One of the most famous stories in the bible is the story of the good Samaritan. It's Jesus' response to a Jewish religious expert lawyer. He was asking how to have eternal life and cynically askes Jesus, "who is my neighbor?"

The story includes two religious people who neglected to help a compatriot who was robbed and beaten on a journey to Jericho. Then Jesus uses a hated and despised Samaritan to drive home the point, even your enemy can be shown mercy and love and that demonstration of real love and practical mercy is a reflection of how you really love God.

Jesus uses some extreme imagery in this story around the extent of the generosity of the Samaritan. After assessing the condition of the man, he disinfected the bleeding with wine and soothes them with oil. The implication was he used an abundance of wine and oil. Then he tore his own clothes or some spares and made bandages. He then took the man to an inn, stayed with him all night, and into the next day tending to his wounds. Depending on the calculation he then gave the innkeeper one to three months' expenses to provide a safe place for the man to recover. Then, he opens an account with the innkeeper and says to tally up any extra payment needed and take care of that too.

Extravagant by any measure. I don't think Jesus was implying that you have to literally give the shirt off your back to wounded strangers to inherit eternal life. He was contrasting the self-righteous behavior of religious Jews against the compassion of the hated Samaritans.

I just find it interesting Jesus used this picture of over-the-top generosity to explain the point. As a practical matter, if you did want to do something generous for an enemy or otherwise, you would need two things, compassion and the means to do so. The Samaritan had both.

God gives us the power to get wealth. Go get wealthy, you never know how God wants you to use that wealth to help the hurting.