Unlimited: Build Up Others
Nov 2, 2023 412
Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up (Romans 15:2).
Paul has just written that we should not please ourselves. We are to please our neighbours. We are not to please them for selfish reasons, merely for their own good. The purpose of doing this is to build them up.
The question that the world asks is, “What’s in it for me?” The question that the Kingdom of Heaven asks is, “What’s in it for them?”
This reminds us of the story that Jesus told about the good Samaritan in Luke 10:25–37. This story is specifically about who our neighbours are and how we should treat them. Jesus told this story because the Jewish people thought that the people whom they liked and who were like them were their neighbours.
We are to please our neighbours to build them up.
The whole point of Jesus’ parable was to point out that the Samaritan was more of a neighbour than the nice respectable people who lived next door. However, the Jews regarded the Samaritans as hated enemies. It is precisely these people whom Paul tells us that we are to “please… for their good, to build them up.”
This is all the more challenging when we remember that when Jesus told the Parable of the Good Samaritan, it was an indirect response to the question,
What must I do to inherit eternal life? (Luke 10:25.)
Spiritual Application
Think this through. If salvation is by grace and not by works, why did Jesus tell the parable of the Good Samaritan as an answer to the question “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Maybe read the context that precedes the parable in Luke 10:25–29.
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