The topic of the conference is God's Love. The title of the first meeting was "Jesus as the Good Samaritan with the Highest Morality," which mainly focused on the parable in Luke 10:25-37. It was eye-opening to see that the man who was beaten up and left half dead was the portrayal of the lawyer's pitiful condition. In verse 27, which is the answer to how we can inherit eternal life, there are two qualifications. The first part is easily comprehensible as it speaks about the need to love the Lord, our God. However, in the second half of the verse, according to our natural concept, we would have understood it as the lawyer did that we need to love other people.
Nevertheless, the parable reveals to us that the Lord was not commending the lawyer to love his neighbors; instead, he needed a neighbor to love him. Because he is not able to love, he needs someone to love him! Revisiting verse 27, we see that the part that speaks about loving the neighbor indeed signifies that we need to allow the Lord, who is our neighbor, to love us. We need to be open to his healing, care, and shepherding! This parable reveals to us that the way to inherit eternal life is to love and be loved by the Lord. Praise the Lord! We have such a lowly and good Samaritan who is our Lord and God. We simply need to trust Him that He knows the best way to care for us.
—Beryl H.