Who Is My Neighbor?

I got into a small conversation (really not much of a conversation actually) at Justin Taylor's blog, challenging the unchallenged notion that Christians are to give their resources (mainly financial) to unbelievers.
 
http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2013/06/10/the-least-of-these-an-example-of-the-right-doctrine-from-the-wrong-text/?comments#comments
 
Of course, Christians are to love unbelievers by giving them the spiritual resource of the gospel. Once they enter into the kingdom, they have access to its resources provided by its covenant members; but to do this beforehand is to convey to them a false gospel, much like not disciplining professed Christians in sin conveys a false gospel to them (i.e., you can still have the benefits of the kingdom without repentance and coming to obey the Son).

Perhaps, one of the most misused passages in the Bible is that of the parable of the Good Samaritan. This becomes a great lesson for us, however, in contrasting American folk religion with biblical Christianity, so let's look at the way the passage is sloppily understood by the social gospel that is so prevalent within our popular religion and then read the passage in context.

The passage appears in Luke 10:25-37:

And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested Him, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
He said to him, “What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?”
So he answered and said, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’and ‘your neighbor as yourself.’”
And He said to him, “You have answered rightly; do this and you will live.”
But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
Then Jesus answered and said: “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, who stripped him of his clothing, wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.  
Now by chance a certain priest came down that road. And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Likewise a Levite, when he arrived at the place, came and looked, and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was. And when he saw him, he had compassion. So he went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; and he set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.  On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said to him, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I come again, I will repay you.’ So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?”
And he said, “He who showed mercy on him.”
Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

The very first thing we need to note about the parable is that it is given in response to a question that asks, What should I do to inherit eternal life? Christ answers that one must love God with his whole being and his neighbor as himself. This leads the man to ask, Who is my neighbor?

So Jesus is identifying for this religious Jew, per a command given to the covenant people to love their neighbor, who the neighbor of the covenant individual is. In other words, this is asking who the neighbor of the believer is. It is not a general command to all people in the world, regardless of whether they are believers. 

The second thing we need to take note of, however, and probably the biggest slight of hand that our folk religion makes with this passage is that the question at the end of the parable is not whether the Jewish man who is hurt is the neighbor, and therefore, anyone in need is your neighbor, but rather which one of the passersby's is the hurt covenant member's neighbor. The answer isn't, EVERYONE!

Notice what Jesus says: So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?” The answer is that the Samaritan man is the neighbor. He proves himself to be a fellow believer. The priest and the Levite are not said to be neighbors. Instead, they prove themselves to be false believers. So the answer is not that everyone in need is your neighbor, nor is it that everyone is your neighbor. The answer is that those who have eternal life love God and their fellow believers and they prove themselves to be believers when they take care of other believers. That is a central message in Jesus' earthly teaching (indeed, even in His heavenly teaching through His apostles). 

So the passage itself is an argument that one needs to be concerned with being a neighbor to his fellow believers. The Samaritan is the only one who is. Hence, the only neighbor here is the Samaritan. The neighbor is not the hurt Jewish man. The neighbors are not the priest and the Levite. The neighbor to the covenant believer is the Samaritan. 

There is no way, therefore, to get from that that everyone in need is your neighbor, or everyone in general is your neighbor. This is, as is consistent in Jesus' message, the same thing that the Gospels have been teaching throughout: that true believers show themselves to be true believers by their love for God and one another. By this (i.e., your love for one another) you prove to be His disciples (John 13:34-35). It is by doing these things to the least of these brothers of His (Matt 10:42; 25; Luke 9:48). It is the seeing of your brother in need and giving to him that is the working out of our faith (James 2:14-17) and the manifestation of the love of God within the true believer (1 John 3:13-17).

Hence, one inherits eternal life through his relationship with God and His children, not through his relationship with the world. This text simply has nothing to do with unbelievers. Will proper contextual exegesis convince those entrenched in folk religion? Probably not. People still like to envision the angels singing to the shepherds long after they are told that the passage says nothing about that. The problem with the Good Samaritan passage is not only that it doesn't say what the social gospel wants it to say, but it actually says the exact opposite (i.e., that not everyone is a neighbor to the believer). There are a host of evils performed, however, in twisting this passage, and that is the truly sad thing about it.