people might be a list 9½ miles high, but God knows every single one.

It is your job to be a faithful follower of Jesus, working hard to serve him and love others. Take responsibility for what God has called you to do. But it is not your job to save the world. So do not take responsibility for saving the world or your city or your neighbours or your family. It is not job to sort out your spouse or your child or your neighbour. It is your job to love God and love others and then trust God with everything else.

And get a vision for what God is doing. Your little contribution might seem a drop in the ocean of seven billion needy neighbours. But God is working in thousands of ways across the world through thousands of people. And he takes your contribution and weaves it into his grand plan.

So we need not nor can we justify ourselves nor should we set ourselves up as a saviour. In a future post we will consider how we should respond to seven billion neighbours.

1. Science explores natural causes. It can neither confirm nor refute supernatural causes.

2. Just because our generation has not observed unambiguous miracles, doesn’t mean they never happened in the past.

3. Think about why someone doesn’t believe. Why do they chose to live without God?

4. Make the resurrection of Jesus a test case for your discussion. Ask how people account for the rise of Christianity with its central belief in resurrection.

This material is adapted from a Porterbrook Learning module.

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includes Tim Chester’s books and recommendations.

What is it?
An App for mobile devices that means you can read Explore on your phone or tablet computer.

Who can use it?
Anyone with an iPhone (3G, 3GS or 4), iPad, iPod Touch, Android phone or Android tablet. You can download it in pretty much any country in the world – you don’t have to be in the UK or US.

How does it work?
It comes with Time with God pre-installed, so as soon as you download it, you can start using it to read the Bible. All relevant Bible text is included within the App (including cross-references) and once you’ve downloaded it, you don’t need to be connected to the Internet to use it. So you can use it on the Tube, on a flight etc. You can download additional notes from within the App which are the same as the paper edition, although they come in one month chunks, not three months.

How much is it?
It is free to download, complete with Time with God. Additional months of notes cost £1.49 in the UK (in the US it’s $1.99). These can be downloaded from the Download section of the App.

How do you get it?
If you have an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, visit the Apple App store and search for “Explore Bible Devotional” (http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/explore-bible-devotional/id482034447?mt=8).

If you have an Android device, visit the Android Market and search for “Explore Bible Devotional”  (https://market.android.com/details?id=com.thegoodbook.explore&feature=searc).

It is not possible to download this App from The Good Book Company websites.

For more information click here.

1. Avoid trading personal opinions by pointing people to something Jesus said or did. Confront people with Jesus so it becomes their opinion verses Jesus.

2. Suppose I spot a serious fault with your car that will soon cause a life-threatening accident and so I warn you of it. It would be madness to say, ‘Don’t force your opinion on me.’ Suppose I knew of a wonderful free gift available for all who ask. It would be madness to say, ‘Don’t force your opinion on me.’

3. ‘You may make it sound like a noble struggle for freedom. But the truth is you simply want the right to be selfish.’

4. When you say, ‘Let me decide for myself,’ you are saying, in effect, ‘I know better than God. I make a better god than God.’

5. “One of the most frequent statements I heard was that ‘Every person has to define right and wrong for him- or herself.’ I always responded to the speakers by asking, ‘Is there anyone in the world right now doing things you believe they should stop doing no matter what they personally believe about the correctness of their behaviour?’ They would invariably say, ‘Yes, our course.’ Then I would ask, ‘Doesn’t that mean that you do believe there is some kind of moral reality that is “there” that is not defined by us, that must be abided by regardless of what a person feels or thinks?’ Almost always, the response to that question was a silence, either a thoughtful or a grumpy one.”1

6. Christian missionaries are often accused of destroying indigenous cultures. Sometimes this has been true, but more often Christianity has adapted to, and reinforced, local culture. God himself came not in a transcultural form, but as a first century Jewish man. Unlike Islam, Christianity has always translated its message into local languages and practices. This has often created a new sense of cultural identity. ‘Now God speaks to us in our own language,’ said one tribal leader. The Bible celebrates cultural diversity and looks forward to a future when people from ‘every tongue, tribe, people and nation’ worship Jesus together and bring their glory into his kingdom (Revelation 7:9, 21:24-26).

1 Cited in  Tim Keller, The Reason for God,  Dutton, 2008, 47.

This material is adapted from a Porterbrook Learning module.

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includes Tim Chester’s books and recommendations.

First of all, listen carefully. Some people use suffering as an excuse to avoid God; others are angry against God; others desperate for comfort and hope. Tailor your response to each person.

1. Ask people why they’re outraged by suffering. Their answers won’t make sense in a world without God.

2. ‘Why don’t you do something about suffering? Could it be your real issue is not suffering at all, but a God who claims your life?

3. ‘Your anger shows you think you know better than God.’

4. When Jesus was asked about suffering he did not engage in theoretical explanations, but called on people to repent (Luke 13:1-5). C. S. Lewis called suffering God’s megaphone, warning humanity of his coming judgment.

5. Tell people who are suffering that: (1) Jesus suffered with us – giving comfort in the midst of suffering. (2) Jesus suffered for us – giving hope for the end of the suffering.

6. Point people to the cross. The cross reveals evilness of evil (we don’t pretend that suffering is not that bad). The cross reveals the sovereignty of God (see Acts 4:28). The cross reveals the pure goodness and love of God. And on the cross Jesus overcomes evil.

This material is adapted from a Porterbrook Learning module.

SPONSORS
Support this site by using these links:

includes Tim Chester’s books and recommendations.

If you don’t already have a plan then you might like to consider this one which we’ve been using for the last five or six years.

It’s available from amazon.com and amazon.co.uk as well as The Good Book Company in the UK and in the US. It’s also available for Kindle from amazon.com and amazon.co.uk.

For more information and to receive the twelve free samples visit: www.ivpbooks.com/12days and sign up to the mailing list.

You Can Change is available here from amazon.com and amazon.co.uk.