“And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side.”–Luke 10:30–32
In March of 1964, a young woman named Kitty Genovese was attacked on her way home from work in New York City. Though many people saw or heard at least part of the attack (various news reports and investigations put the number between thirty-six and forty-nine), no one intervened, and only a few people called the police. The attack was carried out over the space of half an hour, and it is quite likely that Genovese’s death could have been prevented if only someone had been willing to intervene. But no one was willing to do what it took to save her life. One of the bystanders even admitted to a reporter, “I didn’t want to get involved.”
All around us there are people who are facing far worse than physical death. The lost have no hope of salvation unless someone loves and cares for them enough to reach out to them with the gospel. Yet too often, like the priest and the Levite in the parable Jesus told, those who should be the first to help find reasons not to do so. We are not told what motivated those two men to cross to the other side of the road. Perhaps they feared for their safety, or perhaps they simply didn’t want to get their hands dirty. But whatever the case, they failed to step up and answer the challenge of helping someone in desperate need.(Daily in the Word)
