Pāhonoa te oro

Centuries of ethnic tension, theological conflict, mutual hatred. They didn't speak. They didn't eat together. They didn't travel together. If you were a Jewish man in the first century and someone told you a Samaritan was your hero — you would have laughed. Or gotten angry. But the Samaritan saw h…

Centuries of ethnic tension, theological conflict, mutual hatred. They didn't speak. They didn't eat together. They didn't travel together. If you were a Jewish man in the first century and someone told you a Samaritan was your hero — you would have laughed. Or gotten angry. But the Samaritan saw him — and the text says he "had compassion." Not pity. Not sympathy from a distance. Compassion — from the Greek splagchnizomai — meaning his gut wrenched. His insides moved.